 My name is Clark Murdock. I'm a senior advisor here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. My speaking part in tonight's event will be soon over. I direct the project on nuclear issues. This is our first event of pony debates, the issues that we've held during this academic year of 2010, 2011. You all have information that has a brief bio for both of our debaters today. And it will be moderated by Kevin Kallmeier, who is a former debater himself during this time and continues a tradition of coming out of the Taylor Debate Intern Program and fostering debate. I participated in the first debate. And I can tell you participating in a debate on an issue is quite different than making a presentation at a panel, as you'll find out. Kevin will go through the ground rules for the debate, and then we'll begin. Thank you all for attending. Hi. I just wanted to thank everyone for coming, for taking your Tuesday night and spending it here to talk about the new START treaty. I'm just going to serve as moderator, and that just means that I'm going to make sure that they are the focus of this and that it gets moving along. I'd like to thank both of them, Paula DeSutter and Mort Halperin for coming, Pony for putting this on, and CSIS for hosting. The format is modified from a traditional college debate format. We're going to be debating the question, should the United States Congress ratify the new START? And answering that question in the negative will be Paula DeSutter, and Mort Halperin will be answering in the affirmative. We're going to begin with opening remarks, which will be 10 minutes, followed by an extended question period, where the debaters will ask each other questions. I will ask questions as a moderator, and then there will be an extended floor Q&A period. The debate's going to finish with closing statements from each of the debaters, and then we'll be on our way. I would like everyone to give Paula DeSutter a big hand for starting this debate off. Thank you so much. I like all human beings relish the opportunity to speak in public, especially in a debate forum with somebody very smart who can attack me and eat me up for lunch. So thank you very much for having me. I oppose the new START treaty. I suppose, in theory, down the road I could be persuaded otherwise, but I doubt it. I especially oppose the passage of the new START treaty in the lame duck session. I'll tell you the three reasons why I oppose ratification of new START. First, I think that the treaty is extremely flawed, and I think that many of these flaws are exemplified by the articles in the resolution of ratification. Second, I think that while the Republican senators who have had critiques of new START have been attributed with the argument that it's just politics as usual, I think the resolution of ratification, which was supported by all Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, validates the concerns that were raised by Republicans and by other critics. And I think that the Russian Federation response to the resolution of ratification reinforces the point that those critiques were valid. I served for many years as the Assistant Secretary for Verification and Compliance at the State Department, so you will not be surprised to discover that, for me, among the most significant flaws in the new START treaty is its lack of effective verification. This lack of effective verification is evidenced by Senator Bond, who is the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, his opposition to ratification of the new START treaty and his floor statement of November 18th. I'm very concerned that the administration's rebuttal to Senator Bond contains what, for me, are blatant falsehoods. And I think those exemplify what critics believe are overselling points for new START. So let me start with the first one, new START's flawed. Let's go to the Senate resolution of ratification. I think you can. There are all of the Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted for the Senate resolution of ratification. There would be, if it goes to the floor, there will be additional amendments, I assume, only three Republican members voted for it, and five opposed passing the resolution of ratification and submitted minority views. All of those, as you probably know, can be found in the executive report issued out of the Foreign Relations Committee. The concerns about START in the resolution of ratification are serious ones, as are those in the minority views. There are 10 conditions, three understandings, and 13 declarations. The senators' concerns can be addressed, the concerns they address can be categorized into four groups. First, contrary to the administration's position that no Russian violation would be militarily significant because the US would merely increase the alert status of our forces, the Senate expressed concern regarding US ability to monitor Russian compliance and detect noncompliance or breakout, as well as expressing the importance of strict Russian compliance. The Senate addressed the need for US modernization of its nuclear forces and delivery systems and the importance of maintenance of a robust US nuclear triad. Third, the Senate expressed its concerns about the US right to expand its US missile defenses and rejected further limits, including any negotiated in the bilateral consultative commission created under new START. To some degree, that's minimized because what they say is you have to bring it to the Senate for advice and consent. And finally, they raised concerns in numerous places about the US right to deploy conventional strategic systems without them counting against the new START limits. While the effort that members took to address many of the concerns that we've expressed, those of us who are critics about new START are commendable, they fell short of turning this sows ear into a silk purse. I think that rather than a silk purse, you could characterize new START as a burlap bag with great big holes in it. And those of us who are opposed to the treaty believe that a burlap bag with holes is not a good enough tool for carrying US national security. Now, many in the administration and many supporters of new START have said, look, the critics' concerns are unfounded. There's really no basis for it. There's no limit on missile defense. There's no limit on conventional strike. However, on October 29th, as reported in Moscow's Interfax News Agency, the head of the Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee said that based on the SFRC resolution of ratification, the Russian Federation would have to reconsider ratification. He specifically identified three conditions in the resolution of ratification that he and the military found unacceptable. First, it is, I'm quoting, it is especially emphasized that it is US senators understanding that strategic range non-nuclear weapon systems do not fall under the treaty. The second understanding presumes that the Americans are trying to apply the new START treaty to rail mobile ICBMs in case they are built. And third, they say at the same time that the new START treaty will on no account limit the Pentagon's efforts toward deploying missile defenses. Now, let me remind you that those are all very strong critiques. Those issues are critiques that Republicans and opponents of START have levied at this agreement and which have been waived aside. Those aren't valid concerns. And yet the Russian Federation says there's ambiguity about that. We disagree with it. We may have to reconsider. Now, let me turn to the lack of effective verification. Senator Bond, after some of us who have been out there kind of by ourselves raising questions about verification, spoke on the floor on November 18th about the lack of effective verification of the START treaty. One of the things the senator said, and I'm going to read you some quotes. The Select Committee on Intelligence has been looking at this issue closely over the past several months as the vice chairman of this committee. I don't know if you all know this, but unlike most committees, you don't have a chairman and ranking member. On Senate Intel, you have a chairman and vice chairman. It's a much higher, OK, maybe not much higher. It's a higher level of responsibility. As the vice chairman of this committee, I've reviewed the key intelligence on our ability to monitor this treaty and heard from our intelligence professionals. There is no doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably verify the treaty's 1550 limit on deployed warheads. As an initial hurdle, the 10 annual warhead inspections allowed under the treaty permit us to sample only 2% to 3% of the total Russian force. Further, under new START, unlike its predecessor, any given missile can have any number of warheads loaded on it. So even if the Russians fully cooperated in every inspection, these inspections cannot provide conclusive evidence of whether the Russians are complying with the warhead limit. Let us take an example. Say the United States found the missile was loaded with more warheads than the Russians declared. Now, the Russian declaration isn't an annual declaration. It's a declaration when you show up at the base. And if they move missiles around, all those change between that and the next one. While this would be a faulty and suspicious declaration by Russia, we could not necessarily infer from it that they had violated the 1550 warhead limit, especially because the Russians could always make some excuse for faulty declarations. I totally and completely agree with that. And so where are we on time? Oh, new tech. And so I think that all of these are very serious flaws. I think that this is a personal view. The hearings that were held in the Foreign Relations Committee, at least, I can't really speak to the Armed Services Committee as well or Intel, were flawed in that only a couple of the many witnesses that were called before the Foreign Relations Committee were opponents or critics of New START. I don't know that you could call Bob Joseph and Eric Adelman opponents, but at least those who raised concerns. And so I think that this is a treaty whose time has not yet come. I think an effort to jam this through in the lame duck session to get it through by the end of December would be a mistake. I think it would ill serve the American public because I think we need to have a little bit more debate about this. You can argue that the Russians pose a threat. You can argue that the Russians don't pose a threat. You can argue that we need modernization or don't. But in any case, there needs to be more debate on the Senate. The Senate debate on the floor, should it come up, needs to be extensive, and in my view, needs to include an understanding on the part of members of certain things, including the classified letter written by Senator Bond, which Senator Bond has said is available in the Senate Security Office as well as the negotiating record, which has been made available in limited circumstances to members. And so with that, I'll stop my opening remarks with points of sand left. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. I suspect my opponent ran out of things to say against the treaty, which is why she stopped a little bit early. I'd be happy to continue. There are many things to say about the treaty, so I may use her last few seconds of her time. I think we need to start by asking the question of what advances the national security interests of the United States. And in particular, we need to ask, is the world with the treaty ratified, one in which the United States can more effectively advance and protect its security interests, than the world without the treaty? Because the third world, this magic world in which we have somehow a treaty which is better in some ways, different in some ways, has some of the old inspection procedures in it, is not a viable option. President of the United States gets to negotiate treaties. The question for the Senate is whether to give its advice and consent to ratification. And I would argue that the Senate should give its advice and consent to ratification. I think the process that has gone on so far cannot be called rushed. I think if the Senate was able to debate this treaty for a week or two before it adjourned, that that would be full and ample time, consistent with the amounts of time that the Senate has devoted to previous treaties, and that we need to decide the issue on the merits and not on the allegation that somehow, because we're doing it sooner than some people want, the treaty is being rushed. I see nothing about the process that is rushed. Nor, as I say, do I think we can decide whether we're for ratification of this treaty simply by looking at the question of whether it is fully and completely verifiable, whether there are limits that we would like to have that aren't in it, or that there are some constraints in it that we would not want to have. Rather, I think we have to ask the question, how does the world with this treaty advance the security interests of the United States as compared to a world without this treaty? And I think it is worth noting that the people who get paid to make these judgments, the professionals who get paid to make these judgments in the American government, the career military officers, and the senior civilian officials of the Defense Department are in unanimous agreement that this treaty advances the security interests of the United States. When the military are not for a treaty, they will tell you that. And I think we have to take them at their word that this treaty in fact advances our security interests. And indeed, nothing that I've heard so far this evening really even goes to that question of will we be better off with this treaty than without this treaty? Even if you take everything is true that was said, which I do not, I would still argue that this treaty is in our interest. This treaty provides an ability for the United States to have much greater confidence in how big the Russian force will be and how it will be deployed than it would be without this treaty. It enables us to make modest reductions in our own strategic forces and with confidence that the Russians will follow suit and that we will not have an asymmetric situation in our strategic forces. It also contributes to improving our relations with Russia and as the administration has testified, increases the likelihood of Russian cooperation on the real serious nuclear threats that we face of North Korea, of Iran, of dispersal of nuclear weapons to terrorist groups and organizations. Those are the threats that are most likely to occur and those are the threats for which we need the cooperation of Russia, which does not mean we should sign an agreement with them that is not in our interest, but it means it is in our interest to seek to do what we have done, which is to negotiate an agreement with them and then to move forward to the ratification of that agreement. Now we're told that the treaty is quote not effectively verified and I think we have to ask the question, how do you decide whether a treaty and the limits in a treaty are in the American interest in relation to verification? The question cannot be, are we sure that we will have 100% confidence that we would detect the first instance of Russian cheating? The question has to be taking account the limits and the value of those limits to the United States and the possibility of some degree of Russian cheating is it in our interest to have the limit in the treaty as opposed to not constraining the Russian military forces? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee report suggests that our notion of what is acceptable verification goes back to the Reagan administration. In fact, it goes back substantially further than that. Goes back to the debates that began this process of arms control negotiations. Goes back to the debates in the Pentagon in the late 1960s because the last time the Joint Chiefs of Staff held the view that a limit was not acceptable unless it could be 100% verified was in 1968. At that point, the administration was planning to put forward a proposal to the Russians to the Soviet Union then as it was to ban the further production of any ballistic missiles or submarines. And the American position was, the Joint Chiefs position then was we can only include things in the agreement if we could be absolutely certain that there could be no Russian cheating. And so a Navy officer came to me one day and said, well, we can't include submarines in the agreement. And I said, well, why is that? And he said, because the CIA has just come out with its estimate that says that the Russians could cheat on an agreement prohibiting them from building any new ballistic missile submarines. And I said, well, what does it say? And he said, it says the Russians could build as many as three submarines and we wouldn't detect it that only if they build a fourth submarine would we have very high confidence of detection. And I said, well, how many submarines do we have now? And he said 41. And I said, how many submarines are we planning to have 10 years from now? He said 41. I said, how many submarines do the Russians have now? He said, I think one. And I said, how many do we think they will have 10 years from now? He said 50. And I said, so you prefer a world in which we do not limit this and the Russians have 50 submarines and we have 40 to a world in which we have 41 and the Russians have three until we can be sure of detecting the fourth submarine. He said, that's right. The principle is you don't include something in the agreement unless it could be 100% verified. And I looked at him and I said, I think I'm going to win this fight. And in fact, I did. And the Joint Chiefs changed their position then to what is clearly the correct position, which is that you ask yourself about each limit, including the warhead limit in this treaty. Is it in our interest to have this limit? Recognizing that there obviously could be some amount of Russian cheating. The question is, how much Russian cheating could there be before we detect it? And the question is, what is the strategic significance of that Russian cheating? We have seen no such analysis because no such analysis that could be presented that would be the slightest bit persuasive. The fact is that the margin of deterrence that we have of our ability to deter a Russian attack is so great that the margin of cheating that the Russians could possibly do is simply insignificant to the security interests of the United States. And so I think this treaty is in fact adequately verified. I think it is in our interest for the reasons that I've suggested. And that we should expect, as we always have in these treaties with the Russians, disagreements about precisely what provisions make. That's why we have a precision in the treaty for a negotiating body to settle disputes. We should not be surprised that the Russian rhetoric is different than our rhetoric. None of that goes to the heart of the treaty, which is appropriately verified, effectively verified limits on warheads and missiles, which give us greater confidence that we will know what the Russians are doing, greater confidence that we will be able to reduce our forces while maintaining an effective deterrent, and will enable us to move forward with the Russians to deal with the real nuclear threats, which we face from rogue states and from potential terrorist organizations. Thank you. We're now going to shift to the cross-examination period, where Paula DeSutter will have three questions for Mort Halperin and then vice versa. Do I ask them all three at once? You can ask them one at a time, if you'd like. By the way, it was somewhat unkind of Mr. Halperin to finish that much early, when I finished early for the first time in my entire life. But I'll try to put petty personal problems aside. My first question for Mr. Halperin is to seek to elicit from him a discussion of the Constitution's requirement that a supermajority of 67 votes be required by the Constitution for giving advice and consent to treaties and why you agree that the Constitution requires that supermajority to ensure confidence that members' concerns as reflecting America's concerns are adequately addressed. Well, as I understand the history, the provision is in the treaty to prevent the abolition of slavery, is in the Constitution to prevent the abolition of slavery. So it does not have a notable origin. I think it probably doesn't make sense and I would not be at all unhappy to have us debate a constitutional amendment which provided for some lesser majority to ratify treaties. But that's what the treaty has now and therefore that's the vote we need to move forward. But I think that there are 67 votes in the Senate now for ratification of the treaty if the treaty is brought up for a vote and if members agree that there has been adequate debate and it's time for an up and down vote on the treaty. So I'm not sure I understand what the question. That's all right. I think you answered it far more fully than I would have expected. Second, in the absence of new start, let's say not only do we not do this during the lame duck but we never do it ever, what strategic nuclear threat do you envision Russia posing to the United States? And what political retaliation do you fear from Russia if we don't ratify the treaty? Well, I think retaliation is the wrong word. I think as the administration has said, we have had much greater cooperation from Russia in dealing with other nuclear problems with Iran, with North Korea, and with the question of how to deal with so-called goose nukes and keep them from getting into the hands of terrorists. That we have had that cooperation because we have dealt with the Russians in a straightforward way in terms of renewing the kind of nuclear arms control agreement that they wanted to have with us in terms of an agreement that was legally enforceable, that was verifiable, and that is in the interest of both countries. And I think that we run some risk that if we do not ratify this treaty that we will get less cooperation on the things that are important to us. I'm sorry, you had a first part of the question. No, I think it was just what, if there's no start, is Russia gonna pose a strategic nuclear threat? Oh, right, I think not. I think our ability to deter a Russian nuclear attack is very great with or without the treaty. I think there are great margins of safety that we have in the size force that we have and its ability to survive a Russian attack, but I do believe that we will have more confidence in our ability to do that, that we will be able to do that at less cost and at lower levels if the treaty is ratified than if it is not ratified. Thank you. Finally, are there any flaws or conditions in the international environment or with regard to Russia that would lead you to oppose ratification of this treaty or indeed any treaty with Russia? And if so, what are they? Well, I think you have to take the treaty on its merits and I do not believe we should trust the Russians to violate, to observe agreements. I think we need to have verification measures, both unilateral measures and agreements not to interfere with unilateral measures, which I think is one of the important elements in this treaty, but that we also have to maintain effective forces to deal with whatever the threat may be. I do not believe that one's conclusions about how evil another regime may be should lead us to be not interested in negotiating agreements that are in our security interests. The whole point of arms control was to say that agreements between potential adversaries, countries that had conflicting interests that did not trust each other, could be in the interest of both countries by reducing the likelihood of a conflict that neither side wanted. Ronald Reagan knew that the Soviet Union was an evil empire and he knew that getting rid of nuclear weapons was a good thing and he knew that arms control agreements that you could verify were in the interests of the United States. And I think all those propositions are correct. Now, do you have your questions for? Yeah, I'd like to read a quote to you and ask you whether you were misquoted. Oh no. In the post Cold War area, many provisions of the 1991 Starter Court, which mandated deep nuclear weapons cuts, quote, are no longer necessary. We don't believe we're in a place where we need to have the detailed lists of weapons and verification measures, which is what you said in explaining why the administration was seeking a treaty which had no verification provisions in it. Well, you misquoted, have you changed your mind or is there some way? Could you read the date of the interview? The interview is May, 2007. I remember it oh so fondly. One of the things that is certainly true and I think that Mr. Halperin asks a valid question, which is how would you compare verification of new start against where you were during your lead of negotiations with Russia on these same issues? And let me tell you that the answer has to do with being in Washington far too long. And it is certainly true that the proposal that we had with Russia for a post-start agreement was not going to be effectively verifiable. And I knew that. I had been handed, these are the transparency measures that you are permitted to pursue. There was one issue that was left open and I fought for a year to ensure that we had the capability to move the telemetry protocol into the post-start agreement. But no, we were not pursuing something that was effectively verifiable. Now, why would I as the assistant secretary for verification compliance for seven or eight years be willing to do that? One of the things that I knew with certitude was that when I took that agreement up to the hill, my, the people on the foreign relations committee, both on the Republican side and the Democratic side would have said, Paula, get yourself back to the negotiating table and get more verification. I knew that. What has not happened in this instance is that the foreign relations committee did not send my successor back to the negotiating treaty to do a better job. So it is fair. Now, the other thing that I would say is that we were pursuing a Moscow treaty approach where we were going to acknowledge that we were not going to be able to achieve effective verification. I am, the start counting rules, the attribution limits that we had in the start treaty are an imperfect approach. What it means is that you have, let's say you have five different types of missiles. You know that how many flight tests have been performed for each of those missiles, how many warheads each of those missiles is capable of carrying. And so what you say is, we will attribute to you this number of warheads. Now, for the United States, that did indeed mean that we were going to be attributed with more warheads than we actually possessed in our inventory. But what it meant for verification is that when in the start verification regime, we went and performed a reentry vehicle onsite inspection, which bear with me now, I will always refer in the rest of this night to RVOSI. When we went to do an RVOSI with Russia, in many cases we couldn't verify, we addressed a lot of those issues. We created the same approach that this administration is now saying is a brand new approach. But if we found that the Russian missile that we were inspecting had one more or two more or five more reentry vehicles, then what that missile was attributed as being able to carry, that was a major violation. It meant that those attribution rules, those counting rules had been invalidated. It meant that there was a question about not only that missile, but all Russian missiles of that type. What the New START Treaty does is it erases all that. And it says, oh, we have this brand new thing. We're gonna count every reentry vehicle on every missile. It's not true. In a given year, they're gonna count two to 3%. And if they go to a Russian missile, which they have been handed a piece of paper when they got to the facility, that says, here's how many warheads on these missiles, and they pick a missile, and there are more reentry vehicles than, let's say, it was supposed to have three and it had 10, it doesn't tell you anything about any other Russian missile. Now, it is certainly true. There's no perfect verification. Verification is by its nature, something where you and another sovereign nation are engaging in agreement and you are trying to find out something about their strategic ballistic missiles, their reentry vehicles, I mean, sensitive national security stuff. For the United States, a treaty is the supreme law of the land. There are rules and procedures, and while we would include in some of our reports, called the Pell Reports, what's going on with US compliance, I didn't worry about it that much because if the United States was violating an arms control agreement, people from the Pentagon could go to jail. That's not necessarily true of other countries. So, the provisions in New START even those that are attributed as being brand new and very good are not all that good. Those things that we were pursuing in the Bush administration were not, we were not pursuing effective verification, but let me tell you that one of the things that we did have was the ban on encryption and the provision in the encryption protocol for all telemetry and telemetry data to be shared. This administration gave it up. Telemetry is the technical data that those conducting a missile test perform and broadcast or collect and dump on their missiles. So, they know it's missile engineer stuff. They gave it up. They were not pursuing the same level of verification. Long answer. Long answer. Well, I want to ask you as my second question whether you also said in that interview that verification provisions like on-site inspections have not always worked out well with Russians, sometimes hiding weapons from US view. Verification is highly intrusive and expensive, but you're never going to know how many warheads they're going to have on various missiles. So, the limits that you were counting on were ones that were going to expire and you had said you didn't need any new ones. But I want to ask you about modernization because I'm pleased to see that Republicans have suddenly found an interest in the modernization of the nuclear arsenal. And I want to ask you two questions about that. One, would you... The Kyrskian is one, because it's a subject matter, but you get the answer at length, so I wouldn't object. Would you prefer the Bush administration's plan for the modernization of the nuclear infrastructure or the Obama administration's plan for the modernization of the nuclear infrastructure? And second, do you think the requirements to modernize the nuclear infrastructure are greater or less if the Senate fails to ratify the start treaty? Mr. Halperin has been in D.C. for a long time. And one of the things that he knows is that after a while you develop a very quirky sense of humor. And... I came with one actually. Did you? I might have two, but then I was coming from California and everybody out here thinks we're quirky. One of my favorite things in the entire start record, new start record, the testimonies and debates, all that, was a question, it was one of the first hearings, and it was Senator Clinton, no, I'm sorry, Secretary Clinton, Gates and the chairman. And one of the members asked Secretary Gates, what do you think about this requirement that Republicans are pushing to modernize the nuclear infrastructure? And okay, it is true. I sat at my computer and laughed until I cried. Secretary Gates said, I've been the secretary for years now and I've been trying to get this done and it took an arms control agreement. And I thought, you know, it's a strange town. I am not going to sit up here and say that we in the Bush administration, I mean, it wasn't exactly something I was getting paid for, but I'm not going to say that we did half enough, a 30th as much, a 20th as much, is what needed to be done to modernize our nuclear infrastructure. We did not. The problem that the senators are trying to address in terms of nuclear infrastructure and nuclear modernization is a problem that has been growing for well over a decade. And so I wouldn't say whether I support the Bush plan or the Obama plan, I think I would probably support the Kyle plan. I think that the requirements for nuclear modernization are significant with and without New START. I think, and that's why some of us read Obama administration statements as saying, look, we'll give Senator Kyle this much for nuclear modernization if we can get advice and consent for New START by the end of the year. But if you guys aren't going to do it by the end of the year, all bets are off. Either they believe it and they understand that we need this nuclear modernization or they don't. And I think that it is rather a good thing that this debate is happening because I think that this is nuclear modernization that we really need. I think our systems are antiquated, our infrastructure is antiquated. And I do believe that an infrastructure and nuclear warheads designed for the Cold War need to be modernized, designed, tested in order to help the United States best deter, best respond to the threats that we're facing as we go into this very dangerous period we're in. You suggested that the administration had engaged in a number of falsehoods in defending the treaty. Would you pick the one you think is most serious and explain what you think was false about the administration statement? Well, that was sort of a low softball, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I think the administration has said that they are going to count every nuclear warhead on Russian missiles. And they've indicated, they're not that clear that the reentry vehicle on-site inspection visions are new. They're not new. One of the things when I started at the State Department in 2002 was I said, the Russians have been violating the RVOSI provisions for years. What are we gonna do about it? And there were some adjustments that were made. Am I thoroughly happy with them? No, but they were somewhat better. The only thing I can try to figure out that the Obama administration is saying they are doing new on reentry vehicle on-site inspections is to let the U.S. side look at the covers that they use. Let's see, an example, I would put this upside down but I still got stuff in it. I have this, I put it over a reentry vehicle and it does not permit you to know with certainty how many RVs are on a particular post-boost vehicle. We now get to look inside them. I think that that's the only difference. I've not been able to detect any others. And so when they say that they're going to count every reentry vehicle for all of the Russian missiles, it is not true. It's a 10-year treaty, you get two to 3% per year with the 10 inspections per year, assuming that you use all 10 of those inspections for reentry vehicle on-site inspections, you are not going to count every reentry vehicle, especially since any reentry vehicle that you inspect is not going to tell you anything about the rest of the inventory, whether that inventory is another missile of that type, different missiles of the same type. Let's say, I'll use SS-18s, okay? You could have an SS-18 with one, you could have an SS-18 with eight, you could have one with 10, you could have one with 14. So if I do an inspection and this reentry, this missile has one reentry vehicle, what does that tell me about how to count the others? Nothing. If it has eight, nothing, 10, nothing, 14, nothing. So the reentry vehicle on-site inspections don't give me a global insight into the number of their missiles. Moreover, the only missiles I'm gonna get to inspect are those that are the deployed missiles at declared bases. They're allowed to have non-deployed mobile missiles. So, and they can flight test their ballistic missiles with as many reentry vehicles as they want. Let's take the SS-18. Let's say I am, you know, I test it with, okay, this is not a real case example because I don't think we've ever known this, but I'm just trying to do it because I'm a poor math major. Okay, let's say I flight test an SS-18 with 20 RVs, but the only number I find on an RV OSI is eight. What does that tell me about whether they're meeting the 1550 limit? Nothing, but what it does tell me is that any SS-18s that are non-deployed, not limited by this treaty, and this is especially important when it comes to mobile missiles, those missiles could have as many RVs in deployment as they want. That's a breakout capability. That breakout capability could happen with a nanosecond of US knowledge that it's happening. You're not gonna get the kind of early warning, and the only option the administration has talked about for what we're gonna do about that is that, well, we'll put all of our strategic missiles on higher alert. Well, it does give the Russians a very, very significant capability. That's why when the military says there's no thing as such thing as a militarily significant violation, they're wrong. I didn't like the military significant thing to begin with, but even using those terms, it's a very weak argument, and we could be facing a real threat. They could have done things under this treaty. They could have extended the start verification procedures. Easy, extend it for five years. Once you get the agreement, you say we're extending it for five years or until we get the new agreement. They didn't do that. They said they were gonna get a bridging agreement for verification. Senator Luger even passed legislation to enable that. They didn't do it. Now they come to the Senate and say, you must ratify start because it's so urgent. Well, if it was so urgent, why didn't you extend start until you had this done, and why didn't you get a bridging agreement? Why didn't you pursue an executive agreement to try to get the verification measures and provisions? Verification measures are not just telemetry. It's not just NTM, it's not just on-site inspection. It's the construction of the treaty. It's location restrictions, movement notifications, all of the things that were there in start, and I didn't even think the original start treaty was all that verifiable. Okay, INF, I'm a big fan. But it was pretty darn good. So, there you go. Great, thanks for those great answers. Now I'm gonna ask two questions for each of the panelists and then it will be thrown down to the audience. So, I wanted to ask Ms. Dr. Halperin to talk about this argument for about Russia relations. It seems like one of the main arguments that have been made recently is that Russia is cooperating more, for example, in Afghanistan in the North for supply lines into the country. Seems like there's kind of two worlds. One is that Russia wants to cooperate because they don't want an unstable Central Asia where they have a lot of interest. And so they're gonna cooperate no matter what. Another world is that Russia will only cooperate with us if we politically do what they want. In that instance, that's the start treaty. Why do you think that would, do you think they're not gonna cooperate with us if we don't sign the start treaty? And if not, why wouldn't they just stop cooperating when they disagree on things like missile defense in NATO? Well, they didn't, they've cooperated more since we had the reset of our relationship than they cooperated before. So I think it's always the case that countries will do what they can seem to be in their interest. But their interests are complicated and it depends somewhat on what we are offering them in terms of a relationship. I think the Russians clearly wanted a new strategic arms limitation treaty which was legally binding and which had effective verification procedures in it, something the Bush administration had denied them. And I think the administration position was we will do that if the treaty is in our interest. And I think it negotiated a treaty that was in its interest and that provided a framework including the general political quote reset of the relationship which in fact has led to greater Russian cooperation in Afghanistan. They are now allowing the supply routes which they weren't before. They are now cooperating more in Iran than before. That does not mean we should accept the treaty which is not in our interest. But it means that it is an added advantage for a treaty which is in our interest. And I think this treaty clearly is in the interest of the United States and it gets us this added advantage of greater Russian willingness to cooperate with us. Okay, my second question is about the political process of START. There seems to be a lot of Republican calls to not pass START and the lame duck sessions but not too many calls that they won't pass it at all. What is your problem with pushing START into the 112th Congress in January? Well, I haven't actually said anything about that. I think the question is what is the reason for the delay? And I haven't seen anything other than the statement that there's not enough time that the thing was rushed. In fact, there were a very large number of hearings. There were all these statistics in their committee report about the number of days compared to the number of days on other treaties. There was a request to see the negotiating record which was met. There were a number of questions presented to the administration. My understanding is all the questions have been answered. There are no outstanding questions. And so the issue is what is the reason not to bring up the treaty? The hearings have been completed. The questions have been answered. The materials that senators have asked to see have all been provided to them. It isn't clear to me what they would do with the additional time. Now, there is a question of the appropriate amount of foretime for a treaty. And Senator Kyle suggested if we had two weeks, he thought that would be enough. I would hope Senator Reid could find two weeks. I don't think that's an unreasonable amount of time to spend debating a treaty on the floor. So I would turn around and say this Congress has done all this work. If it's not passed in the next month, it will have to start all over again in the next Congress. I see no reason to wait unless there's some specific reason to do so. And just a cry that, quote, is being rushed, I find not persuasive. Thanks. And to the negative debater. One thing that you've talked a lot about is verification. And one thing that you've written was that the worst case for really a treaty is if it has a low degree of verifiability and you then don't have the ability to deny the benefits of cheating. My question is, why would the US not be able to deny the benefits of cheating with 1,550 warheads and 700 delivery vehicles allowed under the treaty? First, it is true that one of, all right, let me step back a second. When we have evaluated what is effective verification and how we should conduct that assessment, one of the things is that the first step is the degree of verifiability. And that has to do with our ability to monitor activities of concern measured against those limits in the agreement. Next, we take the degree of verifiability. And when I say we, I mean, going back to 1985 or so, I didn't mean to say what year I started working on these. So erase that from your memory. But after that, you take that more technical assessment and you work it into the broader political assessment, which includes what is the party's history of compliance. That makes perfect sense. If you're verifying an agreement with Britain, you're probably going to have more confidence on any given agreement than if you're going to be verifying an agreement with the North Koreans or the Iranians or the Russians who have violated virtually, I think, every agreement we've ever had with them. One of the things about denying the benefits of cheating for Russia, the administration has said we'll increase our alert levels. The problem is that assumes that we're flashing back 20 or 40 years to a world in which the only enemy the United States confronted was the Soviet Union. We're not merely worried about deterring the former Soviet Union. We're concerned about deterring North Korea and China and Russia and all of these other states and even to the degree that we need to be able to deter non-state actors. And so I think we can take it from that and then we can also say what has been our ability to bring the Russians back into compliance. We've had some successes with the former Soviet Union, but we've also had many cases in which we have not been able to bring Russia back into compliance with their arms control obligations or to work cooperatively with us even on a private basis to try to alleviate our concerns, to open ourselves up so that if they had concerns, they could do that. So I think in this agreement, we are faced with a low degree of verifiability, unfortunately. And we also then are faced with a party that has a very poor compliance record and whose history of resolving our compliance concerns is not good. OK, thanks. My second question kind of has to do with why we ratify the treaty or not. For the treaty, there seems to be three kind of clear arguments, strategic stability, relations with Russia, and non-proliferation, which hasn't really been made in this debate. Your arguments seem to be a large set of problems with the verification regime for this treaty. Why do you think that adds up to a reason to reject the treaty altogether? And why would we be better in that world of no verification? Thank you. I believe that one of the reasons that we've always said we are going to pursue verification is that we believe that an agreement that we can effectively verify and get early detection and go to that country to try to resolve problems is going to contribute more to stability. The problem with New START is that the Russians could, even without violating the agreement in any overt way, so increase their strategic forces that if you put a breakout or a violation on top of that, you're not contributing to stability. I think our relations with Russia can stand their fall on their own. We have many areas of common interest. The cooperation on nuclear terrorism was going on well before we even started our negotiations during the Bush administration with Russia on a post-START agreement. And I think the reason that the proliferation agreement, the proliferation implications haven't come up is because I think in people's heart of hearts, they know darn well that whether or not this treaty is ratified will have little to no positive impact on North Korea's decisions to pursue their nuclear weapons capability, nor Iran's. And in fact, to the degree that the United States and its ability to defend itself and to modernize its strategic systems is limited, they would be encouraged to exacerbate their proliferation. So I think that's why you probably haven't heard much. Great. We're now going to turn this to the audience. Does anyone have any questions? Great. Van in the second row in the middle. Thank you. My name's Howard Moreland. It just doesn't seem to me that the merits of this thing are figuring very much into what's happening at all. When I saw Kyle on TV, Senator Kyle explaining that he was against voting on the treaty, it seemed to me he was displaying the joy of a child who's gotten a Christmas present early. Republicans generally are opposed to treaties. They've got enough Republican senators to sustain a filibuster. And if they postpone it until the next term starts, they've got enough senators to kill the treaty, why would they vote for it? It's sort of Republican ideology to oppose treaties, isn't it? OK, first, let me tell you that I was Senator Kyle's liaison on the Senate Intel Committee for four and a half years. And in that entire time, I have never seen Senator Kyle act like a child waiting for Christmas, smiling not even that often. OK, it may have had to do with the trip we took where I packed him into a little bitty plane and made him sleep on it. OK, but no, it is certainly true, certainly true, that Republicans are far more skeptical and far more critical in their evaluation of arms control agreements as a tool of achieving US national security international stability. That is true. I don't know for how long that really has been true, but I know that in the Bush administration, a part of the perspective was it is a tool. It is a tool that should be evaluated according to which it can achieve our goals. And when it can't, which in many cases it can't, we need to be finding those other tools. And if we take a tool like an arms control agreement and pretend like it is going to solve our national security problems, we will not be seeking with the energy and resolve and persistence those tools that may indeed contribute to national security. And I would offer up, I do think, I wish proliferation security initiative had more achievements lately. I think UN Resolution 1540, which calls on nations to control what is going on in their territory and sets up a regime to help countries do that. I think, and with the Biological Weapons Convention, the interim procedures that people explored where they were looking at instead of pretending like we're verifying the BWC when we all know we're not, why don't we talk about what is the proper code of conduct for scientists? What are the things that we can all do to explore this problem and come up with creative solutions? I think for me it is that Republicans are looking to, what are the creative things that we can come up with that are new and that aren't these ancient tools of the 1960s and 70s? But I know that if you've worked on nothing but the tools of the 60s and 70s, arms control, it is hurtful. And that creates some animosity. And it creates tension in this debate that I think won't be over with for another 10 or 15 years. Actually, it's not true that Republicans have an ideological objection to arms control treaties. Most of the arms control treaties adopted by the Senate were adopted by overwhelming votes, and they wanted to unanimously. Most of the others with 90 votes for them. There is an ideological dispute about the test ban treaty, but apart from that, there has been enormous bipartisan support, as reflected in the fact that the people who were in the previous Republican administrations until the last one are almost entirely in favor of this treaty and have come out for the treaty. You have a very large bipartisan group of people who have come out for the treaty. I agree that we should not be in favor of treaties for their own sake, that we have to ask the question for each security threat, what is the right approach? And in some cases, it may be an arms control treaty. And in other cases, it may be a different kind of agreement. What I frankly expected when this treaty was negotiated is that the criticism of it would be that it is a binding legal treaty with verification measures in it, and that the alternative that would be presented was the position that the Bush administration took, which is that we wanted a treaty with no verification measures, with very ill-defined limits, and which was simply a political document which said, we in the Russians are no longer enemies of each other. For example, of the view, a lot of this comes down to the question of how do we see the Russians? We don't see them as we used to see them during the Cold War. That was the view of the previous administration. There was no longer said to be a threat from Russia, and we didn't pose a threat to them. And therefore, we didn't need an strategic arms control agreement. We just needed this very general political agreement whose provisions kicked in only 10 minutes before the treaty expired, and which had no verification provisions in it. But that has not been the criticism of this treaty. It has not been to say, we really prefer that alternative. It has been to focus on specific aspects of the treaty that people object to. I'm allowed to say something briefly. When the Moscow treaty was negotiated and signed, it was certainly true that we saw the former Soviet Union in a different way than we had during the start years. I think that was fair. I was the one that wrote the non-compliance report about the Biological Weapons Convention that said, OK, they've said they're going to give up their biological weapons. It was a massive program. We need to give them more time when we couldn't verify that they had eliminated it. The Moscow treaty was a part of that. Remember the Nun Luger provisions that provide for the United States to go in and eliminate so many former Soviet Union systems. The Moscow treaty was a part of that. We believed it. I did ask the folks that worked for me to pay special attention as we were reviewing non-compliance to whether or not we could view the non-compliance history across the board as an early indicator of concern about where Russia was going. And I must say that it took a lot. It has to do with belief and hope and thinking that things have changed. But I must say that my conversations with my counterpart about the Biological Weapons Convention are discussions with them about the Chemical Weapons Convention and their refusal to give us a good set of data on their original stockpiles. And then you add what they did with the conventional forces in Europe treaty. And then you see how they began treating their neighbors. There were many, many indications over time, Putin's speech at Munich that were giving us cause for concern. And I think it was not until the last year of the Bush administration where there was a firm consensus at the deputy's committee level that the Russia that we thought we were dealing with in the Moscow treaty was no longer there. You can say, OK, that's stupid. But we were watching. We were paying attention. But we were hopeful. And hope is a hard thing to kill. Yes, in the third round. Bartosz Wyshevsky from the Polish Institute of International Affairs. Firstly, I'd like to thank both Madam Desater and Dr. Helper for mapping this internal US debate. And the question I would like to take it out of the box and into Central Europe. The question is, what is your reading of the voices of support for the Star Treaty coming from Central Europe? And the second part of the question is what role, if any, could or does these voices of support play for your internal US debate? Thank you. Well, I think it's clear that most of the governments, if not all the governments of Central Europe and many private citizens there, strongly favor the ratification of the Star Treaty. I think at the very least, we should not argue that a reason to be against the treaty is that it somehow unsettles our European allies. I think that they all welcome the treaty and would like to see it ratified. That is not, by itself, sufficient grounds to decide to ratify. But it certainly means that it is out of bounds to say, we should not ratify this treaty because it will upset people in Central Europe. I see no evidence of that. Mike Wheeler, Institute for Defense Analysis. The stability metric was brought up fairly late in the debate. And my question to both panelists is basically this. If it is true that we don't have verification in place to keep them from doing some very quick breakout that we don't detect, does that, in fact, destabilize? I mean, is first strike an effective strategy that they then would have that they wouldn't have had given the four structure that we have? Secondly, if the issue is arms race instability, does the absence or presence of the treaty make a difference in terms of what is going to happen in terms of verification that we have in it for what they could do in an arms race? And thirdly, are the classic crisis first strike stability arms race stability metrics that we developed in the Cold War for the basically bipolar confrontation, the appropriate metrics that we should be applying to the relationship as we think of the broader nuclear security dilemma that we have today. Mr. Wheeler, hello. I would say that one of the things that the US has going for it in the absence of a treaty is that while for those of us here in the US, we view ourselves as quite predictable, our debates are in the open, our fights are long and difficult. But one viewing the United States from overseas can be concerned about awakening the giant, about if I overstep perhaps I will so concern the US that they will undertake modernization or build up. I think that going back four or five years, I mean I was in a debate at Carnegie and the Russian member on the panel was very concerned about the absence of a strategic agreement with the US. They want to have strategic agreements with the US, but in this case, now the Bush administration could have extended the START treaty for five years and left it to the Obama administration to figure out, you know, get an agreement to move out. We didn't do that, but we knew that they had that option. What happens is that if you negotiate with the Russians against a deadline on something that you have expressed as being one of your highest national security priorities, they are good negotiators. They're very smart, they're going to take advantage of it and they did and they got multiple benefits across the board in this treaty and the administration has sought to deny that there are ambiguities left. Those ambiguities are there and those ambiguities are going to come to bite us back and that will not be stabilizing. So I do believe that they can go back and fix those. I don't think that in the absence of the treaty there would necessarily be an arms race. I think in the absence or with the treaty, the Russian Federation has made a decision to increase their strategic forces, to modernize them, to modernize their nuclear weapons on them and I think the United States has simply been ignoring the potential threat that that poses and we need to address it. I think first strike metrics are probably not the only thing that you should consider, but yes. I think in your calculations about where are the Russians going to be in terms of deterrence, in terms of political give and take in terms of everything else, if they can say to us quietly in a diplomatic situation, we have a first strike capability where we can eliminate or significantly reduce your second strike capability, that matters. Not everybody may agree with me, but I think that that's still out there and I think that that's still how the Russian Federation thinks, especially their military forces. I certainly think that matters, but I think it is a fantasy world to believe that there is a serious Russian threat of developing an effective first strike capability against the United States. Even the Bush administration maintained adequate modernization to avoid that risk and certainly the current administration will continue to do that. We have a force which is tested against the standard that it can survive a Russian surprise attack and destroy an overwhelmingly large number of targets within Russia, far beyond in my view, the number that would be necessary to deter them. The Russians I think are much more worried about our first strike capability and the notion that they would come to us and say, watch out, we have a first strike capability. I think if they did that, they would believe that we would preempt and that they would be much more worried about the preemption. We maintain and will continue to maintain whether without the treaty forces that are large enough to remove any conceivable doubt in anyone's mind that we have a sufficient deterrent. You can argue, as the Bush administration did, that it's the wrong calculation. And I would argue that that insight was correct. What was incorrect was the belief that Russia had somehow turned into a more abiding, peaceful, democratic, maybe even Christian country. But that's a separate question in my view. I mean, one reason to think you don't have to worry about the Russian strategic forces is that you think they've turned to being peaceful allies of the United States. Another reason is to say that the United States and Russia, while they have conflicting interests, do not have the kinds of conflicts that would lead either side to contemplate a first strike with nuclear weapons. And therefore, we ought to be thinking about a very different world. Indeed, my view is, if there's a serious criticism of this treaty, it is that it accepts the framework of the Cold War and the framework of strategic stability based on the threat of a first strike. It deals with that question very well, but it doesn't deal with my view with the real problems of the real world. And so I think the way the United States would respond if it decided the Russians were breaking out of the treaty in the quickest way is to upload additional warheads on each one of its missiles. And it could do that in very large numbers very quickly. And that would be the first rather than trying to further alert the weapons, I don't even know how you do that with the missiles, would be the response. And it would be a very large response. And it's one that I think the Russians, the Russians are, in fact, concerned about. We have one more question on the far side. Nick Roth of the Union of Concerned Scientists. My question's for Mr. Sutter. Really, this was touched on a little bit before, but really everywhere other than the Senate, this treaty has overwhelming bipartisan support from former secretaries of defense, former secretaries of state, the current military establishment, that many of which that were appointed under the Bush administration. So is it in your opinion that these people are all misguided? Are some withholding information? What makes you think that all of these people are wrong? Well, I think that for many of the members that have signed on to the START treaty, their rationales differ. In some cases, I think Secretary Schlesinger, I think he gets a three for count. I think his view was having negotiated it or better off signing it than not. I mean, a lot of these folks believe that, generally speaking, it's good to have strategic arms control agreements with the Russians. I am modest in many ways, but when it comes to verification, not vary. And when it comes to verification, I think that I am more right than they. Maybe one more question. At this point, we're gonna shift closing remarks and each of the debaters are going to get three minutes to wrap up their arguments. And I will knock on the table two minutes just to let you know where you are in your speech. What's the, what's happening? Is that five minutes? That's why we can't use it. This was 10. See, you guys need to have multiple little parts. Yeah. And in debate practice, what happens is the first speaker speaks last because they have the burden of convincing you that they are correct. So in this debate, Mr. Dr. Halperin will give a three minute speech now. Okay, that's cool. It's only counting seconds. He has an iPad and he's programming it with a great big clock. You get, I, by the way, started in this business in 1960 and I'm happy to identify the time of that. And so I need big clocks in order to see what time it is. I think that we have spent an evening debating what's wrong or right with this treaty and I have not heard anything that persuades me that there's a serious for or any reason why the Senate should not ratify the treaty. The possibilities of Russian cheating would lead to increases in the Russian strategic posture which would not in any way threaten strategic stability, threaten the United States' ability to defend its allies, threaten our ability to use extended deterrence and to deal with any conceivable threat to our security interests in those or our lives. And all of the discussion about possible cheating and whether we counted 3% or 10% every year simply doesn't get to the heart of the question of how many additional warheads do you think the Russians could deploy before we would reliably detect it and be able to respond to it in a timely fashion? I believe that answer is far in excess of the amount of cheating that the Russians could have any hope of getting away with. Moreover, it is hard to imagine, in my view, any Russian strategic objective which would lead them to want to contemplate this world. After all, the Russians want this treaty, a belief correctly, in my view, that it is in their strategic interest and therefore that they can and will abide by it. It doesn't mean they won't cheat around the margins. It won't mean we have a serious disagreement about ballistic missile defense. We do have a serious disagreement about ballistic missile defense, but it is one that we found a way to deal with within the contours of the treaty. The Russians understand that we reserve the right to develop ballistic missile defense against other countries. And I think we understand that if we built a very large ballistic missile defense system against Russia, while it would not violate the treaty, it would lead them to withdraw from the treaty. And we will have to continue to decide down the road whether we want to move in that direction. I think the fact is that technologically we cannot build such a system. I think a majority in both houses of the Congress understand that and will continue to understand that so that that is not a real option and therefore it is not something that will impede the ongoing effectiveness of the treaty. I think we need to move on. My regret is that the treaty is very modest, that it is produced in enormous debate and one that will make it much harder to move forward with the kind of future agreements that I think we need to reduce the real risks of the use of nuclear weapons. And now, I'll let the center rule close us out. And I get more help runs for minutes and 46 seconds, which I could read from my side. Okay, the way I'd like to close is in following this debate over the past few months, I've been struck by the contradictions that I've heard in the proponents arguments and I'll walk through a few of those, but first I wanna thank CSIS for inviting me to come here. I wanna thank Clark Murdock and Kevin and this has been fun for somebody that is as much of a geek as I am and I am impressed at this audience, their knowledge and their willingness to be out on a Tuesday night when it's raining to listen. So first, proponents have argued that it is urgent to get inspections in place but that it wasn't deemed urgent enough to extend start or to get a bridging agreement which the administration had promised from the White House. We've heard that we need new start to thwart the Russian threat but that there is no Russian threat, especially because of reset. But that we need new start to constrain their strategic forces. We've heard that we have to have new start because without verification, we won't have a handle on Russian strategic buildups and that even though we're not very worried about a Russian strategic buildup, that we didn't really need to start verification regime that was so cumbersome, including attribution, location and movement restrictions and abandoned telemetry that would give us better compliance. We've heard that they won't cheat but if they do cheat, it doesn't matter. We've heard that we can adequately respond to a Russian breakout of new start but in the absence of new start, we would have to assume the worst and devote significant resources to strategic modernization that would put our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at risk. We've heard that any ambiguities that existed in a treaty were cleared up by the resolution of ratification but we've also heard at the same time that there were no problems or ambiguities. We've had it acknowledged that Russia cheated on start provisions but that that was just a matter of treaty interpretation. The Russian unilateral statement, threatening to withdraw if the US increases its missile defense capabilities doesn't matter nor do Russian disagreements with the resolution of ratification. Those are just matters of treaty interpretation. NTM will be a significant part of monitoring but we don't need to increase funding for it but we do need inspection so that we don't have to divert NTM from more important targets that we don't really need to monitor all that much because we don't anticipate a Russian threat. Russia and the US are partners but they will screw us on Iran and Afghanistan if we don't ratify the treaty. The New START treaty has no impact on US missile defenses, conventional global strike and rail mobile missiles are clearly covered but the Russian view that it does constrain missile defenses and conventional global strike and doesn't cover rail mobile missiles doesn't matter. Republican senators who have no experience and don't really understand these important issues are opposing New START because they are ill informed, don't want the Obama administration to have foreign policy successes or just ignorant but there are no substantive disagreements on New START. Despite the fact that there are no substantive disagreements we cannot possibly wait until a new Congress for a debate and a vote because substantive disagreements might arise. Unlike the old START which had attribution under New START we're going to count every warhead on every Russian missile and bomber but the annual inspection quota means we'll only be inspecting two to 3% of the Russian forces and regardless of how many warheads they carry on their bombers each bomber only counts as one warhead. We have to have verification, tools and we have new ones reentry vehicle on site inspection and unique identifiers. We didn't even talk about that. Well the RVSI procedures are identical to those in old START. Unique identifiers are new. The problem is that the unique identifiers aren't unique and non deployed missiles are in any case unlikely to be co-located at inspection sites and so that but that doesn't matter because these are significant improvements in verification. Critics including Senator Bond, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or Intelligence Committee is simply wrong when he says New START isn't adequately verifiable because the administration has said several times that it is effectively verifiable. Finally, New START will increase stability even though it is structured to encourage Russian Merv'ing which is destabilizing. So I think those who are adamant supporters of an agreement with Russia, any agreement will be able to continue to support this. I hope that as a result of this you will at least hear the critique of START coming from those in the public debate and those senators who are bold enough to stand up to it as having significant concerns that are valid and at least listen to them, disagree with them but at least listen to those critiques and understand that these kinds of debates are not something that the general public enjoys nor should they but they are something that matters because these agreements are the supreme law of the land and will bind the United States for at least 10 years in terms of our ability to structure our national security approaches to the future. So I thank you so much. Thanks everyone for coming and let's give the debaters a round of hand. Have applause. At this point we would usually have a memento of this debate to give to each of the debaters but it's caught somewhere in the transportation system of a semi-public organization and we'll have to send them to them instead. But again, I want to echo Kevin, great job. Thanks so much for coming.