Is the Obama Administration Punting the START Negotiations?

Yesterday Senators Lieberman, Kyl, and McCain delivered a sternly worded letter to General James Jones, urging the president’s national security advisor to resist pressure from Moscow to tie conventional missile defense systems into the new START follow-on. The letter came after Ambassador John Beyrle indicated on his U.S. Embassy Moscow blog that, despite claims to the contrary by senior administration officials, missile defense could be included in negotiations to reduce nuclear warheads.

Consider that with this unusual statement by senior arms control wonk Ellen Tauscher, who recently said: “We have to move from a time of mutually assured destruction to a time of mutually assured stability.”