Nuclear Weapons and International Law: The Arms Control Dimension

The public record reveals that when the Ford administration left office, approximately three-quarters of the terms of the SALT II Treaty had been negotiated.'Shortly after his inauguration, President Carter unilaterally called for, inter alia, substantial qualitative limitations on, and quantitative reductions in, land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems, much to the astonishment of the Soviet Union. 2 Such cuts would have redounded to the strategic disadvantage of the Soviets because of their preponderant reliance on ICBMs.In contrast to America's more evenly balanced "triad" of strategic nuclear warheads dispersed between heavy bombers (27%), submarines (50%) and ICBMs (23%), the Soviets have about 72% of their strategic nuclear warheads on ICBMs, 23% in submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and 5% on strategic nuclear bombers.3 This Carter initiative, in effect, renounced the 1974 Vladivostok agreement' concluded between President Ford and General Secretary Brezhnev on the basic principles for future SALT negotiations: namely, an equal overall aggregate ceiling of 2400 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers) and a sublimit of 1320 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) systems for each side.As a result, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's mission to Moscow with President Carter's suggestions at the end of March 1977 failed.'The Soviets insisted upon a return to Vladivostok in order to continue the negotiations.Carter eventually had to give in, withdraw his proposals and return to the Vladivostok consensus.But this blunder had side-