ABSTRACT

The United States (US) and the Soviet Union seemed to agree that in Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) the parties should address Confidence-building measures (CBMs) going beyond the limited provisions of previous agreements. The Soviet Union published a number of proposals in Pravda on January 2, 1983, that it had tabled at the START talks. For the Soviet Union, the larger objective throughout the period of the START talks was to prevent the deployment of US intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF). The Soviet proposal in START to reduce total strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, for example, was expressly conditioned on US acceptance of the central Soviet demand in the INF talks, that is, no US INF deployments. The US CBM proposals in START proceeded from the premise that there is inherent value in agreed measures to enhance each country's confidence in its judgments respecting the strategic military capabilities and activities of the other.