On the recordDecember 17, 2010
I think that makes a very important point. The whole point of what we are arguing is that the Russians would like to put whatever pressure they can on the United States not to deliver--excuse me--not to deploy missile defenses that could be effective against Russian strategic systems. That has been their goal for decades. I think we can all stipulate to that. They would like to bring whatever pressure they can bear against the United States to avoid us developing those kinds of systems. Unfortunately, in the negotiation of this treaty, we have opened ourselves to that kind of pressure by, for the first time, not pushing back against the Russians when they tried to make their usual interrelationship between defense and offense and say that if we develop missile defenses effective against them, then that gives them the legal and binding right to withdraw from the treaty. We didn't push back on that. Instead, our signing statement said: Don't worry. We are not going to develop that kind of system. We are only going to develop systems that deal with intermediate threats or regional threats.
