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President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will aim its missiles at the U.S. missile defense sites in Europe if Washington fails to address Russian concerns on its missile defense plans. ... He also said ...that Moscow may opt out of the New Start arms control deal

President Barack Obama's administration recently threatened to veto the defense budget, citing "serious concerns" over provisions that limit the U.S. missile defense know-how that the White House is permitted to share with Moscow. This is the sort of information that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in his earlier days, would have assigned his spies to steal. Through its single-minded pursuit of "resetting" relations with Russia, the Obama administration may simply be willing to hand over this information and, in doing so, weaken U.S. national security. Only two days after issuing the veto threat -- and as Obama tried to warm...

West to have 80,000 cruise missiles by 2020 - interview Russian military experts forecast that Western nations will have 80,000 cruise missile by 2020, a deputy commander of the Russian General Staff said on Saturday. "We expect Western countries to have at least 80,000 cruise missiles by 2020, including about 2,000 of them nuclear-powered," Gen. Igor Sheremet said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station. He added these missiles are clearly not simply designed for drilling or intimidation purposes. "They can deliver disarming or even 'decapitation' strikes," Sheremet said. Hence, he said, the plans to develop Russia's air...

SKOLKOVO, Russia -- President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday warned of a new Cold War era if Russia and the West fail to agree on missile defense, in the first major news conference of his presidency. Despite the startling warning to the United States and Europe, Medvedev confounded expectations he would use the event to finally announce if he intends to seek a new Kremlin mandate in 2012 elections. Russia is increasingly worried about US plans to build missile defense facilities in ex-Communist eastern Europe and is also offended that NATO appears to have shunned its proposals for a joint missile...

While briefing the US Senate Committee about Worldwide threats, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper was asked by Sen. Joe Manchin D-West Virginia on which country is the greatest threat to America. In Gen Clapper’s assessment was that Russia and China are the greatest threats. Their nuclear arsenals do pose a mortal threat to the U.S. mainland. However, the DNI did point out that the U.S. does have a Nuclear Treaty with Russia but not with China. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is an arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia. Like it or not it is...

President Obama has set the stage for an acrimonious relationship with the newly elected senators of the 112th Congress. As they come to Washington this week for freshman orientation, his welcome message amounts to, "I want to disenfranchise you." This "unwelcome" applies especially to those occupying six new Republican seats in the Senate come January. It bears most particularly on two issues that will profoundly affect U.S. security over the next six years of these newly minted senators' terms in office and far beyond: the so-called New START treaty and the repeal of a statute prohibiting homosexuals from serving in...

(snip) Among other criticisms, Tea Party activists have taken Lugar to task for supporting the new START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, claiming the U.S. is giving up too much and Russia is not giving up enough. "I've been working systematically for 20 years going to Russia trying to help direct a situation in which we're taking warheads off of missiles every day, destroying missiles that were aimed at us; destroying submarines that carried misslies up and down our coast," said Lugar. "I've got to say 'Get real'. I hear Tea Party or other people talking about they were against...

The bombast and bluster emanating from the office of Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana suggest that he knows he's going to have a fight on his hands to retain his seat. Lugar, current king of the RINOs in the upper chamber, is clearly unwilling to give up the perks of office, particularly the accolades slathered upon him by the beltway media. Like John McCain, Lugar simply doesn't comprehend the fact that he is lavishly praised by the mainstream press precisely to the degree he is willing to turn his back on the traditional American values of his constituents. Lugar's response...

The Special Relationship between the U.S. and Britain has many facets, but at its core is close cooperation in the military and intelligence realms. And at the heart of our military cooperation is the U.S.–U.K. Mutual Defence Agreement. Signed in 1958, and renewed every 10 years—most recently in 2004—the agreement provides for Anglo–American collaboration in nuclear technology. It provides the legal basis for the transfer to Britain of U.S.-made Trident II missiles—the launch platform for Britain’s nuclear deterrent—and for the much broader sharing of nuclear information between the two countries.

And continues the capitulation of the US to Russia. In 2009 Barack Obama scrapped plans for a missile defense of Eastern Europe, including the installation of the radar system. It was seen a a victory for Russia The shift is a triumph for the Kremlin, which has long and vehemently argued that the shield is aimed at neutralising its intercontinental missiles; Moscow had warned of a return to a cold war arms race, and threatened to deploy nuclear missiles in its Kaliningrad exclave, surrounded by EU states. and a betrayal by Eastern European allies But some in Poland and...

After extended wrangling among lawmakers in both countries, the new START treaty between the U.S. and Russia went into effect Saturday at the global security conference in Munich. "The principles of equality, parity, equal and undivided security lay a solid foundation for the modern Russian-American cooperation in various spheres," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, appearing with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to exchange the treaty documents, said, according to RIA Novosti.

The US secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week. Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.

President Obama signed the START nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia this morning. Despite the great attention the president has devoted to this treaty -- and the vast coverage of the treaty negotiations by the media -- the White House refused to allow reporters or TV cameras in the room. Still photographers were the only representatives of the free press permitted to record the historic moment. Those cameras captured President Obama signing the documents, seated at the Resolute Desk. Behind him stood Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,...

U.S. President Barack Obama signs the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, February 2, 2011. Looking on are (L-R) Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN). (and many more politicos)

President Obama will host Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for a private meeting at the White House on Wednesday. It will be the first meeting between the president and his 2008 Republican adversary since Obama took office. The White House said Tuesday night the Oval Office meeting would take place Wednesday afternoon, though there was no indication as to the reason for the meeting, or scheduled topics for discussion. Obama and McCain sat down for talks at transition headquarters in Chicago after the Democrat's election.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton talked about U.S. national security challenges. In his remarks he sharply criticized President Obama’s policies on the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia, Chinese Hu Jintao’s recent state visit the U.S., relations with North Korea, and economic sanctions against Iran. He responded to audience members' questions.

The cheer over Russia's approval of a new nuclear disarmament treaty is short-lived as it masks Moscow's reluctance to ensure further cuts, threatening US President Barack Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world. Russia is going through the final motions of ratifying a new START treaty ... The US Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates that Russia has 2,050 deployed tactical warheads that could be deployed in small nuclear campaigns in its periphery. The United States has just 500. Lavrov said Russia's commitment under the new START treaty will not be "fulfilled" for another seven years, and some analysts interpreted the...

Postscript on New START The Senate was misinformed about the nuclear treaty. In December of 2010, the Senate offered its advice and consent for the New START treaty. The debate over New START had been contentious, and the treaty finally passed the Senate with more votes against it than any other nuclear treaty the Senate has approved. The Russian Duma (parliament) is now in the process of approving the treaty (there has never been any serious doubt that it would). With New START essentially in hand, arms-control proponents in Washington already are gearing up with numerous exciting seminars and conferences...

Historically, the Russian Duma acts quickly to ratify international treaties that the country's leaders have signed. In the case of international treaties with the U.S., the process is short and takes place only after U.S. ratification. In an interview with a Soviet ambassador, I was once told that although the process entails several steps, it is pro forma once the treaty is signed by both parties and ratified by the U.S. Congress. The SALT II Treaty, signed by Presidents Carter and Brezhnev in 1979, was never ratified by either party. On Jan. 3, 1980, President Carter requested the Senate majority...

The ruling United Russia faction has revealed in the Duma the amendments it will attach to the new START III arms control treaty. The ratification draft will contain several points that mimic two US Senate non-binding resolutions approved together with the ratified treaty, requiring the spending of $85 billion over ten years to modernize the US nuclear arsenal and a pledge to continue unrestricted development of ballistic missile defense (BMD). The Duma draft is lengthy, but not precise: it demands the “upholding of Russia’s strategic nuclear potential on a level, sufficient for safeguarding national security,” calls for the “development, testing,...

Russia is developing a replacement for the world's most devastating intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a move that risks reviving a global nuclear arms race. the head of Rosobshemash said the new missile would be capable of overcoming any nuclear missile shield that the Americans or indeed anyone else might build. "This applies in the fullest sense to the USA's anti-missile defence system and to Nato's (planned) European missile defence system," said Artur Usenkov. Russia is developing the new missile despite recently negotiating a new landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the United States which will see both countries make...

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia's parliament moved closer to approving a landmark arms reduction treaty with Washington Friday by amending domestic legislation to stress that Moscow could withdraw from the pact if it felt threatened by the West. The amendments required for Russia to ratify the New START treaty do not change the pact itself and were introduced before the second of three ratification votes in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. The U.S. Senate included its own interpretations of the treaty -- the centrepiece of a "reset" that has improved long-strained relations between Moscow and Washington -- when...

...With the Russian’s most recent interpretations of what the START treaty actually imposes against the United States, lawmakers in DC – even some Democrats, are pointing fingers once again at an ineffectual Obama White House. The Obama administration had assured these lawmakers the Russians would not attempt to impose limitations on America’s missile defense capabilities – that those Republicans warning of just such a thing were, “playing politics with national defense.” Now it appears the Obama White House and the Democratic Party leadership either lied, or have been utterly played for fools by their Russian counterparts.

[Below is a translation of several major excerpts from a speech given by Valeria Novodvorskaya on Dec. 30, 2010 to The New Times News, a Russian newspaper. She is discussing Russian dissidents’ loss of faith in the West and in Obama -- and for this reason she calls the new year the “Death of Illusions.” The video of her speech (in Russian) can be seen on YouTube. [1]] I think that it is time to turn to Tolkien, for darkness is descending upon the world. This is not because of the volcano (or whatever it was called), but because a...

Last month's ratification of the START Treaty was considered a victory for the Obama Administration. They might not view is as such a victory in the weeks ahead. Much of the Republican opposition to the bill centered on the ability of the U.S. military to continue their missile defense program, which is in the later stages of implementation. This has been a critical cornerstone of Republican foreign policy since President Reagan. To ensure that the policy would continue, President Obama signed a Presidential order that stated the START treaty in now way interfered with missile defense, even though the preamble...

The Russian Duma delivered two embarrassing blows to the Obama administration over the holidays on the START treaty, one of which may end up scotching the deal altogether. First, the Russian legislature refused to do what Barack Obama insisted of the US Senate, which was a quick ratification. More importantly, however, the Duma will do what Senate Republicans wanted, which was to amend the treaty to clarify the relationship between START and missile defense. However, the Duma’s changes will link the two and recast START into a de facto anti-missile defense pact: The State Duma (the lower house of the...

New START treaty has nothing to do with a new start but everything to do with finishing up old work first begun by the Soviet Communist in Moscow during the first Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty negotiations of the 1970’s and later SALT II in the 1980s. The primary issue to every Moscow delegation from then to now was to deny the USA the ability to stop an Inter-Continental Ballistic attack on US Soil. The banners that flew over Soviet Moscow reported by American negotiators read: “Plobedo Kommunisma: ETO MIR” – [The Victory of Communism: that is world peace] The American...

Friend -- I've been in Washington for almost 40 years. I've seen a lot of Congresses come and go. But I can't remember a group of lawmakers who accomplished more than the folks who just wrapped up their work. With their help, we repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and ratified the START arms control treaty. We passed a new law to rein in the abuses on Wall Street and protect consumers. We reformed the health care system and passed the Recovery Act to get our economy growing again. But do you know why all that happened? Because people like you...

The lame-duck session of the 111th Congress proved one thing beyond a doubt: the Republican Party does not represent the interests of conservatives. Despite the midterm election tidal wave, in which the Republican Party gained 63 House seats (eclipsing its historic1994 success against Clinton), congressional Republicans failed to leverage their victory into political clout and collapsed like a house of cards in the lame-duck session. The last two weeks ought to have sickened conservatives. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spectacularly failed to hold his caucus together to even delay ratification of the START treaty until the 112th Congress is seated...

China's Challenge: As tensions elevate on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang's patron deploys a weapon designed to sink the very ships we are sending to protect an ally. This does not bode well. The prospects that the Korean War, which ended in only an interminable armistice, may resume has become an increasingly real possibility in recent months. That its patron, China, without which North Korea would collapse of its own rot, now has deployed a missile designed to target and sink U.S. carrier battle groups adds a new and disturbing element to any confrontation in the region. Admiral Robert Willard, commander...

Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton appeared with Tucker Carlson last night on Hannity to discuss his strong disapproval of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Bolton believed the ripple effects of the treaty would cost America “for years to come” and Tucker even described alleged liberal rationale for the treaty as “grotesque.” The START treaty, if ultimately ratified by the Russian parliament, would require the drawing down of nuclear warheads of both the U.S. and Russia over the next seven years from current levels of 2,200 each to 1,550. Tucker was first annoyed that Obama rushed the...

Email reply from Sen. Isakson...Emphasis is mine and is what I think he's misleading me about. ...snip... While the New START treaty was pending before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I was able to successfully amend Senator Richard Lugar's resolution of ratification to ensure modernization and maintenance of the U.S. nuclear arsenal as well as the unfettered ability of the United States to deploy missile defense. I also worked with the committee to support the amendment introduced by Senator Jim DeMint, which reaffirmed the United States' commitment to defend itself by any means possible. ..snip... As the full Senate considered...

The new Russia-US nuclear arms pact may have been hailed as historic but analysts said that all Moscow really has to do is phase out Soviet-era missiles and warheads that are already out of date. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was ratified by the US Senate on Wednesday after a passionate months-long debate and given initial approval by Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament two days later. It will face two more hearings in Russia and almost certainly come into force within the next few months. The first nuclear pact in two decades has been feted as...

-  Senator Scott Brown famously declared his Massachusetts Senate seat to belong to the people and not the Kennedy family.  Yet, after voting with the Democrats on almost every fiscal, social, and defense issue, it appears that it is the Kennedy seat after all. -Eight Republicans, including Senators Ensign and Burr supported the repeal of DADT.  Richard Burr attributed his support to the changing times, while many others in the GOP conceded that the change was inevitable.  Really?  The Democrats only had 58 votes and just a few days left until the end of the session.  Based upon the electoral...

I was really happy when I read in the Washington Post that soon-to-be demoted to Minority Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi has turned to director Steven Spielberg to "rebrand" the House Democrats. The story offered me a way out of my quandary -- what to title this column today. The Tea Party and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, The Sugardaddy Express, Pelosi Park. Anyway, just as I selected the present title, the NY Daily News said the Spielberg story was false. I suppose after fawning all over Castro and making a video montage for Kerry, Spielberg's decided to...

This START treaty is bad bad bad....for one very important reason. It reduces our ability to defend ourselves. Ariel Cohen, a Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies at The Heritage Foundation, notes that the Russians have repeatedly stated they have to right to back out of the treaty if the U.S. missile defense systems is deemed a threat to them. When has it not been a threat? This constraint on our missile defense system was the main reason this treaty should never have happened: Washington has agreed to limitations on its ballistic-missile-defense options (something the administration’s representatives...

MOSCOW – Russia's lower house of parliament on Friday gave preliminary approval to a U.S.-Russian arms treaty, but decided to delay the final vote until next month. The Kremlin-controlled State Duma voted 350-58 to approve the New START treaty in the first of three required readings. The legislators said they would proceed further after returning from the New Year's vacation that lasts until Jan. 11. Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the State Duma's foreign affairs committee, said the full ratification could only happen next month "at the earliest." The New START treaty, which was ratified Wednesday by the U.S. Senate,...

Russian lawmakers gave preliminary approval Friday to an arms agreement with the United States, but signaled they would slow progress on the so-called New START treaty to a crawl after it was rushed through Congress earlier this week with some 11th-hour arm-twisting by President Obama.

President Obama and Democratic lawmakers refused to postpone a vote on ratification of the new START treaty until January of next year, citing the urgent need to reset US/Russian relations without delay. However, while some Russian officials have indicated that the new treaty could be ratified in the the Russian Parliament as early as Friday, others have suggested that Russian lawmakers, unlike their Democratic counterparts in the US Congress, are in no hurry to ratify the treaty: Russian lawmakers need more time to examine a U.S. resolution ratifying the START nuclear arms reduction treaty before approving it, a senior MP...

Ever since 13 Senate Republicans joined Democrats in consenting to the terrible New START treaty, Sen. Lindsey Graham has been on a tirade, telling any conservative who’ll listen that “Harry Reid ate our lunch,” meaning that Democratic leadership outmaneuvered Republicans in getting the treaty and other agenda items enacted during the lame duck session. My trial lawyer antennae tell me it sounds remarkably well rehearsed for a bit of spontaneous indignation. I first heard him do the rant on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox show last night. But then this morning, Fox’s Brian Kilmeade reported that Sen. Graham had actually called...

The post-World War i disarmament movement, as journalist Walter Lippmann observed in 1943, was “tragically successful in disarming the nations that believed in disarmament” (emphasis mine throughout). Those who weren’t believers, of course, were responsible for the nightmare of the Second World War. History is now repeating itself. In April, one year after his pledge in Prague to seek “a world without nuclear weapons,” U.S. President Barack Obama told the New York Times that he would not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, even if that nation attacked the U.S. with biological or chemical weapons. The administration’s new position...

President Barack Obama was outmaneuvered by the Russians and should have abandoned the New START negotiations instead of seeking a political victory, says former nuclear plans monitor Vice Admiral Jerry Miller, USN (Ret). “The Obama administration is continuing a dated policy in which we cannot even unilaterally reduce our own inventory of weapons and delivery systems without being on parity with the Russians,” Miller told the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, Md. “We could give up plenty of deployed delivery systems and not adversely affect our national security one bit, but New START prohibits such action - so we are...

President Barack Obama was outmaneuvered by the Russians and should have abandoned the New START negotiations instead of seeking a political victory, says former nuclear plans monitor Vice Admiral Jerry Miller, USN (Ret). “The Obama administration is continuing a dated policy in which we cannot even unilaterally reduce our own inventory of weapons and delivery systems without being on parity with the Russians,” Miller told the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, Md. “We could give up plenty of deployed delivery systems and not adversely affect our national security one bit, but New START prohibits such action - so we are...

The media are eager to dub President Obama the "come back kid." Too eager, probably. He's had a very good month, without question -- but he really would've had no excuse for a bad month. This was a brief and politically peculiar reprieve from the new political reality th new political reality that came upon him and Washington in November. The question going forward will be how he governs when he's living in that political reality. The first peculiarity was that federal taxes were set to rise automatically on Jan. 1 unless Congress acted. Federal unemployment benefits were also due...

President Obama was busy signing legislation all week – legislations that he wanted, and as such the media describes it as BIG wins for him. However, let’s have some context here: START with Russia is indeed a win in the context of passing a bill despite opposition of lead Republicans. However, if the policy will come back and bite America, there is nothing to be excited about it. Obama “won” when he got his Stimulus in Feb 2009 and later the Health Care Reform (HCR) bill. However, both of them came with a heavy price for his party this last...

With the new Republican power in Washington, it is doubly important to keep a close eye on the doings of GOP Senators and Congressmen to spot those who are straying from orthodoxy, seduced by power and the insider clubiness that characterizes Washington. In the Lame Duck session, we want to draw attention to six Republican U.S. Senators who voted with the Democrats on a key issue. We should all bear their apostasy in mind and, in particular, make them mindful of the possibility of primary challenges to their re-nomination. Two Senators, in particular, deserve to have primary challengers take them...

President Obama secured another major legislative victory Wednesday with the Senate ratification of a nuclear arms treaty with Russia. Vice President Biden presided over the Senate's 71-26 vote with Secretary Hillary Clinton in attendance.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Wednesday ratified a new arms control treaty with Russia in a major foreign policy win for President Obama. The vote was 71-26...

The thoroughly repudiated, lame duck Congress, holding but a 13% approval rating in the polls, took up two big pieces of legislation that were better left to the incoming class - not because the results would necessarily have been different, but because they are important pieces of national business. They should not have been handled by people slinking out of town, many of whom won't be back. On the other hand, the vote on START and Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) is less important than the execution. START, like all treaties, is only as good as its signatories and the...

 Here are the thirteen Republicans who gratuitously gave Obama his biggest foreign policy victory of his presidency.  They pointlessly voted to entrust Putin and Obama with our missile defense, and capitulated to a tyrant during a time when American is exuding weakness throughout the world.  All they had to do was hold out for two days and the session would have been over.  Not only did they support this repudiation of American exceptionalism, they did so in a lame duck session, thus empowering those whom the voters rejected, while disenfranchising those new Senators who were elected.  The resolution of ratification...