3. Nuclear weapons - NRDC Document Bank - Natural Resources ...

installed in Georgia and Texas may have such a wide angle coverage that they
cannot be considered to fulfil the requirements of the ABM Treaty that they
should be oriented outwards from the national territory .130
Geneva proposals
Following the meeting between Secretary of State Shultz and then Foreign
Minister Gromyko in January 1985, the USA and the USSR agreed to pursue
arms control agreements that would: 'End the arms race on earth and prevent
one in space; limit and reduce nuclear weapons; and strengthen strategic
stability' .131
The USA announced its four objectives for the Geneva talks as:
Radical reductions in the number, and destructive power, of offensive strategic arms;
the elimination of intermediate-range forces, or their reduction to the lowest possible
equal global limits; a'reversal of the erosion of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaty . . .; and a discussion of the possibility of both sides moving away from
deterrence based solely on the threat of massive nuclear retaliation toward increased
reliance on non-threatening defenses, whether ground- or space-based, against nuclear
ballistic missiles. 132
Since the negotiations opened at Geneva, there has been a succession of
proposals and counter-proposals. The USA took to the Geneva talks its
standing proposals from the START negotiations, which included a limit of
5000 warheads on strategic ballistic missiles and a sublimit of 2500 warheads on
ICBMs. On 30 September 1985, Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze presented
to President Reagan the first concrete Soviet proposals for Geneva.
Meanwhile, General Secretary Gorbachev unveiled many of the points of his
new proposal in Paris and sought separate negotiations with France and Britain
on their nuclear forces (both governments refused this offer).
On 31 October 1985, President Reagan announced that the USA had
formulated a package of counterproposals which was formally presented at
Geneva the next day. Reagan described the goals ofthe new proposals simply
as, 'deep cuts, no first-strike advantage, defensive research-because defense
is safer than offense-and no cheating'.133 These offers were something of a
compromise between the US START position and the Soviet proposals,
although there remain considerable differences.
On 15 January 1986, General Secretary Gorbachev presented a three-stage
plan to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2000. The first stage, lasting five
to eight years, is explicitly concerned with US and Soviet nuclear weapon
systems. On strategic offensive weapons, it appears to embody the proposals
discussed below and set out in figures 3.1 and 3.2. It includes the requirement
that 'the USSR and the USA renounce the development, testing and
deployment of space-strike weapons' , and also that they both agree to stop all
nuclear weapon tests. This proposed first stage does embody a new suggestion
on intermediate-range missiles, an important new proposal from the Soviet
side.
The second stage, which should start no later than 1990, would bring in other
nuclear weapon powers; it would involve, inter alia, the elimination of all