New START and the Future of Arms Control

It is difficult to imagine how a future arms control treaty would be ratified in the increasingly unlikely event that one is negotiated.

Olga Oliker has written an engaging review of Rose Gottemoeller’s account of the New START negotiations:

Indeed, a striking aspect of Gottemoeller’s telling is that she and her team faced as many challenges from the United States as they did from their Russian counterparts. This is therefore a book as much about negotiating with the highest levels of Washington, D.C., as it is one about negotiating with Moscow. A casual observer might even be forgiven for thinking the Americans the bigger problem—one, after all, expects challenges from the potential adversary (and Gottemoeller’s tales of Antonov’s early efforts to set her off balance, as well as of the later evolution of their working relationship, makes for fascinating reading), but why are the U.S. Congress and White House making things so hard? Aside from policy differences, Gottemoeller found herself faced with not only micromanagement but second-guessing of even the most basic concepts, such as the very idea that negotiators need to negotiate, face to face, over time [bold mine-DL].

There is a basic hostility to diplomacy in our political culture that deserves its own investigation. International negotiation is often seen in Washington as something disreputable and morally compromised, and if it is a negotiation with an unfriendly or rival government then it is frequently cast as a sell-out and a betrayal. It does not matter what the issue is or what concessions are being discussed. The domestic response to negotiations is almost always characterized by the same excessive fear of being swindled, the same certainty that “they” can’t be trusted, and the same opportunistic whining that our leaders are bringing back a bad deal. There is bound to be some legitimate disagreement about the terms of negotiated agreements, but in most cases the bulk of the criticism is based on distorted or false descriptions of what an agreement does and doesn’t do.