[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 25 (Monday, June 24, 2002)]
[Pages 1060-1061]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Message to the Senate Transmitting the Treaty Between the United States 
of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions

June 20, 2002

To the Senate of the United States:

    I transmit herewith, for the advice and consent of the Senate to 
ratification, the Treaty Between the United States of America and the 
Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions, signed at Moscow 
on May 24, 2002 (the ``Moscow Treaty'').
    The Moscow Treaty represents an important element of the new 
strategic relationship between the United States and Russia. It will 
take our two nations along a stable, predictable path to substantial 
reductions in our deployed strategic nuclear warhead arsenals by 
December 31, 2012. When these reductions are completed, each country 
will be at the lowest level of deployed strategic nuclear warheads in 
decades. This will benefit the peoples of both the United States and 
Russia and contribute to a more secure world.
    The Moscow Treaty codifies my determination to break through the 
long impasse in further nuclear weapons reductions caused by the 
inability to finalize agreements through traditional arms control 
efforts. In the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union, both 
countries' strategic nuclear arsenals remained far larger than needed, 
even as the United States and Russia moved toward a more cooperative 
relationship. On May 1, 2001, I called for a new framework for our 
strategic relationship with Russia, including further cuts in nuclear 
weapons to reflect the reality that the Cold War is over. On November 
13, 2001, I announced the United States plan for such cuts--to reduce 
our operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a level of 
between 1700 and 2200 over the next decade. I announced these planned 
reductions following a careful study within the Department of Defense. 
That study, the Nuclear Posture Review, concluded that these force 
levels were sufficient to maintain the security of the United States. In 
reaching this decision, I recognized that it would be preferable for the 
United States to make such reductions on a reciprocal basis with Russia, 
but that the United States would be prepared to proceed unilaterally.
    My Russian counterpart, President Putin, responded immediately and 
made clear that he shared these goals. President Putin and I agreed that 
our nations' respective reductions should be recorded in a legally 
binding document that would outlast both of our presidencies and provide 
predictability over the longer term. The result is a Treaty that was 
agreed without protracted negotiations. This Treaty fully meets the 
goals I set out for these reductions.
    It is important for there to be sufficient openness so that the 
United States and Russia can each be confident that the other is 
fulfilling its reductions commitment. The Parties will use the 
comprehensive verification regime of the Treaty on the Reduction and 
Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the ``START Treaty'') to provide 
the foundation for confidence, transparency, and predictability in 
further strategic offensive reductions. In our Joint Declaration on the 
New Strategic Relationship between the United States and Russia, 
President Putin and I also decided to establish a Consultative Group for 
Strategic Security to be chaired by Foreign and Defense Ministers. This 
body will be the principal mechanism through which the United States and 
Russia strengthen mutual confidence, expand transparency, share 
information and plans, and discuss strategic issues of mutual interest.
    The Moscow Treaty is emblematic of our new, cooperative relationship 
with Russia, but it is neither the primary basis for this relationship 
nor its main component. The United States and Russia are partners in 
dealing with the threat of terrorism and resolving regional conflicts. 
There is growing economic interaction between the business communities 
of our two countries and ever-increasing people-to-people and cultural 
contacts and exchanges. The U.S. military has put Cold War practices 
behind it, and now plans, sizes, and sustains its forces in recognition 
that Russia is not an enemy, Russia is a friend. Military-to-military 
and intelligence exchanges are well established and growing.

[[Page 1061]]

    The Moscow Treaty reflects this new relationship with Russia. Under 
it, each Party retains the flexibility to determine for itself the 
composition and structure of its strategic offensive arms, and how 
reductions are made. This flexibility allows each Party to determine how 
best to respond to future security challenges.
    There is no longer the need to narrowly regulate every step we each 
take, as did Cold War treaties founded on mutual suspicion and an 
adversarial relationship.
    In sum, the Moscow Treaty is clearly in the best interests of the 
United States and represents an important contribution to U.S. national 
security and strategic stability. I therefore urge the Senate to give 
prompt and favorable consideration to the Treaty, and to advise and 
consent to its ratification.
                                                George W. Bush
 The White House,
 June 20, 2002.