So, too, in Afghanistan, the freedom fighters are the key to peace.  We support the Mujahidin.  There can be no settlement unless all Soviet troops are removed and the Afghan people are allowed genuine self-determination.  I have made my views on this matter known to Mr. Gorbachev.  But not just Nicaragua or Afghanistan—­yes, everywhere we see a swelling freedom tide across the world:  freedom fighters rising up in Cambodia and Angola, fighting and dying for the same democratic liberties we hold sacred.  Their cause is our cause:  freedom.

Yet even as we work to expand world freedom, we must build a safer peace and reduce the danger of nuclear war.  But let’s have no illusions.  Three years of steady decline in the value of our annual defense investment have increased the risk of our most basic security interests, jeopardizing earlier hard-won goals.  We must face squarely the implications of this negative trend and make adequate, stable defense spending a top goal both this year and in the future.

This same concern applies to economic and security assistance programs as well.  But the resolve of America and its NATO allies has opened the way for unprecedented achievement in arms reduction.  Our recently signed INF treaty is historic, because it reduces nuclear arms and establishes the most stringent verification regime in arms control history, including several forms of short-notice, on-site inspection.  I submitted the treaty today, and I urge the Senate to give its advice and consent to ratification of this landmark agreement.  Thank you very much.

In addition to the INF treaty, we’re within reach of an even more significant start agreement that will reduce U.S. and Soviet long-range missile—­or strategic arsenals by half.  But let me be clear.  Our approach is not to seek agreement for agreement’s sake but to settle only for agreements that truly enhance our national security and that of our allies.  We will never put our security at risk—­or that of our allies—­just to reach an agreement with the Soviets.  No agreement is better than a bad agreement.

As I mentioned earlier, our efforts are to give future generations what we never had—­a future free of nuclear terror.  Reduction of strategic offensive arms is one step, SDI another.  Our funding request for our Strategic Defense Initiative is less than 2 percent of the total defense budget.  SDI funding is money wisely appropriated and money well spent.  SDI has the same purpose and supports the same goals of arms reduction.  It reduces the risk of war and the threat of nuclear weapons to all mankind.  Strategic defenses that threaten no one could offer the world a safer, more stable basis for deterrence.  We must also remember that SDI is our insurance policy against a nuclear accident, a Chernobyl of the sky, or an accidental launch or some madman who might come along.