Tauscher acknowledged there are people within the Russian government who will “never trust us” — and still have concerns about “offense and defense.”
She also suggested vestiges of a Cold War-era mentality could be a contributing factor, and ran through a potential scenario: “I’m sitting, you know, in one of their Seven Sister buildings … trying to figure out how to get my [Ministry of Defense] money, and I’ve been doing it the same old way for 25 years. Now all of a sudden somebody says, ‘We’re going to be friends with those people. You don’t have to worry about it,’ ” Tauscher said. “[I’m] sitting there thinking, what does that mean? … I need an enemy … I have to have somebody that I’m going to say: ‘This is their most recent picture on their Internet, I need to now counter this.’ Because that’s what I’ve done for 25 years.”
“I understand this,” Tauscher continued. “And every once in a while, you can imagine that these people kind of gin up their administration.”
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher, speaking to reporters about the ongoing travails of NATO-Russia missile defense cooperation talks, January 12, 2011.
For our take on the state of the missile defense impasse, see here.
