as Russia did indeed inherit the USSR's obligations (including its UNSC seat, its debts, its agreements on nonproliferation etc.). Former CIA director James Woolsey argued that in order for the treaty to remain in force, both the US and Russia had to accept it, and that President Clinton could not accept it without Congressional approval. According to Michael J. Glennon, Congress acknowledged the treaty in 1996, when it passed a law restricting President Clinton's ability to modify the treaty. United States withdrawal On 13 December 2001, George W. Bush gave Russia notice of the United States' withdrawal from the treaty, in accordance with the clause that required six months' notice before terminating the pact—the first time in recent history that the United States has withdrawn from a major international arms treaty. This led to the eventual creation of the American Missile Defense Agency. Supporters of the withdrawal argued that it was a necessity in order to test and build a limited National Missile Defense to protect the United States from nuclear blackmail by a rogue state. But, the withdrawal had many foreign and domestic critics, who said the construction of a missile defense system would lead to fears of a U.S. nuclear first strike, as the missile defense could blunt the retaliatory strike that would otherwise deter such a preemptive attack. John Rhinelander, a negotiator of the ABM treaty, predicted that the withdrawal would be a "fatal blow" to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and would lead to a "world without effective legal constraints on nuclear proliferation". Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry also criticized the U.S. withdrawal as a very bad decision. Russian response In 2001, recently elected Russian president Vladimir Putin stated that American withdrawal from ABM was a mistake, but added that Russia did not feel threatened by it. China expressed displeasure at America's withdrawal. Russia and the United States signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty in Moscow on 24 May 2002. This treaty mandates cuts in deployed strategic nuclear warheads, but without actually mandating cuts to total stockpiled warheads, and without any mechanism for enforcement. On June 13, 2002, the US withdrew from ABM (having given notice 6 months earlier). The next day, Russia declared it would no longer abide by the START II treaty, which had not entered into force. In interviews with Oliver Stone in 2017, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that in trying to