The result would be greater insecurity caused by a renewed arms race as Russia and China increase their arsenals and more countries acquire nuclear arms, they say. Under the first agreement, countries without nuclear weapons promise not to acquire them in exchange for the commitment by the nuclear powers to negotiate the elimination of their weapons. Under the second, the two great powers are supposed to negotiate a reduction in the number of long-range nuclear weapons in a series of legally binding treaties.
Resentment can only grow.
On Tuesday, Bush repeated the position of missile defense proponents that the ABM Treaty is out-dated. This treaty does not recognize the present or point us to the future. The counter-argument is that the ABM Treaty is not an isolated agreement, but one block in the entire structure of arms control. That's the reason we place a value on ABM - as a requirement for nuclear arms reduction. Deterrence is the theory by which a country refrains from using nuclear weapons because it knows its victim will counter with its own nuclear weapons.