Treaties Do Have A Preference

Seven months ago President Obama signed the New Start treaty. This treaty is between Russia and the United States and is basically an agreement between the two which bars each side from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers. It also resumes inspections that were halted when the first Start treaty expired last year. The treaty has yet to be approved and passed in the Senate. What I find interesting is that many treaties proposed by Democratic Presidents in the past have been left unapproved or have been rejected. The senate rejected Woodrow Wilson’s Treaty of Versailles as well as Bill Clinton’s Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and President Jimmy Carter’s Salt II Pact. Unlike the Democrats Republicans have had success in winning Senate consent for big treaties — Richard M. Nixon with Salt I and the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaties, Ronald Reagan with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, George H. W. Bush with the first Start treaty, and his son George W. Bush with the Treaty of Moscow, an arms reduction agreement.

I find this contrast in the passing of the treaties between the two parties very intriguing. First of all I often forget that treaties are often passed. During my lifetime it has been the wars which have gotten all the attention such as the Afghan war and the Iraq War. The treaties however don’t get that much news coverage or I am just not watching the news close enough. But the one thing about this news which got my attention was the idea that one party can be more successful than another in passing treaties. Treaties seem like something to me which isn’t about parties as treaties are between our country and other countries, it is nothing something that is strictly within the United States. A treaty with another country wouldn’t just benefit the Republicans or Democrats, but the country as a whole. Despite my beliefs however certain parties have been more successful with passing treaties and I hope to discover why in the future.