Word: sdi
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...offer to reduce the grossly inflated Soviet strategic forces by 50%, if genuine, represents a goal we have sought for more than a decade. To his predictable demand that the ABM treaty be strengthened, we should have responded by seriously addressing his legitimate concerns about the scope of SDI testing, rather than switching suddenly to a proposed elimination of all ballistic missiles...
Nonetheless, it was the impasse over SDI that saved us from the embarrassment of entering into agreements from which we would have subsequently had to withdraw. Thus, ironically, SDI may already have made a major contribution to Western security -- not for the elusive future usually advertised, but by preserving the elements of nuclear deterrence from our own recklessness at Reykjavik. Arms control may be tricky business, but trivializing arms-control negotiations can make it immensely dangerous...
...would % propose such an attractive package of offensive-arms reductions that Reagan would be tempted to pursue the dream of a grand compromise that included some resolution on the Strategic Defense Initiative, rather than stick to the original U.S. goal of a medium-range-missile deal not linked to SDI. If Reagan accepted the bait, as he initially did, the Soviets would be in the catbird seat. Either Reagan would end up curtailing Star Wars, or he would emerge as the Grinch who stole Christmas, the man who dashed hopes for a radical breakthrough in arms control...
...works. By doing so, they were putting pressure on the U.S. to make or break the deal. Either way Gorbachev could not lose. Some experts even say Gorbachev was counting on the talks collapsing over Reagan's insistence on Star Wars. "They banked on Reagan's theological commitment to SDI," says one Western diplomat in Moscow. "Now they are behaving as if to say to the Americans...
Whether it was all part of a calculated plan to trap the U.S., Gorbachev's opening gambit achieved an intermediate goal: relinking the issue of medium- range missiles to SDI for the time being. Before Reykjavik, the Soviets had indicated that they would be willing to make an interim deal on INF divorced of strategic and defensive issues. The American game plan had been to decouple as many issues as possible from the prickly SDI dispute. But Gorbachev enticed the Americans into a whirligig of negotiations with his sweeping proposals. Only toward the end, when U.S. and Soviet positions overlapped...