Word: inf
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...giving the Soviets a monopoly in a whole category of weapons--modern land-based, intermediate-range ballistic missiles--the SS-20 created the perceived gap at the level of theater nuclear forces, or INF, in the 'continuum,' or 'spectrum,' of deterrence. It thus undercut the credibility of American doctrine for the defense of Europe...
...this point Talbott's reader might expect a reasonable discussion of the problems and frictions both sides experienced through the long and frustrating INF talks in Geneva. Instead, we are subjected to pages and pages of criticism directed solely at Washington's approach to the talks. Intra-Administration rivalry, attempts to solidify the support of the Europeans, the "public relations" push for domestic support of our position--Talbott describes it all in excruciating and damning (at least in his eyes) detail. His acknowledgement, that the Soviets never accepted the West's intention to deploy at least some missiles to counter...
...rest of his INF account follows predictable lines. He blasts the Administration again and again for inflexibility, public posturing, insensitivity to the Europeans, lack of expertise, and political infighting. His longest discussion, on the so-called "walk in the woods" initiative undertaken by chief negotiator Paul Nitze, ends with a fizzle. This informal proposal, worked out exclusively between Nitze and his opposite number Yuli Kvitsinsk, would have "traded" deployment of the Pershing lls for a significant reduction of the SS-20s. Talbott describes with withering sarcasm the process by which the Administration repudiated Nitze's action, seeming...
...MUCH FOR American perfidy in INF. Talbott completely his book with an even harsher slashing of the U.S. approach to strategic arms reduction...
...only does Talbott allow no doubt about his more negative feeling concerning START, but he also negates much of his harange against U.S. conduct at the INF talks with his very first sentence in Part Two "White INF was largely an inherited dilemma for the Reagan Administration, its conduct of START--the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks--was beset by problems much more of its own making...