Former NNSA Head Says New START Lapse Could Sap Hill Support Nukes

摘要

The National Nuclear Security Administration might lose political support in Congress if the New START nuclear arms control treaty with Russia lapses, the immediate past head of the semiautonomous nuclear weapons agency said Wednesday. About 80% of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz said in a webcast hosted by the nonprofit, disarmament advocating Arms Control Association, support both nuclear arms modernization, and international nuclear arms control. To support his case, Klotz repeated the oft-cited notion that Democrats and Republicans, in a Democratic-majority Senate nearly a decade ago, bartered New START ratification for a 30- year, $1-trillion round of nuclear weapons modernization. “Were we to withdraw, or allow New START to expire without replacement, I think that consensus would be in jeopardy,” Klotz said. “ I think it would seriously undermine the political support, the broad political support, which has been there for both the U.S. military’s nuclear modernization program as well as that of the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).” New START is set to expire in February, unless the White House and the Kremlin extend the deal for another five years beyond that. The treaty limits the U.S. and Russia to each deploying no more than 1,550 warheads across 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarinelaunched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers.