Jon Kyl: “this is actually a very straightforward amendment. It simply seeks to repeat in this New START treaty the same thing the…”

“this is actually a very straightforward amendment. It simply seeks to repeat in this New START treaty the same thing the then-Soviet Union and United States did in the previous START I treaty with respect to a particular kind of weapon--a Russian weapon called the SLCM or sea-launched cruise missile. As part of START I, we reached a binding side agreement--a side agreement--because the Senate had said we needed to include these weapons in the treaty. So a side agreement was reached that they would limit a deployment of sea-launched cruise missiles or the SLCMs due to their impact on strategic stability, the point being that whether these sea-launched cruise missiles are deemed tactical or strategic, they actually have a strategic component, especially if they are sitting right off your coast and they are launched and they can hit your country. So that agreement was put into a side agreement between the then-Soviet Union and the United States. But when this New START treaty was negotiated, there was no similar side agreement. So there were no restrictions on SLCM deployments. The side agreement in the START treaty limited both nations to fewer than 800 SLCMs with a range greater than 600 kilometers. In the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the administration committed to unilaterally eliminating our SLCM capability. The United States will retire the nuclear-equipped sea-launched cruise missile (TLAM-N).”