Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I am rather enjoying this colloquy, so maybe I could extend it just a tad longer. Of course, the United States is free--I mean we are not going to ever let another country say we are not free to do something that is in our national interest. But the point is, the administration was unwilling to say we are committed to doing this. 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. So even though the Secretary of Defense had announced a missile defense plan on the drawing board here that would go beyond that, A, we didn't push back. We agreed to the preamble language. We didn't push back against the signing statement the Russians made. Recently, in the briefing in Lisbon, we seemed to confirm our unilateral statement that we were only dealing with regional or limited threats. Then you can throw in the fact that we pulled the proposed missile defense GBIs, ground-based missile interceptors, out of Poland, and the radars associated with that out of the Czech Republic. All of that suggests the Obama administration is not as serious about missile defense as we would like them to be, and perhaps one of the reasons is because it will anger or upset Russia. So the more pressure Russia can put on the United States not to do it, the more likely the Obama administration is not to do it. The whole point is a matter of pressure--subtle pressure or bullying pressure, which the Russians are pretty good at too. If this achievement of the START treaty is so important to President Obama--and I think it is--the question is whether he is willing to jeopardize or risk that treaty if the Russians came to him some time later and said: You are developing something on missile defense that bothers us, and if you do that, we are withdrawing. President Obama might say: Don't do that, we will back off. The evidence suggests that is the approach this administration may be taking. It is worrisome, as Dr. Condoleezza Rice pointed out. That is why she suggested that we fix that problem in the preamble in the ratification process of the treaty.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, that is a good question. I think the answer is, first of all, that I don't think at this moment in time he can clarify it in that regard because he can't predict what concerns the Russians will bring to him and what his response at that point will need to be. If, for example--

Mr. KYL. Let me finish my point. If we were developing a system which the Russians say will bother them because we could use that against them, and they want us to change it in some way, my best guess is that he will be inclined to change it, even though he wrote a letter to us saying: Rest assured I am committed to developing good, strong missile defense for the United States. I think the Russians are trying to bully this administration, or future administrations, into a position where we will be less certain to do the kind of things that are just in our best interest because we will have to be concerned about the Russian response.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for the question because it sets up a perfect reason why this amendment is necessary. The Russians interpret the preamble as the basis for their legal argument that they can withdraw from the treaty if we do what Secretary Gates has said we are going to do. What would a letter from the President potentially say? Either it is going to say we intend to go forward and develop and deploy the missile defenses--which would be seen by the Russians as contrary to their national interests, their supreme national interests, thus further laying a foundation for them to withdraw from the treaty--or the President would confirm the briefing at Lisbon and confirm the U.S. signing statement and say that we don't intend to deploy those, we only intend to deal with limited or regional threats, so the Russians have nothing to worry about. The Senate would be on record in an understanding accompanying the treaty that confirmed all of this. The Senate would at least be on record. But that doesn't commit the President. I think the only answer to avoid the confusion and to avoid any future President having pressure from the Russians that they are going to withdraw is to just remove the language. That is the beauty by the author of the amendment--it pulls the thorn so the sting no longer can exist.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I certainly do, and obviously our defense planners worry about that as well.

Mr. KYL. Yes.

Mr. KYL. I certainly do. I will terminate my conversation here by also adding one other point to my response to my colleague from Arizona about a letter from the President. The problem right now is that such a letter, if it confirmed we were going to move forward with a missile defense system adequate to protect the United States from an ICBM, from more than regional threats, would directly contradict our signing statement. What the President would have to do is say: I hereby reject or repudiate the signing statement that the State Department attached to the treaty when we signed it and state the U.S. position instead as--and then lay out his commitment to deploy a defense system adequate to protect the United States from an ICBM.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I could not agree more with my colleague from Arizona. There have been rumors swirling around here for 3 weeks--for example, when the tax legislation was being negotiated--that somehow or other there was some deal in the works to trade the extension of the existing tax rates for support of the START treaty. There was never any kind of a deal like that going on. No, this treaty stands or falls on its own merits. The other thing I would say, however, is that I have made the point for a long time that one of the impediments to ratifying this treaty or to debating it and considering it in a meaningful way was the intersection of all of the other business that was being put before the Senate, much of it very partisan, and that it was very difficult. My colleague from Arizona was right in the middle of a sentence a while ago when he was interrupted by another colleague to say that we have some intervening business we have to do. That is the problem. If we are going to debate and consider the treaty and be able to do it in the thoughtful and focused way it really deserves, then we should not have all these other items come popping in and out of the Senate. We are on the treaty for 2 days and then going to be off of it for 2 days, back on it again for another day, and meanwhile now we are voting on this and that and the other thing. That is what I was contending would preclude us from ever really getting to the point where we had time to do the treaty and to do it right. I think my predictions were very correct.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I am glad to respond to that and summarize this again. Yes. Any lawyer--and we are both lawyers here--knows that if you have an ambiguity in a contract, you are asking for trouble. You are asking for litigation or dispute down the road. It may not be all that important between two parties or two companies, but when you have two major countries such as Russia and the United States with a lot of tenuous relationships--there are a lot of things on which we agree and some on which we do not agree, very important matters that can arise. If you have a major dispute between the countries, you can affect international relationships not just between the two of us but affecting a whole lot of others in the world as well. You do not want to build in potential conflicts. There is a double conflict here. The first conflict is between the United States and Russia. The Russians say: If you improve your missile defenses, we get to withdraw from the treaty. The State Department signing statement says: Don't worry, we are only going to protect against regional or intermediate range threats. But the White House, at the same time, talks about having a letter from the President, or a statement from maybe the Secretary of Defense or somebody, that says: But we are, in fact, going to go forward and develop these kinds of missile defenses, which would, in fact, qualitatively improve our position vis-a-vis Russia. So not only do we have a disagreement with Russia, we have a disagreement within our own government about our intentions. I do not think the Senate can ratify a treaty with all of this uncertainty out there. We do not know what this country intends to do. There are enough confusing signals that there is not only a potential for a dispute between Russia and the United States but between the Congress and the Obama administration. Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.

Mr. KYL. Actually, if I could correct it a little bit.

Mr. KYL. I was involved in the negotiations over the tax legislation.

Mr. KYL. And in an effort to prod the people in those negotiations to put their ideas on the table so we could complete work on the tax negotiations, I said: Given the schedule that the leader had announced--the desire to leave Washington this afternoon, December 17-- I felt they needed to follow--and I laid out a schedule, the Senator is right--by which we would complete work on the tax legislation and the funding of the government, so we could begin this treaty last Wednesday. And if we were able to begin the treaty last Wednesday, and we did not have any interruptions in the interim, then a period of about 9 days would have existed, even working through the weekend, and we could have completed it by today. By the way, when I said last Wednesday, obviously, I meant the Wednesday prior.

Mr. KYL. If the Senator will yield briefly, I ask to speak for just 60 seconds. I want to make it clear that I don't think anybody on this side holds Senator Kerry accountable for the fact that this is a confusing and back-and-forth kind of debate between the START treaty and other issues on the floor. Also, I started to say about 3 weeks ago that, knowing that other people would try to bring issues to the floor, and knowing that we had a lot of other business we had to conclude, I could see this situation developing where despite the best efforts of Senator Kerry and others, it would be very difficult to have the kind of debate we needed on the START treaty. Unfortunately, my prediction has come true. It has been very difficult because of the intercession of all of these other issues. But Senator Kerry bears no responsibility. The decision to move forward is a joint decision by all of the people on the Democratic side. That, I think, was the critical decision that got us into this problem.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I had hoped to be able to respond to some of the things the chairman of the committee said earlier. A lot of words have been spoken in between what he said and what I will say now. I think I have correct what his arguments are. If I don't, I am sure he will set me straight. Let me respond to some of the things Senator Kerry talked about. One of the most significant is this. It is the question of whether the preamble is important. Is it binding. Is it significant. While on the one hand the argument is made that it is an insignificant instrument, it is not binding and it is a throwaway statement that is sometimes done for domestic consumption, it has also been portrayed as a treaty killer. Both of those things cannot be true. It cannot be insignificant but also be so important as to be a treaty killer. I suppose it is possible for one side to treat it as insignificant and the other side to treat it as very significant. Thus, insofar as the Russians are concerned, it is a treaty killer. That is obvious because it means something to the Russians. That is the point. We have to appreciate the fact that they have set this up so that the preamble, combined with their unilateral statement, represents the case that they make legally for withdrawal under article XIV, if we develop missile defenses that they believe qualitatively improve our situation vis-a- vis themselves. That is the importance of it. It is important whether they are laying the predicate for withdrawal from the treaty. Think of it. You have two parties to a contract. There is a dispute about what a critical term in the contract means. One party says: It is not that big a deal. The other party says: Yes, it is. That enables me to vitiate the contract. That is a big deal, because it sets up a future conflict. That is precisely what the problem is in the preamble. So we can't say on the one hand it is insignificant and on the other hand it is a deal killer, a treaty killer. Second, it is true that either party can withdraw, but only under certain circumstances. When Senator Kerry makes the argument that the Russian threat of withdrawal is not that important because obviously either party can withdraw, that is only true as far as it goes and misses the point. The Russians are setting up, in the instrument, in the preamble and in their unilateral signing statement that accompanied the signing of the treaty, the ground for withdrawal. What they have said is they believe that if we develop our missile defenses, as we have said, then that constitutes the extraordinary circumstances that would give them a right under article XIV to withdraw. So while it is true that either party can withdraw, the question is, is it a withdrawal that is important, that is significant, that we can't ignore, or is it something they will do no matter what and there is nothing we can do about it? Let me tell you why this is important and go back to the START I treaty. What countries say about these treaties is very important. It sets the groundwork for their approach to foreign relations vis-a-vis each other and, frankly, the position they take. For years the Russians had tried--before them, the Soviets had tried--to get the United States to cut back on or eliminate our missile defense plans. This was the whole point of the famous Reykjavik moment when Ronald Reagan, as much as he would have liked to have rid both sides of their nuclear weapons or as many as possible, nevertheless when it came right down to it, didn't take the deal that Gorbachev offered him which was: You eliminate missile defense and we will eliminate our strategic offensive weapons. I will come back to that in a moment. But it makes the point that the Russians for a long time have been trying to get us to link missile defense and offensive capabilities. When that occurred in the START I treaty, our negotiators pushed back very hard. Here is what the United States unilateral statement was in response to the Russian statement. And the reason I quote this is because it is diametrically opposed to the approach our negotiators took with respect to this New START treaty. Here is the United States unilateral statement at that time: While the United States cannot circumscribe the Soviet right to withdraw from the START treaty if it believes its supreme interests are jeopardized, the full exercise by the United States of its legal rights under the ABM treaty-- The treaty that permitted us to have missile defense-- as we have discussed with the Soviet Union in the past, would not constitute a basis for such withdrawal. In other words, directly contradicting the Russian claim that they could withdraw on that basis. Continuing the quotation: The United States will be signing the START treaty and submitting it to the U.S. Senate for advice and consent to ratification with this view. In addition, the provisions for withdrawal from the START treaty based on supreme national interests clearly envision that such withdrawal could only be justified by extraordinary events that have jeopardized a party's supreme interest. Soviet statements that a future hypothetical withdrawal from the ABM Treaty could create such conditions are without military or legal foundation. In other words, the United States rejected the argument that the Russians were making, that the United States withdrawal from the ABM Treaty would constitute a legal right of withdrawal for the then-Soviet Union. You can argue about the merits of that. But the point is, we did not want to leave unresponded to a view of the Russians that we thought was fallacious, that was antithetical to the interests of a good relationship between the two countries, or that could potentially impact our decision on whether to stay within the ABM Treaty. It was important then to push back. So why did not our negotiators in Geneva push back in this treaty when the Russians sought to do the same thing? My colleague from Massachusetts said: Well, actually Secretary Rumsfeld and even President Bush at one point said we are going to talk to the Russians about our missile defense and strategic offensive weapons. That is true. However, the United States was never prepared to take a position that those two items should be linked in the treaty. As Doug Feith, the former Under Secretary of Defense, who actually helped to negotiate the treaty of 2002 with the Russians, wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently that when his Russian counterpart said we need to have missile defense tied into this treaty, Doug Feith said no. And he said: Well, we have to have a treaty to establish the structural relationship between our two countries. Doug said: No, we don't. We have relations with 200 countries. We have no treaty like this to establish a structure for our relationships. Doug said: Look, we don't need a treaty with you to bring down our weapons. We are going to do it anyway. If you want a treaty to conform your withdrawal and ours, that is fine. But we are not going to concede missile defense to you. And the Russians finally backed off. The point was, in these situations we did not allow the Russians to successfully make this linkage. But in this case, we not only did not push back but we issued our own unilateral statement that essentially confirmed that we were not going to push the issue with the Russians because our missile defenses would only be good against ``regional or limited threats'' was the language that was used. This is a problem because while it is true that the resolution of ratification has some language relative to the establishment of our missile defenses--by the way, let me quote what was not in the language but was offered by Senator DeMint at the time. What Senator DeMint said was that: Accordingly, the United States is and will remain committed to reducing the vulnerability to attack by constructing a layered missile defense system capable of countering missiles of all ranges. The administration was not agreeable to that. They did not want language to say we were committed to this. They insisted on saying instead that we were free to do it. That is part of the problem. We do not know what this administration's real commitment is to the development of such a system. What we do know is that we should not allow the Russians to believe they have a legal right to withdraw from the treaty based on our future development of missile defenses, because they might well threaten to do that. And if they do, it becomes a big deal whether the United States says: Fine, leave the treaty, because we are going to develop these missile defense instead or a President says: Well, I am afraid you are going to leave the treaty, so maybe I will pull my punches and we will not develop the missile defense. That is the problem here. Condoleezza Rice, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, on December 7, made precisely this point. Here is what she said. After saying on balance she would support the treaty, she said: Still, there are legitimate concerns about New START that must and can be addressed in the ratification process. And here is the second point she makes: The Senate must make absolutely clear that in ratifying this treaty, the U.S. is not reeestablishing the Cold War link between offensive forces and missile defenses. New START's preamble is worrying in this regard, as it recognizes the ``interrelationship'' of the two. Further: Administration officials have testified there is no link and the treaty won't limit our missile defenses. She says: Congress should ensure that future Defense Department budgets reflect this. Continuing: Moscow contends that only current U.S. missile defense plans are acceptable under the treaty. But the U.S. must remain fully free to explore and then deploy the best defenses--not just those imagined today. That includes pursuing both potential qualitative breakthroughs and quantitative increases. I have personally witnessed Moscow's tendency to interpret every utterance as a binding commitment. The Russians need to understand that the U.S. will use the full range of American technology and talent to improve our ability to intercept and destroy the ballistic missiles of hostile countries. She is saying that the preamble is especially worrying in this regard and we need to do something about it. That is what the McCain-Barrasso amendment does. It removes that thorn, it removes that issue, that potential conflict between Russia and the United States if we do go forward with the missile defenses that most of us would hope we intend to do. Two final points, I think. Senator Kerry made the point that it is merely a statement of fact that there is a relationship between offense and defense, and in one sense it is true. It is a statement of fact there is a relationship between the two. The point, however, is in a diplomatic agreement here between two countries, it is not always appropriate to acknowledge a particular fact if the purpose of that by one of the parties is to build a foundation for later withdrawal from the pact. We have never conceded in an offensive weapons treaty a relationship that could infer a quid pro quo between missile defense and strategic offensive weapons, and President Reagan explicitly rejected it at Reyjjavik. My colleague points out that at least in his view one side should never have an advantage over the other or there is an arms race that will occur. I do not agree with that. I think we should have an advantage. I think we should have missile defense. That is the moral response. That is what Ronald Reagan believed. To the extent the question is: Must the United States give up missile defense as a condition to reducing offensive weapons, President Reagan was willing to take a chance on a new arms race, knowing that the Soviets could not afford to do it. And they did not. He took the chance, and I think it worked out rather well. So I think to the point of: What is the harm in recreating this relationship, that is the harm, and Condoleezza Rice has made it very clear that in our ratification process, we should eliminate that harm, specifically by pointing to the preamble, and that is what the McCain amendment would do. A final point. I do not think this requires much elucidation. The question is, What do the Russian officials say? I do not think we need to spend a lot of time on arguments that they believe this would give them a right to withdraw from the treaty. But there was one comment made by my colleague that: Well, who are you going to believe, the Russians or the United States? The point is, on Russian intentions and interpretations, I would take into account what the Russians have said. And without going into a long, detailed explanation, here are a few headlines, and maybe quoting from one article. Headline--this is near the time of the signing of the treaty, right at about the time. This is April 6: ``Lavrov: Russia may pull out of nuke deal if U.S. expands missile defense.'' There are a lot of other headlines and articles that point out the same thing. Here is Bloomberg Business Week: Russia may exit accord if U.S. pursues missile plan. That is according to Defense Minister Sergei Lavrov. Let me quote a couple things he said, and then I do not need to make this point further because I do not think it has been seriously questioned that the Russians have made it very clear of their intention that the preamble sets up the condition, along with their unilateral statement, for the extraordinary circumstances that would allow their withdrawal under article XIV. This is the article I will put in the Record. It is from foreignpolicy.com, and I will ask to put it in the Record. But I will quote from it here: It appears that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Lavrov isn't quite ready to pop the champagne on the new nuclear arms reduction agreement due to be signed in Prague this week. Russia will have the right to exit the accord if ``the U.S.'s build-up of its missile defense strategic potential in numbers and quality begins to considerably affect the efficiency of Russian strategic nuclear forces,'' Lavrov told reporters in Moscow today. Going on in the article: The issue of missile defense was the major sticking point in negotiations over the treaty, particularly after the United States announced plans to build new facilities in Bulgaria and Romania. Recall that was after the withdrawal of the radar from the Czech Republic and the missiles from Poland. Continuing on with the article: As FP's Josh Rogin reported last month, a workaround solution to the issue was reached, in which the issue of missile defense is not mentioned in the body of the treaty itself, but discussed in the preamble sections written by each side. The Obama administration has been adamant that the treaty does not limit the U.S. right to expand missile defense, and will likely make that case to skeptical Senate Republicans. Lavrov, apparently, didn't get the memo: Russia insists that the agreement includes a link between offensive and defensive systems. ``Linkage to missile defense is clearly spelled out in the accord and is legally binding,'' Lavrov said today. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. KYL. Sure.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, that is the point I am making, and in contrast to the START I negotiations, where when the Russians said essentially something very similar to this, we pushed back and said: No, you are wrong, that would not be an appropriate reason to withdraw from the treaty. This time we did not do that. We let it pass, therefore, I would suggest, tacitly accepting the legal position of the Russians.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, that is correct.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, that concludes the point I am making, and is well made by Senator Sessions right now. That problem can be cured by the amendment that would fix the preamble by eliminating the words that create this conflict. I think that is something we should do by adopting the McCain-Barrasso amendment.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I say to my colleague, the answer is, yes and no.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I think, having spoken to a couple colleagues, it is quite likely the first amendment that will be offered, relatively soon, will be on the treaty itself so that issue will not have been--we will have time to work the question out that Senator Kerry and Senator Corker have been talking about. Senator Kerry and I were involved in a discussion about missile defense last evening. I think that will be probably further debated in connection with the first amendment that is likely to be offered. So let me turn to another matter that is of great concern to some of us and I think will require some resolution, either in an amendment of the treaty or preamble or in the resolution of ratification, and that is the limitation that was placed on our potential prompt global strike-- conventional global strike weapon. This is a matter on which the Senate gave its advice. Our role, of course, is advice and consent. In the last Defense bill, section 1251 of the fiscal year 2010 NDAA, we included a statement that the New START treaty should not include any limitations on advanced conventional systems, otherwise known as conventional prompt global strike. For the purposes of this, let me refer to that now as CPGS. Despite the assurances from some in the administration that wouldn't happen, it did happen. There is both limiting language and language in the preamble that sets the stage for further limitations on CPGS. We were clear about this because I believe we are going to need this. General Chilton has said the same thing. First, let me make it clear, what we are talking about is a conventional warhead on top which is a missile that has ICBM-like capabilities, that can quickly reach a spot a long way away to deliver a nonnuclear warhead. With the WMD and terrorist and other rogue state kinds of threats that exist today, our administration and many of the rest of us have concluded this is a capability we need. Let me quote General Chilton: To provide the President a better range of non-nuclear options against rapidly emerging threats, we also require a deployed, conventional prompt global strike capability to hold at risk targets in denied territory that can only be rapidly struck today with nuclear weapon platforms. That is the rationale for it. That is the administration's statement, and I agree with that. The Senate provided its advice in Section 1251 of the Defense bill, and here is what Under Secretary of Defense Tauscher assured Senators. She said: [T]here is no effect for prompt global strike in the treaty. A March 26, 2010, White House fact sheet assured that: . . . the treaty does not contain any constraints on testing, development, or deployment of . . . current or planned United States long-range strike capabilities. Obviously, that statement was meant to assure us that CPGS would not be constrained or limited. But the kicker in there were the words ``current'' or ``planned.'' That is because there is no current CPGS, and the administration is studying what particular system or systems to move forward with. So while technically correct that there is nothing current or planned, it is also true the constraints in the treaty will limit whatever system we eventually come up with. The question, therefore, is what happens when, as General Chilton urges us, we develop a CPGS in the future. Incidentally, General Chilton is the head of our Strategic Command. He is the person responsible for understanding what the threats are and how we can deliver the right ordnance in the right place with perishable intelligence in a very constrained atmosphere, and that is why his views on this are very important. Yet we conceded to Russian demands to place limits on CPGS. How was this done? The Russians were very clever about this. They knew they were not going to get the United States to back off our plan, so what they said was: You will have to count any of those missiles against the 700 launcher limit on your nuclear delivery vehicles. That is not a good deal. Most of us believe the 700 is too low to begin with. What we will have to do is, for every single one of these, we will have to subtract that number from the 700. So if you have 25, now you are down to 675 launchers for nuclear weapons. That is a constraint. There is no way to describe that in any other terms. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said, on March 29: For the first time, this treaty sets the ceiling, not only for strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, but also for those ones which will be fitted with nonnuclear warheads. The U.S. is carrying out this work, which is why it would be extremely important to set a limit precisely on these types of weapons. I think he was more straightforward about this than the spokesman for the administration. He said: Sure, we put limits on it, and the United States is moving forward on it. That is why we wanted to put limits on it. So despite the relationship between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons--but we would not dare deal with tactical weapons either in the preamble or the treaty. Yet in another concession to the Russians, the preamble to the treaty notes that the parties are ``mindful of the impact of conventionally armed ICBMs and SLBMs on strategic stability.'' Well, first of all, I do not agree with that statement. What is the impact? The impact assumes that we cannot segregate the two, which can be done. Second, are we to believe that tactical nuclear weapons, which the Russians enjoy a huge advantage--some say a 10-to-1 advantage over us--have no impact on strategic stability while conventionally armed ballistic missiles do? What do Russia's neighbors think of that argument, I might wonder. Clearly, these limits on CPGS and the dangerous language in the preamble were concessions to the Russians. It is not in our interest because we do intend to go forward with this. I think, taken to its extreme, the treaty could prevent the United States from acquiring the nonnuclear strategic capabilities necessary to counter today's principal threats, terrorists and regional adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction. We recognize the resolution of ratification has language on this. It does not rescind, and could not rescind, the specific limitation on counting conventionally armed ballistic missiles or mitigate the potential for severe disagreement with the Russians over this issue in the very near future. I do not think we should ratify a treaty without knowing what kind of CPGS systems may be counted and how that will affect the nuclear triad at the much reduced levels now of 700 delivery vehicles. According to the Department of Defense, an assessment on treaty implications for CPGS proposals will not be ready until 2011. So under the resolution approved by the committee, Senators will not know until the treaty enters into force, when, obviously, it would be too late. So the bottom line is, with a 700-launch vehicle limit, and CPGS counting against that limit, we will have fewer nuclear delivery vehicles than we negotiated for in the treaty, and that limit will be a disincentive to develop the CPGS as a result. Second, the language in the preamble regarding the impact of CPGS on strategic stability opens the door to further Russian pressure against the United States not to develop and deploy these systems. Why should we accept these constraints in a treaty that was about nuclear weapons? Now, I think Senator Kerry had three main points, if I distilled it correctly. First was, well, the Russians wanted to limit us from doing this at all. So, in effect, we should be thankful the only limitation was on the number. I do not think that is a very good argument. As I said, we wanted to talk tactical. The Russians said no, so we did not talk tactical in the strategic treaty. There is no reason why, in a strategic nuclear treaty, we need to talk conventional arms either. But we agreed to do that. Another argument that Senator Kerry--well, it goes along with some in Russia who have said: Well, it would be very hard for us to know whether a missile launch was a strategic nuclear weapon or one of these conventional Prompt Global Strike weapons. That is sort of a justification for the Russian position. But most of the experts with whom I have talked say that is not a limitation we need to worry about at all. We could easily agree with the Russians in various ways to assuage their concerns. For example, we can deploy the conventionally armed ballistic missiles in areas that are distinct from our ICBM field, allow them to periodically conduct onsite inspections under separate agreement. That could be done. And there are other mechanisms as well. The key point is that we need these capabilities. I do not think we should limit them in an arms control treaty dealing with strategic nuclear weapons. The other argument is, well, we are not going to develop these for maybe 10 years, which is outside the life of the treaty. First of all, we should not have constraints on developing them at any point. We should not create the precedent that whatever we do with Prompt Global Strike is going to count against our nuclear delivery limits, which is what this treaty does. But, finally, there are programs that are being studied right now in the United States that would allow us to put the Prompt Global Strike capability into service quite quickly. We need it; we need it now. For example, there have been proposals for weapons on conventional Trident missiles, to cite one example, that would count and could be deployed in less than 10 years. The National Academy notified Congress in May of 2007 that conventional Trident missiles could be operationally deployed within 2 years of funding. And there are others. My point is, we should not be saying: Well, because certain things are not going to happen for 10 years, the treaty lasts 10 years, therefore, we do not have to worry about it. It takes a long time to plan these systems, and if they are going to be constrained by what is in the treaty today, they are likely going to be constrained by provisions in future treaties as well. This is a bad precedent. It is one of the reasons we think before we were to proceed with this treaty, we would need to have some resolution either in the preamble or the treaty or the resolution of ratification that would give us assurance that we could develop Prompt Global Strike without detracting from our ability to deliver nuclear warheads as well. I would like to turn to another matter. I mentioned briefly when I began my conversation yesterday morning about the treaty--and that is, that looked at in a larger context, some people have said: Well, this treaty, in and of itself, may not put that many constraints on the United States. Therefore, they are willing to support it. I appreciate the rationale behind the argument. But there is an argument that this treaty has to be considered in its context. That is one of the reasons the people are concerned about the missile defense issue. But another element of context is the whole modernization issue, which is directly related to, but in a slightly different way relevant to the consideration of the treaty. But the other aspect of context is that this is a treaty seen by the administration as moving a step forward toward the President's vision of a world without nuclear weapons. There are a lot of people who disagree with that vision and who believe if this treaty is ratified, then, in effect, the administration's very next step is going to be to begin negotiations to do that. Indeed, administration spokesmen have said precisely that. Secretary Clinton, when New START was signed, talked about the President's vision of the world without nuclear weapons, and said: We are making real progress toward that goal. There have been numerous administration spokesmen who have made the same point. I will just mention three. Under Secretary Tauscher, whom I referred to earlier; Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, who actually negotiated this treaty; and Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow have all indicated the next round of negotiations the administration intends to engage in, beginning immediately after the ratification of the START treaty, is the march toward the President's vision of a world without nuclear weapons. I said I do not share that vision. I do not share it for two reasons: I think it is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve, and I question whether it is a good idea at all. I do not think anybody believes that is something that is achievable in anybody's lifetime, even if it is ever achievable. But, right now, focusing on this diverts attention, as I think this treaty does, from the efforts to deal with the true threats of today: countries such as Iran and North Korea and nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. As I said--in fact, let me quote Dr. Rice, who just recently wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. December 7 is the date. She said: Nuclear weapons will be with us for a long time. After this treaty, our focus must be on stopping dangerous proliferators, not on further reductions in the U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals, which are really no threat to each other or to international stability. I agree with that. Let me quote George Kennan, who wrote this a long time ago, but I think it applies today: The evil of these Utopian enthusiasms was not only or even primarily the wasted time, the misplaced emphasis, the encouragement of false hopes. The evil lay primarily in the fact that those enthusiasms distracted our gaze from the real things that were happening. The cultivation of these Utopian schemes, flattering to our own image of ourselves, took place at the expense of our feeling for reality. I would apply that to today. While we make a big hullabaloo about signing a treaty between Russia and the United States, countries that are no longer enemies, who are bringing down our strategic arsenals because it is in our own self-interest to do so, and ignore the threats--and I should not say ``ignore'' because that is to suggest the administration and others have not spent time working on the problem of Iran and North Korea. I ask, however, how much success we have had and whether we need to devote more attention and effort to resolving those problems that are immediately in front of us rather than dealing with a nonproblem in the START treaty with Russia. Also, I would ask my colleagues to just reflect for a moment on what such a world would be like. You can divide, at least in my lifetime, barely, pre-August 1945, in the last century, and post- August 1945. World War II claimed between 56 and 81 million lives. It is astounding to me we cannot even get a more accurate count of that. That is how destructive and disruptive and cataclysmic World War II was. But it was ended with two atomic weapons. Since that time, the major powers--Russia, the United States, China--have not fired a shot in anger against each other. Major wars such as World War II, World War I--these kinds of wars have been avoided at least in part because the countries that possess these weapons know they cannot be used against each other in a conflict. That is the deterrent value. Would it be nice if they had never been invented? Yes. Except for what they accomplished in ending World War II. But they cannot be uninvented, and the reality is, today it does provide a deterrent for the United States to have these weapons, and 31 other countries in the world rely on that deterrent. So I would just ask those who say it would be wonderful if these weapons did not exist, what would the world look like today, with all of the conflicts that exist, and the opportunity for conventional warfare, unconstrained by the deterrent of a nuclear retaliation? Nobel Prize winner and arms control expert Thomas Schelling recently observed that: In a world without nuclear weapons, countries would maintain an ability to rearm, and that ``every crisis would be a nuclear crisis . . . the urge to preempt would dominate. . .it would be a nervous world.'' Well, to be sure, and that is an understatement. New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote: A world without nuclear weapons sounds nice, but of course that was the world that brought us World War I and World War II. If you like the sound of that, the touchy-feely `Ground Zero' bandwagon is probably for you. General Brent Scowcroft, who is actually a proponent of this treaty wrote: Second, given the clear risks and the elusive benefits inherent in additional deep cuts, the burden of proof should be on those who advocate such reductions to demonstrate exactly how and why such cuts would serve to enhance U.S. security. Absent such a demonstration, we should not pursue additional cuts in the mistaken belief that fewer is ipso facto better. This is a point that was also made by the Bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, the so-called Perry-Schlesinger Commission, in which they concluded: All of the commission members all believe that reaching the ultimate goal of global nuclear elimination would require a fundamental change in geopolitics. Again, quite an understatement. As I said, even the notion that we would be immediately pursuing, trying to reach this goal after the START treaty is ratified is to bring into question--at least I would suggest--in the minds of the 31 countries that depend on our nuclear deterrent for their security, whether this is a wise idea. There are plenty of folks around the world who have commented on this, national leaders who have commented on this. Let me just quote a couple to illustrate the breadth of concern about it. The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy: It-- Referring to the French nuclear deterrent-- is neither a matter of prestige nor a question of rank, it is quite simply the nation's life insurance policy. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, at the conclusion of my remarks, a list of comments and quotations by people who have spoken to this. Let me just cite maybe one.

Mr. KYL. Bill Kristol, who is, I think, a very astute observer of these matters, wrote in the Washington Post in April of last year: Yet to justify a world without nuclear weapons, what Obama would really have to envision is a world without war, or without threats of war . . . The danger is that the allure of a world without nuclear weapons can be a distraction--even an excuse for not acting against real nuclear threats. So while Obama talks of a future without nuclear weapons, the trajectory we are on today is toward a nuclear- and missile-capable North Korea and Iran--and a far more dangerous world. The point of all of the people whom I don't quote here but will include for the Record is that the genie will not be put back in the bottle. Countries will have nuclear weapons. As one of them pointed out, if we were ever, by some magic, able to rid the world of nuclear weapons, the threat of one nation quickly acquiring them would be the most destabilizing thing one could imagine. The reality is, it is not going to happen. The United States moving toward that goal is not going to influence anyone, including North Korea or Syria or Iran or other countries that may mean the United States harm. For those who believe this is a bad idea and who would like to see the President step back from that goal and instead focus more convincingly on dealing with the threats that are near term, ratification of this treaty presents a real problem, especially when the administration talks about the very next thing they want to do after beginning those negotiations is to bring to the Senate the comprehensive test ban treaty which this Senate defeated 11 years ago, and there are even stronger reasons to reject it today. The bottom line is, one can argue that the dramatic reduction in the arsenals of Russia and United States of strategic weapons has been a good thing. It certainly has been an economically justifiable action for both countries because they are costly. But it has had no discernible effect on nuclear proliferation. We have had more proliferation since, after the Cold War, we began to reduce these weapons. They are unlikely, between the United States and Russia, to be a cause of future conflict. It is time for global disarmament, starting with President Obama, to recognize this reality and channel their considerable efforts and good intentions toward the true dangers of which I have spoken. I would like to address one other subject, if I may.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would be happy to do that.

Mr. KYL. I am always happy to yield to my friend, and we always engage in interesting colloquies. I had indicated that, as a predicate to amendments, several of us had opening statements we would like to give. I am ready to go to amendments, but there are a couple of things I would like to say before we do.

Mr. KYL. I will enjoy the colloquy we have when we do get around to it. Mr. President, we don't have time to get into a lot of detail, but there is the question of verification. This is one of the other major matters people have written about, including Senator Bond, who is the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee. It is going to be important for the Senate to have an executive session to go over intelligence, classified information that relates to the question of verification and past Russian compliance or noncompliance with agreements they have made with the United States. In this short period, I wish to rebut something that continues to be repeated and is simply not true or at least the implication is not true--that we have to do this treaty because we need the verification provisions. The implication is that they are good and strong and will be effective. They won't. The verification provisions are far less than we had in the START I treaty. In the view of many people, they are not going to be effective. Secretary of State James Baker, who testified early on this treaty, said: [The verification mechanism in the New START treaty] does not appear as rigorous or extensive as the one that verified the numerous and diverse treaty obligations and prohibitions under START I. This complex part of the treaty is even more crucial when fewer deployed nuclear warheads are allowed than were allowed in the past. My colleague Senator McCain said: The New START treaty's permissive approach to verification will result in less transparency and create additional challenges for our ability to monitor Russia's current and future capabilities. Senator Bond said: New START suffers from fundamental verification flaws that no amount of tinkering around the edges can fix. He also said: The Select Committee on Intelligence has been looking at this issue closely over the past several months . . . There is no doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably verify the treaty's 1,550 limit on deployed warheads. In very simple terms, the reason he is saying that is that there is no overall verification of those warheads. We can look at an individual missile and see how many warheads are on the top, but that doesn't tell us whether they are in compliance with 1,550. That is one of the fundamental flaws. The amount of telemetry, unencrypted telemetry, from Russian missile tests is reduced to zero unless the Russians decide to give us more than zero. There is no longer onsite monitoring of the mobile missile final assembly facility at Votkinsk, which has existed for all these years under START I. The Russians didn't want us hanging around there anymore. We didn't even fight for that. It is a critical verification issue with respect to potentially a railcar or other mobile missiles the Russians will be developing. Secretary Gates spoke to that eloquently with respect to the verification provisions in START I. There are fewer onsite inspections. And I can't imagine the Russians would declare a facility, which is the only place we get to visit, and then be doing something nefarious at that particular declared facility. It is the undeclared facilities that represent a big part of the problem. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said: New START's verification provisions will provide little or no help in detecting illegal activity at locations the Russians fail to declare, are off-limits to U.S. inspectors, or are underground or otherwise hidden from our satellites. He makes the point, when he refers to satellites, those are sometimes referred to as our national assets. They do good and they tell us a lot, but they can't possibly tell us all we need to know. That is why we had much more vigorous verification under START I. There are other things we will be discussing when we get into the classified session on this, but let me conclude this point and my presentation with this reality. We will find--I can say this much, at least, in open session--that the Russians have violated major provisions of most of the agreements we have entered into with them for a long, long time: START I, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, the conventional forces in Europe treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, and, by the way, others I won't mention. The concern would be for a breakout. Today, Russia and the United States are not enemies. That is why a lot of this is of less concern than it ordinarily would be. The big concern is just that ultimate concern of a breakout. What if all of a sudden they decided to confront us over some issue relating to a country on their border or something else and we were not aware they had gained a significant advantage over us? Again, the preparation of the United States to deal with that takes a long time. I won't get into it here, but it takes a long time. That is why verification and intelligence is so important. I have talked about two things this morning: the conventional global strike and the verification issues, as well as the general concept of a world without nuclear weapons, which, unfortunately, this treaty, at least in the minds of a lot of people, is viewed as a predicate for and which would be very dangerous. There are some other issues I eventually wish to speak to, including the whole question of whether, as a rationale for this treaty, the reset relations with Russia have really provided very much help to the United States and whether this treaty should be used as a way of assuaging Russian sensitivities or convincing them to cooperate with us on other things. Others have talked about tactical nuclear weapons, and there will be amendments we will be offering to deal with that, and we can discuss that later. There is also the very important matter of the Bilateral Consultative Commission, recognizing that this group of Russian and American negotiators could in secret change terms of the treaty. The resolution of ratification provided for a notice provision, but it is not adequate. I am hoping my colleagues will agree with us on that. We will provide a longer term for notification, with an ability of the Senate to reject terms that are deemed central to the treaty and for which we really need to be providing our consent or nonconsent. Then finally, something I alluded to here, which is that the United States really ought to be spending more time dealing with the threats that I think are more real to us today, threats coming from places such as Iran and North Korea, rather than assuming that our top priority is to rush it right up to Christmas in order to get it done. We will have more opportunity to talk about all of those matters later. Hopefully this afternoon, we can begin debating amendments, and we do need to get squared away the issue that Senator Corker and Senator Kerry talked about, which is how we go about doing that in a way that does not cut off people's rights to offer amendments which are to the resolution of ratification. Exhibit 1 Additional Statements on the Folly of Zero ``The presumption that U.S. movement toward nuclear disarmament will deliver nonproliferation success is a fantasy. On the contrary, the U.S. nuclear arsenal has itself been the single most important tool for nonproliferation in history, and dismantling it would be a huge setback.'' \94\ ``The Obama administration's push for nuclear disarmament has a seductive intellectual and political appeal, but its main points are in contradiction with reality. And when a security policy is built on fantasy, someone usually gets hurt.'' \95\ Kenneth Waltz, leading arms controller and professor emeritus of political science at UC Berkeley: ``We now have 64 years of experience since Hiroshima. It's striking and against all historical precedent that for that substantial period, there has not been any war among nuclear states.'' \96\ ``And even if Russia and China (and France, Britain, Israel, India, and Pakistan) could be coaxed to abandon their weapons, we'd still live with the fear that any of them could quickly and secretly rearm.'' \97\ Secretary James Schlesinger, post-Reykjavik (1986): ``Nuclear arsenals are going to be with us as long as there are sovereign states with conflicting ideologies. Unlike Aladdin with his lamp, we have no way to force the nuclear genie back into the bottle. A world without nuclear weapons is a utopian dream.'' \98\ Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France: ``It [the French nuclear deterrent] is neither a matter of prestige nor a question of rank, it is quite simply the nation's life insurance policy.'' \99\ ``The idea of a world free of nuclear weapons is not so much an impossible dream as an impossible nightmare.'' \100\ ``A world that was genuinely free of nuclear weapons would look very different. War between big powers would once again become thinkable. In previous eras, the rise and fall of great powers has almost always been accompanied by war. The main reason for hoping that the rise of China will be an exception to this grisly rule is that both the U.S. and China have nuclear weapons. They will have to find other ways to act out their rivalries.'' \101\ William Kristol: ``Yet to justify a world without nuclear weapons, what Obama would really have to envision is a world without war, or without threats of war . . . The danger is that the allure of a world without nuclear weapons can be a distraction--even an excuse for not acting against real nuclear threats . . . So while Obama talks of a future without nuclear weapons, the trajectory we are on today is toward a nuclear- and missile-capable North Korea and Iran-- and a far more dangerous world.'' \102\ ``As long as a nukeless world remains wishful thinking and pastoral rhetoric, we'll be all right. But if the Nobel Committee truly cares about peace, its members will think a little harder about trying to make it a reality. Open a history book and you'll see what the modern world looks like without nuclear weapons. It is horrible beyond description.'' \103\ ``So when last we saw a world without nuclear weapons, human beings were killing one another with such feverish efficiency that they couldn't keep track of the victims to the nearest 15 million. Over three decades of industrialized war, the planet averaged about 3 million dead per year. Why did that stop happening?'' \104\ ``A world with nuclear weapons in it is a scary, scary place to think about. The industrialized world without nuclear weapons was a scary, scary place for real. But there is no way to un-ring the nuclear bell. The science and technology of nuclear weapons is widespread, and if nukes are outlawed someday, only outlaws will have nukes.'' \105\ endnotes \94\ Keith Payne, ``A Vision Shall Guide Them?'' National Review. November 2, 2009. \95\ Id. \96\ Jonathan Tepperman, ``Why Obama Should Learn to Love the Bomb.'' Newsweek. August 29,2009. \97\ Id. \98\ Sec. James Schlesinger, ``The Dangers of a Nuclear- Free World.'' Time. October 27, 1986. \99\ French President Nicolas Sarkozy Nuclear Policy speech, March 21, 2008. \100\ Gideon Rachman, ``A nuclear-free world? No Thanks.'' Financial Times. May 4, 2010. \101\ Id. \102\ William Kristol, ``A World Without Nukes--Just Like 1939.'' Washington Post. April 7, 2009. \103\ David Von Drehle, ``Want Peace? Give a Nuke the Nobel.'' Time. October 11, 2009. \104\ Id. \105\Id.

Mr. KYL. I think it is true, Senator Kerry said that under the precedents of the Senate, we first have to attempt to amend the treaty and the preamble, and to do otherwise or to mix the two up would require unanimous consent.