Time for a good old-fashioned arms control post. Get excited! I’m about to give context before my lede! From the perspective of the U.S.-Russia New START arms control treaty, the congressional calendar looks like that Indiana Jones scene where the big stone door slowly grinds closed as our heroes race down the hallway to pass [...]

This is a beginning. I’m hearing that Sec. Clinton will make a speech next week, probably on Friday the 9th after returning from the Prague signing of New START, in Sen. McConnell’s home state to urge ratification of the new nuclear arms-reduction treaty. Officials are pretty upbeat — way more than I’ve been — about [...]

@MikeDrewWhat tweets at me: I’d read a post on the situ. in Russia and how we might expect it it to affect cooperation with West on CT, Iran, other items. …don’t know if you’re the guy to write that post or not, but I’d read it. Honesty compels me to say that I’m not the [...]

John Bolton didn’t totally say that New START is a threat to your precious fluids, but he was happy to weave the treaty into a generally frothy speech at Heritage about the long-term threat that the Obama administration’s multilateralism poses to American sovereignty. Just out from the Washington Independent: Advances in arms control would have [...]

Because it doesn’t vindicate that, but apparently President Medvedev made a flattering display of congratulating President Obama on the new health-care law before getting to the substance of finalizing the details on New START during their morning phone call. To be very clear: all the substance of the treaty was long in the can before [...]

White House briefing just now on New START. Clinton reminded everyone that arms-reduction treaties typically pass with 90-some Senators. Gates repeatedly assured everyone that nothing in the treaty throws European missile defense an iota off course. Adm. Mullen said that he, the Joint Chiefs, and the combatant commanders all “stand solidly” behind the treaty. But [...]

And so his optimism deserves “New Direction.” Drezner says that my post on GOP attitudes toward New START gets the timetable on ratification wrong, since the vote won’t come “right after [the GOP] suffering a humiliating defeat on health care.” And that’s fair enough on the surface. But the actual timetable matters less than the [...]