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Soviet Union [USSR] THE SOVIET UNION AND NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL
The Soviet Union has championed arms control, in the guise of
its extreme variant--universal and complete disarmament--since the
founding of the Soviet state. Lenin stated that worldwide
disarmament could occur after the victory of socialism but that
before that time it would be a tactical device to foster pacifism
in the capitalist world.
The Soviet Union has proposed various nuclear disarmament plans
since the development of nuclear weapons during World War II. In
1946 the Soviet Union rejected the Acheson-Lilienthal-Baruch Plan
proposed by the United States (calling for international control of
nuclear weapons) and counterproposed that all nuclear weapons be
destroyed. The United States rejected this proposal because of lack
of adequate verification provisions. The Soviet Union continued to
push for total nuclear disarmament, in 1950 launching the worldwide
"Stockholm Appeal" propaganda campaign.
The Soviet Union did not seriously contemplate nuclear
disarmament or arms reductions while it was in the process of
developing and deploying nuclear weapons in the 1940s, 1950s, and
most of the 1960s. During the early to mid-1960s, however, the
United States and the Soviet Union agreed to ban nuclear and other
weapons from Antarctica and nuclear weapons tests in the
atmosphere, outer space, and under water
(see Soviet Union USSR - Objectives in Space
, ch. 17). Except for these tentative measures, during the 1960s the
Soviet Union built up its strategic nuclear armaments. By the late
1960s, the Soviet Union had reached a rough parity with the United
States in some categories of strategic weaponry and at that time
offered to negotiate limits on strategic nuclear weapons
deployments. Also, the Soviet Union wished to constrain American
deployment of an antiballistic missile (ABM) system and retain the
ability to place multiple independently-targetable re-entry
vehicles (MIRVs) on missiles
(see Soviet Union USSR - Arms Control and Military Objectives
, ch. 17).
The Soviet-American Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT),
initially delayed by the United States in protest of the August
1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, began in November 1969
in Helsinki. The Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic
Offensive Arms, signed in Moscow in May 1972, froze existing levels
of deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and
regulated the growth of submarine-launched ballistic missiles
(SLBMs). As part of the SALT process, the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty was also signed, allowing two ABM deployment areas in each
country (a protocol to the treaty later reduced the number of
deployment areas to one).
The SALT agreements were generally considered in the West as
having codified the concept of mutual assured destruction, or
deterrence. Both the United States and the Soviet Union recognized
their mutual vulnerability to massive destruction, no matter which
state launched nuclear weapons first. A second SALT agreement was
signed in June 1979 in Vienna. Among other provisions, it placed an
aggregate ceiling on ICBM and SLBM launchers. The second SALT
agreement was never ratified by the United States Senate, however,
in large part because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
December 1979. Both the Soviet Union and the United States
nonetheless pledged to abide by the provisions of the agreement.
Follow-on talks, termed the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START),
began in June 1982 but as of 1989 had not resulted in agreement.
In January 1986, Gorbachev announced a three-stage proposal for
nuclear disarmament. His plan called for initial strategic nuclear
weapons cuts of 50 percent and the banning of space-based defenses,
followed by second- and third-stage cuts that would include
elimination of British and French nuclear arsenals. He also agreed
to the United States position on the total elimination of
intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe and indicated a
new openness to consideration of wide-ranging verification
procedures. Parts of the proposal were subsequently mentioned in
Gorbachev's political report to the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress
in February 1986. Although the proposal as a whole was rejected by
the Western nuclear powers, elements of the proposal were included
in the START negotiations and in the final round of the INF
negotiations, which had begun in 1981.
In November 1981, the Reagan administration proposed the
elimination of intermediate (1,000 to 5,500 kilometers) and shorter
range (500 to 1,000 kilometers) ballistic and cruise missiles from
Europe and Asia. The Soviet Union rejected this proposal and
attempted to influence public opinion in Western Europe to prevent
the NATO deployment of missiles that would counter the Soviet SS4s , SS-5s, and SS-20s targeted on Western Europe. According to some
Western analysts, the Soviet Union hoped that through manipulation
of European and American public opinion Western governments would
be forced to cancel the deployments, a policy that the Soviet Union
had successfully used in the late 1970s to force cancellation of
NATO plans to deploy enhanced radiation warheads (neutron bombs).
The Soviet Union walked out of the INF and other arms control
negotiations in November 1983 as a result of the NATO deployment of
countervailing intermediate-range nuclear forces. The Soviet Union
returned to the INF negotiations around the time that Gorbachev
became general secretary. Negotiations proceeded relatively quickly
and resulted in the conclusion of the INF Treaty signed in
Washington in December 1987. The INF Treaty called for the
elimination of all American and Soviet INF and shorter-range
nuclear forces from Europe and Asia within three years
(see Soviet Union USSR -
Soviet-United States Relations
, this ch.). The treaty was ratified by the
United States Senate and the Supreme Soviet in May 1988.
On December 7, 1988, Gorbachev made a major foreign policy
speech to the UN General Assembly, announcing arms reductions that,
if fully implemented, would reduce military tensions between the
Soviet Union and the United States and between the Warsaw Pact and
NATO. He pledged that the Soviet Union would unilaterally cut its
armed forces by 500,000 troops over a two-year period and would
significantly cut its deployments of conventional arms, including
over 10,000 tanks. He also announced the withdrawal of six tank
divisions from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary by 1991.
In early 1989, Gorbachev also announced cuts in the military
budget, and several Warsaw Pact states also announced reductions in
their armed forces and military budgets.
Data as of May 1989
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