Word: drawdown
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most important speech ever delivered before the U. N. General Assembly, Gorbachev put on a bravura performance of what he calls new political thinking and set an agenda for a post-cold-war world order. He proclaimed a benevolent decimation of the Soviet armed forces, an effective 10% drawdown in manpower and hardware. He earned loud cheers and enthusiastic praise around the world, but not from the newly elected leader in Washington. George Bush was into his prudence thing, not his vision thing. As the Administration took shape, it radiated not just caution but skepticism, with lots of grumbling about...
...Whenever governments take money from the military, there is always grumbling. What President Gorbachev is proposing, with your support, is a drawdown of the military. Will the armed forces be happy about having some of their toys taken away...
...avoid the "bean-counting" disputes over troop numbers that have stalled conventional cuts for years, the NATO ministers agreed to seek more verifiable limits on the firepower of both sides. In tanks, for example, they proposed a cap of 20,000, which would require a Warsaw Pact drawdown of 31,500 and a NATO retirement of only 2,000. Within these totals, NATO asked for sublimits for each nation; the Soviets could retain no more than 12,000 tanks of the 37,000 they now deploy in the region...
...wanted to "reduce significantly the most destabilizing systems-ballistic missiles, the number of warheads they carry, and their overall destructive potential." He added that the reductions should take place in two phases of unspecified duration. At the end of the first, he hopes for at least a 33% drawdown from current levels, with only half of each side's remaining missile warheads permitted on land. He envisions even deeper cuts at the end of the second phase-as much as 50%, according to a top presidential aide...