Competitive Arms Control by John D. Maurer;

Author:John D. Maurer; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2022-11-16T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Moscow and Back

THE SPRING OF 1972 WAS CONSUMED by a mad dash for SALT. With the Moscow summit looming, Nixon and his advisers scrambled to conclude final details. Kissinger’s last-minute back channel had established the broad parameters of the agreements: a treaty limiting missile defenses to low and equal levels, coupled with an interim “freeze” of both land- and submarine-based offensive missiles. Yet with only weeks before Nixon and Brezhnev would meet in Moscow, Smith and Semenov faced significant differences over numerous technical issues: how many submarines would the Soviets build during the freeze? Could they “replace” older, smaller missiles with newer, larger ones? How would ABM-capable radars be limited? Item by item, the SALT negotiators worked their way toward the final agreements. By the time Nixon left for Moscow, only a few details remained unfinished.

Nonetheless, the Moscow summit remained plagued by procedural difficulties. While Nixon and Kissinger negotiated with the Soviet leaders in Moscow, Smith remained in Helsinki, where parallel negotiations on technical details continued. The result was total confusion, as Nixon and Brezhnev struggled with the technical points of arms control, while their experts sat waiting for instruction hundreds of miles away. Laird and his competitive allies remained in Washington, increasingly agitated by confusion emanating from the summit. Only a last-minute Soviet concession on submarine limitation salvaged a diplomatic disaster. The confusion left lasting impressions, solidifying the ill-will that Nixon’s secretive negotiations had engendered among his advisers.

For years, Nixon had struggled to bridge the divide between Laird and Smith. Returning from Moscow, however, the president turned this division into a political asset. Nixon was able to deploy both cooperators like Smith and competitors like Laird in support of his signature arms control achievement, sending each to win the support of their own faction in Congress. This targeted lobbying was a major success: Nixon’s arms control achievement passed congressional scrutiny with little difficulty, along with more funds for modernizing the American nuclear arsenal. For cooperators, the agreements stabilized the arms race by preventing further missile deployments; for competitors, they broke the momentum of Soviet deployments and reoriented competition toward technological quality, where American advantages would predominate. For different reasons, then, many American leaders supported Nixon’s arms control achievement. It was a satisfying capstone to a frustrating process.

SALT VII CONTINUES

While fighting raged in Vietnam, Smith and Semenov worked feverishly on workable SALT agreements for the Moscow summit. On May 1, 1972, Nixon ordered Smith to proceed with negotiations according to the terms upon which Brezhnev and Kissinger had agreed: a two-for-two symmetrical ABM agreement with MARC and OLPAR restrictions, and an interim freeze containing both ICBMs and SLBMs.1 For perhaps the first time, agreement seemed within reach.

With the end of the road in sight, Nixon’s advisers were already wrangling over the future of SALT. Brezhnev’s freeze terms would allow the Soviets a larger number of long-range missiles. Since the Soviets were building missiles and the United States was not, a temporary unequal agreement halting Soviet momentum made some competitive sense.

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