A new START for the world

The new START treaty between the United States and Russia, scheduled for signing today in Prague, will reduce the size of both nations' nuclear arsenal, thus decreasing the number of Russian nuclear weapons targeted on our cities.

Later this year, the U.S. Senate will be asked to vote on this, as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), both critically important to U.S. national security. CTBT will outlaw nuclear test explosions worldwide and make it harder for states like Iran to develop nuclear weapons and for countries like North Korea to improve their nuclear weapons.

These treaties have broad support among Democratic and Republican defense experts, including former Secretary of State George Schultz, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Sen. Sam Nunn and former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, John Shalikashvili, David Jones and William Crowe.

Furthermore, according to a 2007 survey by the University of Maryland, an overwhelming majority of Americans - 80 percent - believe the United States should participate in the treaty banning all nuclear weapons testing.

In the past, some senators opposed CTBT because, they argued, it could not be verified or the United States might need to resume testing to assure the reliability of our nuclear weapons. Studies by the National Academy of Science and the JASON group have resolved these questions, saying verification is achievable and the reliability needs no further testing.

While everyone knows that nuclear weapons are incredibly dangerous, we tend to forget just how terrible they are.

A single Hiroshima-sized bomb detonated by terrorists in New York City could kill over 250,000 people and cause somewhere between $2 trillion and $10 trillion in damage.

A large-scale nuclear exchange with Russia would kill more than 100 million Americans in the first half hour. Clouds of dust and soot would block out the sun, and, in a matter of days, the average temperature across the globe would plummet 18 degrees Fahrenheit, to levels not seen on Earth since the depth of the last ice age. In this "nuclear winter," agriculture would cease to exist throughout the Northern Hemisphere, and billions of people would starve in the following months.

It is in our national interest to reduce the number of weapons in U.S. and Russian arsenals; the new START Treaty is an important step in that direction.

Similarly, our national security requires we prevent the proliferation of these terrible weapons. CTBT will place concrete obstacles in the path of states that might wish to acquire them by prohibiting "any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion" and establishing a global monitoring network with the option of short-notice, on-site inspections to detect and deter cheating.

The United States gave up nuclear weapons testing in 1992 and has neither a plan nor the need to restart. Since 1992, four successive administrations, Democrat and Republican, have supported maintaining this moratorium on testing. CTBT will not come into effect until the United States ratifies it. Why shouldn't we do this so that other states will also have to stop testing?

Ratification requires 67 votes in the Senate. It appears likely that all 57 Democrats and both independents will vote for the passage of these treaties. Thus, at least eight Republicans need to support them also. So far, none have publicly committed to supporting either treaty. This is a matter that calls for the bipartisan support of Florida's U.S. senators.