Eagle's bear hug

President Obama's good START for the New Year

After last November’s disastrous mid-term elections and an unfavourable judgment on his prized health insurance law, US President Barack Obama has at least one reason to savour his annual Hawaiian break. He received an early Christmas present in the form of the ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) by the Senate on December 22. The implications of this are huge, both for Mr Obama’s domestic agenda and global geopolitics. It may still be audaciously hopeful to view a move by both the US and Russia to reduce strategic nuclear weapons from 2,200 to 1,550 in seven years and subject themselves to international inspections — the broad objectives of New START — as a precursor to a nuclear weapons-free world. But with the Russians resolving to follow the Senate’s lead and accelerate Duma approval, there is no doubt that the new treaty will significantly lower the temperature on global nuclear confrontation, despite North Korea and Iran’s strenuous efforts to ratchet it up. Also implicit in the Senate’s ratification is an endorsement of Mr Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia. As US commentator George Friedman pointed out, “The danger of nuclear war does not derive from the number of weapons but from the political relationship between nations”. In that sense, this can be considered a new start for the old Cold War adversaries, which in Mr Obama’s case is vital for cooperation on curbing Iran’s nuclear programme via UN sanctions and on the war in Afghanistan, particularly Washington’s use of Russian territory and airspace to transport troops and supplies there.

New START’s ratification has many other constructive implications for the president’s agenda into the New Year. It raises hopes that the US may finally reverse decades of opposition and finally ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), another of Mr Obama’s legislative priorities. Mr Obama can draw on the fact that New START was ratified by more than the required two-thirds of the Senate (67-28) and included “yes” votes from 13 Republicans in defiance of the Grand Old Party’s (GOP’s) line (doing so is the Indian equivalent of defying a party whip, though the American system permits this). The minor Republican “revolt” implicit in the December 22 vote contradicts detractors’ views that New START was a lame duck success and would never have passed once the new Republican-majority House convened. The ultimately bipartisan nature of New START suggests that the GOP’s “just say no” and Tea Party cohorts might not have the opportunity to be as disruptive to Mr Obama’s attempts to repair America’s economy and global reputation. Several commentators have also suggested that Mr Obama might be taking undue credit for his predecessor’s initiative. The fact that the New START obligations were negotiated under a Republican president did not ease the White House’s task in convincing an opposition party that has tilted even further right. It is telling that the campaign required the combined efforts of the former president, various Pentagon leaders and former secretaries of state from an unabashed hawk like Henry Kissinger through James Baker, George Schultz to Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice. If New START has unwittingly strengthened the president’s hand for other progressive domestic legislation, no one should complain. A polarised US is the last thing the global economy needs as it struggles to recover.