ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what the principal substantive objectives of a desirable agreement might be. From the beginning of the strategic arms limitations talks (SALT) process, the US position has been that a satisfactory and lasting agreement should favor neither side. The original aim of both sides in the SALT II negotiations was an agreement of indefinite duration limiting strategic offensive arms to parallel the SALT I Anti-ballistic missile (ABM) Treaty. This was confirmed in the 1973 documents on “Basic Principles of Negotiations on the Further Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms.” A desirable SALT III agreement should have duration, review, and withdrawal provisions similar to those in the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty, for example—needed by the hawks for military purposes and by the doves for SALT—passed by one vote in the Congress. Mutual balanced force reduction, undertaken to defuse the Mansfield Amendment, succeeded in large measure.
