New START Verification: Up to the Challenge

For Immediate Release: May 17, 2010

Media Contacts: Greg Thielmann, Senior Fellow and Director of Realistic Threat Assessments and Responses Project, (202) 463-8270 x103

(Washington, D.C.): This week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold its first hearing on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) since the treaty was formally transmitted to the Senate.

In the latest ACA Threat Assessment Brief, "New START Verification: Up to the Challenge," Senior Fellow Greg Thielmann examines the treaty's extensive system to monitor compliance with the treaty's new and lower limits on deployed strategic warheads and delivery systems. The analysis, which updates an earlier version, is available online in PDF format at www.armscontrol.org/threats

Thielmann writes that the streamlined verification regime in New START is an appropriate response to the limits for a treaty designed to address post-Cold War realities. He notes that by combining proof-tested measures from 15 years of START I implementation with innovative approaches to new challenges, the successor treaty's verification system is well suited to fulfill its core function