This week the Senate Armed Services Committee held a highly classified hearing on what is probably the core issue of the treaty: verification. Next week the committee holds an open hearing on treaty implementation. That should bring a few howls of anguish from Republicans committed to squashing the treaty, afraid it will leave the United States less safe in a dangerous world. Earlier this week, we ran a START commentary by a group created by the folks at Heritage. Today, the left — in the form of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation – swings back, arguing that START will make us safer.

Arms control elicits strong emotions and sparks great debates. In that tradition, Kingston Reif and Travis Sharp offer a rebuttal to the recent commentary we ran from the folks at the Heritage Foundation. Here’s the take of two dedicated arms control advocates. In their recent commentary on DoD Buzz (“Will START Talks Go MAD,”), the Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring and Helle Dale recycle a snake oil sales pitch that first emerged at the dawn of the Atomic Age. The illusion is that the awesome destructiveness of nuclear weapons can somehow be neutralized by a panacea—in this case impenetrable missile defenses.