Word: abm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...offensive and defensive weapons simultaneously. For one thing, many U.S. disarmament experts warn that the Soviets, by improving the radar and rocketry in the SA-5 surface-to-air missiles now located around Russia's western cities, could upgrade that anti-aircraft system into an instant ABM network. More important is the argument that an ABM-only agreement would squander a bargaining chip. That chip is the U.S.'s Safeguard ABM, now under construction at Air Force bases in North Dakota, Montana and Missouri, which could be useful in getting the Russians to agree on a limit...
Moreover, if an ABM-only treaty were signed, many U.S. experts believe, the Russians might never come back to the bargaining table. Having stripped U.S. ICBM sites of their ABM protection, the argument goes, the Russians would proceed full blast with deployment of the S59 and even bigger missiles. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird recently reported that an "apparently extensive" new Soviet ICBM construction program is already in progress in south-central Russia...
Missile Moratorium. Ironically, such developments have tended to weaken the Administration's already questionable case for refusing to consider the Soviet ABM-only proposal. Missouri Democrat Stuart Symington points out that Washington's stubbornness on the ABM raises suspicions about whether the U.S. ultimately wants a SALT agreement. More fundamentally, many respected disarmament experts, including Herbert F. York and Herbert Scoville Jr., argue that an initial ABM agreement would achieve an important break in the so-called "action-reaction" cycle that keeps the arms race in motion. Even if the basest motives attributed to the Soviets are correct...
...about a year and a half ahead of Russia. While curbing the big Soviet ICBMs is still the primary Administration concern, Negotiator Smith and White House planners will be discussing a number of new proposals aimed at getting SALT moving. One of them is a ban on ABM deployment for perhaps a two-year period, during which the SALT talkers would be free to tackle the question of offensive weapons...
...possible variation would be for the U.S. to sign an ABM treaty, with the understanding that it would not be sent to the Senate for ratification until the Soviets agreed to a treaty on other weapons. Then again, some Administration SALT strategists favor something along the lines of Washington Democrat Henry M. Jackson's proposal for an experimental one-year moratorium on deployment of Minuteman 3s in the U.S., of new ICBMs of any kind in Russia and of ABMs around population centers in both countries. During the moratorium, the two sides would work toward a formal SALT treaty...