Word: inf
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...impatience with the current debate in NATO over a proposal by the superpowers to withdraw intermediate-range nuclear forces from Europe. Just a few weeks ago, Gorbachev said, Moscow and Washington were "within a few steps" of agreement. Now, he noted, some U.S. allies are proposing to tie an INF deal to simultaneous reductions in shorter- range nuclear arms and even conventional weapons. This "endless chain" of linkages, Gorbachev complained, threatens to become "stonewalling" by the West...
...Soviet Union appear to be nearing an agreement on intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF). Such an agreement is not assured -- our negotiators still have important work before them -- but if it is concluded, it would constitute the first time in 25 years of U.S.-Soviet arms- control talks that significant and verifiable reductions in any category of offensive nuclear weapons had taken place. Now some are questioning whether an agreement along the lines emerging would be in our interest. The Administration's judgment is that it would be decidedly...
...1970s Moscow began to deploy the SS-20, a highly accurate missile with three nuclear warheads that could reach London in twelve minutes. The U.S. had withdrawn its last INF missile from Europe more than a decade earlier. In 1979 we and our NATO allies agreed that our objective in response to the SS-20s was to get the Soviets to pull them out. Failing that, we should counter these missiles with NATO deployments...
When, in 1981, President Reagan first proposed the zero option, a plan to eliminate longer-range INF (LRINF) missiles, we had not yet deployed a single weapon of this type. The Soviets were not willing to bargain. In 1983 we proposed an interim agreement: equal U.S. and Soviet levels worldwide below NATO's planned deployment of 572 LRINF warheads. The Soviets still said no. By last October a sizable number of the U.S. missiles was in place...
Attractive as the proposed cuts are to the general public, many European politicians fear that removal of all American INF missiles would leave dangerous holes in the U.S. nuclear umbrella. For their part, NATO commanders warn that an INF deal would leave them overly reliant on tactical missiles and battlefield nuclear weapons to deter superior East bloc forces. If NATO were attacked, the limited range of these weapons would prevent deep strikes into Soviet territory and would probably make West Germany the nuclear battleground...