Since the United States had previously made it clear that it would proceed with all its planned theater defense programs in any event by simply declaring them to be compliant with the existing treaty, Russia had little to lose by agreeing to these treaty modifications. Moreover, according to a Russian involved with the negotiations, Yeltsin felt he needed to come to some agreement in order to demonstrate to the US Congress that Russia was willing to negotiate on the treaty, thus forestalling Congressional calls for simply abandoning the treaty. Also, Yeltsin came under increasing pressure from Clinton to deliver a demarcation agreement in exchange for continued US assistance on other matters vital to Russia. In fact, this extension may also ease Russia's concerns about the demarcation because it will now have a decade to wait and see what theater defenses the United States actually deploys and whether the Republican push for deployment of a national missile defense, as well as theater defenses, proves successful. The outcome is unclear.
Congressional hawks object to the prohibition on space-based interceptors, among other things.
It is unlikely that the negotiations on high-speed theater defenses will continue at this point. Such a constellation of satellites could allow missile defense interceptors to defend large ground areas and would make a defense of the United States against Russian strategic missiles more feasible. A restriction of such space-based sensors is unacceptable to the United States. The demarcation agreement did not lay down rules of the road but only succeeded in kicking the can down the road. Missile defense issues are likely to be a matter of concern for a long time to come.