US-Soviet nuclear arms control: the next phase. Occasional paper

After a one-year interval during which all U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms control negotiations were closed down, Washington and Moscow agreed in November 1984 to reengage diplomatically in an effort to reach a common understanding on the subject and aims of new negotiations on the whole range of questions concerning nuclear and space weapons. This agreement led to the Geneva meetings between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko early in January 1985 when a framework was adopted for the three-part formal negotiations which began in the same city on March 12. While the negotiations are called (new) to cover the Soviet Union's retreat from its previously proclaimed conditions for resuming the strategic and intermediate-range nuclear arms talks (START and INF), the old issues and disagreements, which stalemated the previous negotiations, remain as before, now further compounded by the addition of highly contentions new space arms issues. This analysis of the nuclear arms control dimension of U.S.-Soviet relations in the new phase, which the superpowers now appear to be entering begins with a review of the developments and forces which led to the present impasse, proceeds to a discussion of the nuclear arms control agenda nowmore » before the leaderships of the two states and the altered strategic environment in which it must be addressed, and concludes with a consideration of prospects for future agreement.« less