ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses both the progress at negotiations concerning defense and space in Geneva, and the progress of research and development within the Strategic Defense Initiative program. Space talks were influenced in several ways by the negotiations on strategic offensive weapons. The Soviet Union proposed reaching an agreement on the non-withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense (ABM) Treaty during the fifth round of the Nuclear and Space Talks. In principle, preserving the ABM Treaty as a condition for a radical reduction in strategic offensive arms has always been a special case. A change in the Soviet position at the Wyoming ministerial meeting expressed in the decision to drop the non-withdrawal proposal undoubtedly was a step in the right direction. The US position was based on the draft USSR-US Treaty on measures contributing to transition on a cooperative basis to the future deployment of ABM defense, a new version of which was introduced on December 5, 1989.
