ABSTRACT
The nearly exclusive focus on the 1980s of this chapter is not a result of an arbitrary cutoff; the fact is that nuclear arms control was dominated in the late 1960s and the 1970s by SALT negotiations on the strategic, or intercontinental, forces of the United States and the USSR. The evolution in the Soviet position on intermediate-range missiles facing Asia the second background issue in the European negotiations followed the same basic pattern as just noted in case of forward-based aircraft. The "theater" position is the opposite one it insists that the British and French forces be viewed as nuclear weapons of the European theater, similar to ground-based intermediate-range missiles of the Soviet Union and NATO. As pointed out in the first part of this chapter, the Soviets tried to avoid image of menacing superiority in part by adding in on Western side about 800 US, British, and French aircraft that could deliver nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union.
