The Honorable Harry Reid

The Honorable Richard Durbin

The Honorable Charles Schumer

United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

 

Dear Senators Reid, Durbin and Schumer:

 

Failure to act on the New START treaty this year would undermine the country’s national security interests, as both our military leadership and numerous former Republican officials have noted.

 

Failure to bring New START to the floor will also squander the significant momentum that has built up in support of the treaty. There is now widespread bipartisan support for New START in the Senate, making it imperative that a floor vote happen before the Senate goes out of session.

 

Any issue that is left uncompleted during the next month will drag long into 2011; a new Senate takes months to get organized. The new make up of the Senate also promises to complicate ratification, potentially requiring new, more costly negotiations.

 

If New START is permitted to lag into next year, the U.S. will continue to lack an essential window into the makeup of Russia’s nuclear arsenal that it hasn’t had since START I expired last December.  As Gen. Kevin Chilton, the commander of STRATCOM, stated June 16: “If we don’t get the treaty, [the Russians] are not constrained in their development of force structure and…we have no insight into what they’re doing. So it’s the worst of both possible worlds.” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also warned that failure to ratify the treaty now could harm US-Russian relations. Indeed, failure to ratify New START now could undercut US efforts to contain Iran.

 

The treaty is supported unanimously by the nation’s military and intelligence leadership and most prominent former senior national security officials from Republican as well as Democratic administrations.  They support it because it will make the U.S. safer.

 

We urge you to take up and approve New START now, if need be by extending the Senate in session beyond December 17.

 

Sincerely,

 

Frances Beinecke, President

Natural Resources Defense Council

 

Jay Coghlan, Executive Director

Nuclear Watch New Mexico

 

Shan Cretin, General Secretary

American Friends Service Committee

 

Charles D. Ferguson

President, Federation of American Scientists

 

Ambassador James Goodby

Hoover Institution

 

Susan Gordon, Director

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

 

Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr, Chairman

Bipartisan Security Group

 

Jonathan Granoff, President

Global Security Institute

 

Ambassador Robert Grey

Former US Representative to the Conference on Disarmament

 

Ken Gude, Director of National Security

Center for American Progress

 

Howard W. Hallman, Chair

Methodists United for Peace with Justice

 

Katie Heald, Coordinator

Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World

 

Heather Hurlburt, Executive Director

National Security Network 

 

Paul Ingram, Executive Director

British American Security Information Council

 

Kevin Kamps, Project Director

Beyond Nuclear

 

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director

Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore

 

Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director,

Arms Control Association

 

Rachel Kleinfeld, Chief Executive Officer

Truman National Security Project

 

Kevin Knobloch, President

Union of Concerned Scientists

 

Don Kraus, Chief Executive Officer

Citizens for Global Solutions

 

David Krieger, President

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

 

Ira Lechner, Chairman

Council for a Livable World

 

Jan Lodal

Former Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense

 

Elisabeth MacNamara, President

League of Women Voters of the U.S.

 

Kevin Martin, Executive Director

Peace Action

 

Rabbi David Saperstein, Director and Counsel

Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

 

Susan Shaer, Executive Director

WAND, Women's Action for New Directions

 

Karen Showalter, Executive Director

Americans for Informed Democracy

 

Joe Volk, Executive Secretary

Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers)

 

Paul F. Walker, Ph.D., Director, Security and Sustainability

Global Green USA

 

Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, Director

Two Futures Project

 

Peter Wilk, Executive Director

Physicians for Social Responsibility

 

James E. Winkler, General Secretary

United Methodist General Board of Church and Society