ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the implications of arms control agreements and prospective negotiations for the development, testing, and deployment of space-based ballistic missile defense lasers. It also examines Soviet and unofficial US proposals to limit or prohibit space weapons. The FY 1982 Arms Control Impact Statement (ACIS) for Ballistic Missile Defense provides an agreed interagency definition of "development" in the anti-ballistic missile Treaty. The FY 1982 ACIS on Ballistic Missile Defense reaffirms the distinction between permitted development and testing and prohibited deployment of such systems. In 1948, the UN Security Council established a Commission on Conventional Armaments, which specified the scope of its activities as encompassing all weapons except "atomic weapons and weapons of mass destruction." The more fundamental criticisms of the Pressler resolution concern its proposals for a moratorium on agreement limiting anti-satellite (ASAT) testing and for the elimination of the Soviet ASAT interceptor system.
