Word: abm
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Jimmy Carter missed Smith's deadline by two years. SALT II was not signed until 1979, and it has never been ratified. Still, the ABM treaty has remained in effect, and Reagan was careful to say last week that his pursuit of a breakthrough in defensive technology would be "consistent with our obligations under the ABM treaty." Making good on that assurance will be tricky, since Article V of the treaty prohibits not just deployment but development of space-based ABMS, as well as more down-to-earth methods...
Reagan's professed adherence to the ABM pact rings a little hollow when examined against the backdrop of his Administration's overall attitude toward, and record in, arms control and defense. In looking for a way to protect the planned MX from Soviet pre-emptive attack, civilian and military officials of the Pentagon have seriously considered various schemes for ballistic missile defenses, or BMD, a land-based system of antimissile missiles that would require drastic renegotiation if not abrogation of the 1972 treaty...
...chief negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), Edward Rowny, has voiced skepticism about whether the U.S. should continue to comply with the ABM treaty. In 1972, he says, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in effect agreed to throw away their shields; since then, the Soviets have acquired an ever more bristling armory of spears; therefore the U.S. must think seriously about picking up its shield again...
Rowny has conveyed a version of this gladiatorial analogy to his Soviet counterpart, Victor Karpov, at the negotiating table in Geneva. Rowny has also reminded Karpov of Smith's warning to Semyonov eleven years ago: the viability of the ABM treaty will depend on progress in offensive arms control...
...U.S.S.R., that refuses to ratify SALT II. The Reagan Administration's START proposal would require drastic and immediate cuts in Soviet forces and is unacceptable to the Kremlin for that reason. Therefore, the Soviets argue, the U.S. will have only itself to blame if the ABM treaty collapses and a race to develop defensive superweapons begins in earnest...