There has been a back-and-forth about whether the New START Treaty limits or constrains US missile defense capabilities. The central issue is whether a prohibition on further conversion of ICBM silos is a constraint, or irrelevant since the Missile Defense Agency doesn’t plan to do it. (See my contribution, Missile Defense and the Prague Treaty).
In Secretary Clinton’s Senate testimony, she joked that opponents of the treaty would be complaining if the Administration had agreed to not place missile defense interceptors on cows.
Now, the treaty also includes language – and I think this is Senator McCain’s reference to Article 5 – prohibiting the conversion or use of offensive missile launchers for missile defense interceptors, and vice versa. But in fact, we had no intention of doing that anyway. And as General O’Reilly, our missile defense director, has made clear in testimony, we reached the conclusion it is actually cheaper to build smaller, tailor-made missile defense silos than to convert offensive launchers. I mean, we could have had a long list – we’re not going to launch from any moving vehicle like a car or a truck or a cow. I mean, we could have said a lot of things that we’re not going to do. But the fact is we weren’t going to do them and we weren’t going to do this either.
Rose remains stone-faced during the cow reference, which is pretty impressive. Watch the video, the comment occurs at 18:30.
I just happened to find the perfect picture.