Word: abm
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Moreover, the Soviets have invested as heavily in strategic defenses during the past 20 years as in strategic offenses. They have a network of antiaircraft defenses much more extensive than that of the U.S. The city of Moscow is protected by the world's only operational ABM system (permitted under SALT I). Washington, by contrast, is completely defenseless to missile attack, in keeping with the spirit of Mutual Assured Destruction...
...satisfaction," as one official put it, on apparent Soviet violations of past Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) treaties. One example: the construction of a huge radar facility at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia that could be used as a defensive warning system, in violation of the 1972 antiballistic missile (ABM) treaty. Richard Perle, a critic of past arms-control measures, charged last week that the U.S. has allowed the Soviets to "think they could play fast and loose with these accords...
...have confidence that it could survive an enemy first strike and retaliate with a vengeance. That way, neither side would have the incentive to strike first. This principle, described sardonically as Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, was the basis of the 1972 SALT I treaty severely limiting antiballistic missile (ABM) defenses...
...cautionary assessment that if Star Wars research fails to produce a scheme that meets those two criteria, the U.S. would be better off trying to make the best of MAD by inducing the Soviets to scale back their offenses and by reaffirming both sides' adherence to the 1972 ABM treaty...
Indeed, if Reagan were to relent in what now seems to be his uncompromising commitment to Star Wars, one conceivable outcome of the forthcoming negotiations might be an updated, modified version of the ABM treaty, combined with a cutback in offensive forces. What the strategic concept sees as the "period of transition" would in fact be the goal of the process. That would be a disappointment to those, like Reagan, who want to see arms control eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the earth, but it would be a relief to others who believe that the best arms control...