Word: abm
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...thing, SDI would not really be delayed, since there is no way the program would be ready for deployment in less than 7 1/2 years. Even more important, the letter contains a new wrinkle in an old debate over the meaning of the 1972 antiballistic- missile (ABM) treaty, which restricts the development, testing and deployment of missile defense systems...
...from the treaty's constraints on development and testing because it is based on exotic technologies unavailable in 1972. This Philadelphia-lawyerly reading was hotly disputed, not only by the Soviets but by the American negotiators who helped draft the treaty as well. It would in effect render the ABM treaty meaningless and open the way to a defensive arms race in space. That is just what the Pentagon wants and what the Soviets are determined to prevent. After & months of wrangling, Shultz persuaded Reagan to adopt a cumbersome compromise: the U.S. would claim that the Pentagon's "permissive" interpretation...
...reiterate the restrictive interpretation, the Pentagon was pushing its permissive one. The Pentagon won. Reagan wrote to Gorbachev that during the 7 1/2 years before deployment is allowed, the U.S. reserves the right to proceed with the research, development and testing of SDI, "which is permitted" by the ABM treaty. Earlier this year Reagan touched off a storm of protest by declaring, at the Pentagon's behest, that the U.S. would no longer be bound by the unratified SALT II limits on offensive weapons. Now he has called into question how much longer the U.S. will feel bound...
...indicated a willingness to amend the ABM treaty to tighten some of its imprecisions and extend the period of notice each side would have to give before withdrawing from the treaty. This willingness to dicker with Moscow over the ABM treaty is being interpreted as a sweetener, a hint to the Soviets that the U.S. may be prepared to agree later to a longterm restriction of SDI. So it may be. But the fact remains that the U.S. is still playing hard to get on SDI. The Administration had long since reaffirmed a policy of abiding by the ABM treaty...
...that no deal was possible because of the Soviet insistence on curtailing Star Wars. Advocates of an agreement had hoped that Moscow would find some way to paper over the issue, at least for the moment, by accepting an American affirmation that it would continue to adhere to the ABM treaty. But Perle and others damaged that possibility by pressing within the administration for an interpretation of the ABM treaty that would not forbid development of space-based defense systems...