With the retirement of Pete Domenici and felony corruption conviction fueled defeat of Ted Stevens, Indiana’s Richard Lugar has become the Senate’s most senior Republican. He has been in the Senate for the past 32 years.
Here is a Q&A with Senator Lugar on the subject. When he got to the Senate, there were 38 Republicans. (Now there are 41; a pick up of almost a seat a decade. That’s a Daniels-esque hot streak! Ha! I kid because I love.)
He thinks he has become more diplomatic over the years, particularly with respect to issues on the foreign relations committee where he is now the ranking member and has been the chair when Republicans were in control. He believes that it’s more important for a committee like that to show a united face to the world.
He also provides some interesting commentary on how important it is for a Senator’s family to be on board with the job because it is a time consuming kind of career.
The most substantive issue discussed in the article is Sen. Lugar’s desire to renew the START treaty. It expires in December of 2009 and has resulted in the elimination of about 80% of all strategic nuclear weapons in existence as of 2001 when it was implemented.
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have disposed of all their nuclear weapons or transferred them to Russia; while the U.S. and Russia have reduced the capacity of delivery vehicles to 1,600 each, with no more than 6,000 warheads.
That last was from the Wikipedia entry and this next is from my own less than extensive knowledge, but it seems that the renewal of the treaty will be made more difficult by the more belligerent stances recently adopted by Putin and his successor, Medvedev. In any event, START seems to be one of Sen. Lugar’s primary focuses, and I wish him the best of luck in these efforts.
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