Robert Torricelli: “this is a moment of judgment that this Senate has faced before. History instructs us that we cannot afford to be wrong.…”

“this is a moment of judgment that this Senate has faced before. History instructs us that we cannot afford to be wrong. Over 75 years ago, this body chose the wrong route and the toll was monumental. During consideration of the treaty for the League of Nations, the United States took the lead in forming the principles of collective security. It was our leadership which brought the world to understand that there was no separate peace, there was no individual security, and yet in that instance, as in this moment, the United States, after providing the intellectual and the political leadership, was a reluctant participant. The judgment then, we were told, was that there were reservations because of individual provisions of the treaty. But, indeed, history instructs us, and I believe would guide us now, that those reservations were not because of individual aspects of the treaty but because of a general ideologic opposition to arms control and the general notion of collective security. It is time for the United States, after all the painful lessons of previous generations, to simply understand there is no unilateral security in a multilateral world. From Pearl Harbor to the Persian Gulf, history demands us to recognize an essential truth: American security, because of a changing world and developing technology, requires and demands that we deal with other nations. The choice before this Senate is clear.…”