Word: inf
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...political objective of the Soviet insistence on a separate INF balance of Soviet forces against British French forces is to maintain outside the Soviet-American balance a separate Soviet arsenal of "European" nuclear missiles and bombers. The Soviets have aimed these "European" weapons both militarily and politically at West Germany. This special category of Soviet INF weapons seeks to preempt the "worst case scenario" for Soviet military planners the reunification of Germany as a result of political upheavals in East Germany or the adjoining East European Communist states...
...repeatedly declaring that their INF weapons are "national" forces rather than "NATO" forces, the British and French governments have declared that their nuclear weapons do not provide Bonn with a nuclear guarantee to deter Soviet nuclear and conventional threats against West Germany. Only the United States has been willing to make a nuclear guarantee to Bonn...
...Soviet INF policies, which would appear to involve only the three NATO nuclear powers, the fundamental focus remains the German question. Whenever Soviet leaders have travelled to West Europe to make public statements on INF issues, they have made these statements in Bonn, not Geneva, the site of the INF talks. When the Soviets have chosen to make public statements on INF policy in Moscow, the preferred guests have been West Germans, not Americans. When Soviet officials have given INF interviews to the Western press, they have chosen to speak to West German publications. To head the Soviet INF delegation...
Andropoy himself raised the German issue last week when he made his latest proposal for a separate balance of Soviet INF warheads and the corresponding British French warheads Before making this proposal, he declared "..FRG statesmen have repeatedly expressed agreement that war should never again be unleashed from German soil. How can this be squared with support for the plans to deploy American missiles on West German soil...
...primary though unspoken reason for the Soviet insistence on maintaining a balance of Soviet INF against British French INF is to pose a distinct nuclear threat to West Germany outside the Soviet-American balance of both INF weapons and strategic nuclear forces. In his press conference of early April, 1983 Soviet foreign minister Gromyko justified such a separate Soviet INF-British French INF balance in purely nuclear terms...