Finaly... Hopefully... Strongly... awakning time is soon out... before the abbyss of terminator salvation

PR1oh1, a one liner throw away is that legal guarantees are a piece of paper, but that doesn’t advance us anywhere, as everyone starts shouting, well that is worthless, how on earth are you going to stop kinetic interceptors with that. But that is the simplistic approach and understanding. What you need to look at with legal guarantees is the paperwork and how that relates to international law and politics and secondly the mechanisms within those legal guarantees. So basically once we have a piece of paper that says the missile defence is not aimed at us (which is claimed) we automatically have a political and legal point of references, meaning we can apply constant political pressure if we feel there is departure from the agreement (not really useful, we can do that now) but more importantly we gain a right under international law to enforce the agreement (read take out the anti-missile defence, or enter the courts) after construction and further development if required completely legally (and law matters to us a lot, politics too). The second issue is mechanisms, obviously there is a declarative, purposeful part to a legal agreement, but more importantly is the stipulations of the key elements, the clauses, and mechanisms to ensure those clauses are adhered too. So read here that legal guarantees would have to specify limits on proximity of devices, directionality of radar interrogation, numbers of units …. and more importantly mechanisms for verification and monitoring to ensure compliance. There is nothing new here, START has such a flavour and composition. Russia has no interest in the US or Europe being attacked, we just have an interest in safeguarding our sovereignty and the capabilities that secure it. Given this we see no reason why these guarantees cannot be given, furthermore the withholding of them, fosters the belief that indeed the missile defence is aimed at us.