176. Information Memorandum From the Director of the Policy Planning
Staff (Solomon) to Secretary of State Shultz1
Washington, January 2, 1987
SUBJECT
- Gorbachev’s
Approach to Arms Control and Disarmament and a U.S.
Counter-Strategy
SUMMARY. Since Reykjavik, Gorbachev has been highly
critical of the Geneva NST talks. The
Soviet leader is concerned about what he sees as our effort to use
NST to stress the American arms
control agenda: SDI and a possible
transition to a defense-dominant world, deep cuts in heavy missiles, and
SS–20–GLCM/Pershing II trade-offs.
Gorbachev wants to
promote his own agenda, and therefore has been trying to bring pressure
on us from outside NST, using
unilateral initiatives (e.g., his testing moratorium) and direct
approaches to President Reagan. In both summits, he encouraged the
President to commit himself to certain general principles which would
replace the U.S. agenda with a Soviet one. Gorbachev’s approach is highly
political, but then Gorbachev is above all a politician—not an arms control
negotiator.
We need to rebuff Gorbachev’s efforts to use unilateral initiatives and
high-level meetings to impose his own arms control agenda on NST. This requires developing a modest,
sustainable position at Geneva that does not include complete
elimination of ballistic or all nuclear weapons, and turning aside
Soviet calls for additional high-level meetings (other than a Washington
summit). END SUMMARY.
Impatience with Arms Control
In recent public statements, Gorbachev has shown a marked impatience with—and perhaps
even a contempt for—the Geneva arms control talks. He has disparaged the
“tasteless stew” allegedly cooked up in Geneva. He has condemned the
complexity and detail of the NST talks
and questioned the “need for all sorts of levels, sub-levels and all
sorts of calculations.” In an interview with Indian journalists, he
referred to the Geneva talks as “spoiled,” but then corrected himself,
characterizing them as “not spoiled, but at any rate rendered
ineffective.”
Gorbachev’s criticisms
grow out of what he sees as intransigent U.S. positions at Geneva; but
they are also consistent with a broader [Page 779] pattern of impatience with “traditional” arms
control. The Soviet leader appears neither interested in nor informed
about the kinds of protracted negotiations that were a major element of
Soviet foreign policy under Brezhnev. It is noteworthy, for example, that his
January 15 plan2 for the complete elimination of
nuclear weapons made no reference to SALT. Also striking is the fact that Gorbachev gave a major speech
in July in the city of Vladivostok,3 but made no
mention of the 1974 Vladivostok Accord. In the conventional field,
Gorbachev has
disparaged MBFR and wants to move the
whole question of conventional arms reductions to the more political
CSCE forum.
While disparaging traditional arms control, Gorbachev is attracted to
sweeping, 1950s-style disarmament proposals. His seeming obsession with
the testing issue and his unilateral moratorium are reminiscent of the
Khrushchev era, as is the January 15 plan. This attraction for
Khrushchev-rather than Brezhnev-era approaches to disarmament should not be
altogether surprising. Gorbachev has criticized many aspects of Brezhnev’s domestic policy and his own domestic style bears similarities
to Khrushchev’s free-wheeling populism. Gorbachev’s formative years as
a politician were in the 1950s, and it is not inconceivable that he is
in part patterning himself, consciously or unconsciously, on
Khrushchev.
Reshaping NST
from Without
Gorbachev’s impatience
with traditional arms control is compounded by a tactical dilemma that
he inherited from his predecessors. Ever since the 1979 NATO dual track decision, the Soviets
have been frustrated at the West’s ability to use arms control as a
means of maintaining public and parliamentary support for new weapons
programs.
At Geneva, Gorbachev is
afraid of being trapped in a negotiation that forces him to discuss the
U.S. rather than the Soviet arms control agenda. In the Defense and
Space Talks (DST), the Soviets are
involved in a discussion of SDI, even
though they previously claimed that the program was illegal and would
undermine the basis for any negotiation. In START, they are talking deep cuts, even though they spurned
previous U.S. deep-cut proposals. In the INF talks, they are discussing SS–20–GLCM/Pershing II trade-offs, even though
they previously had claimed that the NATO deployments had destroyed the basis for negoti[Page 780]ation. Moreover, the mere
existence of three negotiating forums tends to de-link issues and create
pressures for separate agreements, even though the Soviets would prefer
a package deal that allows them to hold progress in INF and START hostage to U.S. movement on SDI.
Gorbachev knows it would
be foolish to walk out of the talks and thus repeat the mistake of
December 1983. But he does not want to remain trapped in a set of talks
that the United States is using as a “cover” for programs such as SDI. To get off the horns of this dilemma,
he needs to bring pressure on us from outside the
NST negotiating forum, not only to
wring particular concessions from us, but also to publicize his version of what NST should be about. He wants to stress that NST should curtail SDI, not legitimize it; that it should
eliminate INF from Europe, not
legitimize the NATO deployments; and
that deep cuts in offensive weapons should contribute to the “new” Soviet plan for the complete elimination of
nuclear weapons, and not fulfill the “old” U.S. demand that the Soviets
make unilateral cuts in their heavy missiles.
Gorbachev has followed
two approaches in his efforts to bring pressure on us from outside the
negotiations. First, he has launched highly publicized disarmament
spectaculars such as his January 15 plan and his testing moratorium.
Second, he has tried to appeal directly to President Reagan to encourage
him to affirm a new arms control “mandate” that focuses more on the
Soviet than the U.S. arms control agenda. His call for a summit on
testing, if possible to be held in Hiroshima, was the most blatant and
propagandistic instance of Gorbachev attempting to use summitry to sidestep the
NST negotiations.
The Importance of High-level Contact
Although Gorbachev has
argued that he and the President need to intervene in the negotiations
to “speed them up,” the Soviet leader does not appear to have regarded
either summit as an opportunity to “split the difference” or to
compromise on particular issues on which the negotiators are deadlocked
at Geneva. Gorbachev’s
behavior at both summits was in fact rather different from that of
Brezhnev at the Moscow
1972 or the Vladivostok 1974 summits.
Gorbachev did not come to
Reykjavik prepared to build on what appeared to be the promising results
of the Washington expert talks. Rather, he used the meeting to
introduce, without warning, a sweeping new package that bore only a
tangential relationship to what the Soviets had on the table in Geneva.
When the President countered with the contents of his July 25
letter,4
Gorbachev strayed even
further from NST, and in effect tried
to get the U.S. to sign on to his January 15 plan.
[Page 781]
At both meetings, Gorbachev tried to use direct contact with the President
not to eliminate differences which we hoped had already been narrowed,
but rather to make sweeping end runs around the NST discussions. At Geneva, Gorbachev attached great
significance to the President’s signing a joint communique acknowledging
that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Soviet
officials then tried to portray this statement as a new, high-level
“mandate” calling for new approaches to arms control and world security,
and above all for an abandonment of SDI, which to his mind implies an effort to “win” a nuclear
war.
Subsequently, Gorbachev
portrayed his utopian January 15 plan as a response to the
Reagan-Gorbachev
Geneva “mandate.” At Reykjavik, Gorbachev again tried to bypass Geneva and to impose his
own agenda—complete elimination of all nuclear weapons, a ban on
testing, and a “package” approach that re-links issues previously
delinked—on the arms control process.
Why Gorbachev Doesn’t Want an Agreement Now
Gorbachev probably feels
that he has made some progress with his unilateral proposals and his
one-on-one meetings with the President. He has, for example, succeeded
in making testing a major element of the U.S.-Soviet arms control
agenda—co-equal, in a sense, to the three topics under discussion at
Geneva.
But Gorbachev has not
been able to force us to make the far-reaching concessions that he has
claimed are necessary for an arms control agreement. He therefore must
decide between waiting us out for a time, or making major concessions of
his own. For now he probably believes that he can afford to wait.
Although he has had a number of setbacks in the last year (e.g.,
Chernobyl), he believes that his own position has strengthened. Soviet
GNP growth for 1986 is headed for
3½ percent, substantially better than in recent years. Equally
important, the political situation now looks more favorable from a
Soviet perspective. Shevardnadze has said that the November 1986 U.S.
elections were a referendum on SDI.
While such remarks are self-serving, the Soviet leaders may believe that
political and budgetary pressures will force a slowdown in SDI.
Moreover, while the incentives for moving toward arms control are modest,
the costs of not concluding an agreement are
small. Most new Soviet programs would go forward, albeit at a slower
rate, and large savings would not result. An agreement to forgo SDI deployments for a decade would have
negligible benefits for the Soviets, since they would still have to
conduct a research program and hedge against the possibility—which we
would insist remain open—that we would go forward with a deployed system
after 10 years.
[Page 782]
What Our Response Should Be
Faced with this situation, we need to adopt a strategy that, without
foreclosing the possibility of an arms control agreement, shifts blame
to the Soviets for the failure to make progress at Geneva. To accomplish
these goals, we must first work to stress the centrality of the Geneva
forum, even as Gorbachev
strives to circumvent it. We should concentrate our efforts on
developing a modest, sustainable arms control position that can be aired
at Geneva this spring and, if rejected by the Soviets, left on the table
for months and perhaps years. In formulating this position, we should
stress our goal of enhanced strategic stability. Politically, we should
work to maximize alliance cohesion while putting the Soviets on the
defensive. (The elements of such a position are outlined in S/P’s memo to you of December 8; a copy is
attached.)
Second, we should resist Soviet overtures, should they begin again, for
summit meetings to “cut through the impasse” at Geneva. Based on the
experience of the last two summits, we can conclude that Gorbachev would not use such a
meeting to make key concessions on deadlocked issues, but rather as a
platform to promote his own interpretation of the NST mandate as a way of putting pressure
on us. To fend off Gorbachev’s pressures for additional high-level
interventions, we should hold the Soviets to their pledge, made at
Geneva in 1985, to come to Washington for a summit dealing with all the
issues, irrespective of prospects for an arms control agreement.
Attachment
Information Memorandum From the Director of the
Policy Planning Staff (Solomon) to Secretary of State
Shultz5
Washington, December 8, 1986
SUBJECT
SUMMARY. We don’t know whether the Soviets’
unconstructive NST behavior since
Reykjavik is only a temporary pressure tactic or an indication that
they have now essentially written off the possibility of agreement
during this Administration. In these circumstances, we should adopt
an NST negotiating posture that
tests Soviet willingness to conclude an agreement meeting our
requirements and, at the same [Page 783] time, puts us in a more advantageous, less
vulnerable position to promote alliance interests and strengthen
domestic support for U.S. defense programs in the event that no
agreement is reached in the next two years.
Specifically, while continuing to press for deep and stabilizing
reductions in offensive arms and to protect a vigorous program of
SDI experimentation, we
should:
—pull back from the requirement that all ballistic missiles be
eliminated in 10 years as a condition for a 10-year ABM non-withdrawal pledge;
—offer to negotiate a boundary between permitted and prohibited
ABM activities, being prepared
eventually to accept a limit somewhat less permissive than the
“broad” interpretation; and
—drop our proposed ban on mobile ICBMs. END SUMMARY
Recent Soviet NST
behavior. Soviet post-Reykjavik behavior has been worse
than might have been expected. Not only have they done the
predictable thing of blaming the President’s commitment to SDI for the failure to achieve
agreement; they also treaded water in Vienna, hardened positions in
Geneva, reinstated troublesome linkages, and insisted that there be
no turning back from the alleged agreement to ban all strategic
nuclear arms by 1996 (knowing full well that such insistence would
guarantee a stalemate).
We cannot be sure whether the Soviets are interested in reaching
agreement on terms acceptable to us and are simply trying to induce
U.S. flexibility through pressure tactics or, alternatively, whether
they have now concluded that an agreement meeting their requirements
(especially on SDI) is unlikely and
are therefore trying to use NST to
attempt to undermine support for U.S. defense programs and sow
discord among our allies.
Between these two alternatives is the possibility that the Soviet
leadership has simply not made up its mind—that it is waiting to see
the impact of certain developments (e.g., fallout from the Iran
affair, Democratic control of the Senate, the Soviet anti-SDI propaganda campaign) before
determining whether its interests are better served with an
agreement or without one.
Regaining the initiative. Over the past year,
we have primarily been in a reactive posture in NST. With the Soviets showing
eagerness and regularly altering their positions, this has worked to
our advantage. But the time may have come when our interests would
be best served by taking the initiative.
—We can no longer count on the Soviets to take the lead. In addition
to the possibility that they are in a “wait and see” mode, Gorbachev may be feeling
pressure to hold back from those who believe he has already made
more than enough concessions.
[Page 784]
—By the late spring or summer of 1987, key defense
programs—especially SDI—may come
under strong attack from the Democratic Congress. We should move
while our negotiating leverage is largely intact.
—Gorbachev has
recently gotten much of the credit internationally for shaping the
content and pace of NST. Especially
at a time when questions will inevitably be raised about the
Administration’s ability to act decisively, there would be value,
both for the negotiations themselves and for our standing worldwide,
in recapturing the initiative in NST.
—The electoral clock is ticking down to 1988. Unless the basic
elements of a deal are put in place by the spring of 1987 (only five
or six months away), there is little prospect of finalizing and
ratifying agreements under this Administration.
—Unless modified relatively soon, certain elements of our current
NST position (eliminating all
ballistic missiles, protecting the “broad” ABM interpretation, banning mobile ICBMS) could become liabilities in
terms of alliance relations and domestic support for U.S. defense
programs.
Modifying the U.S. Position. We should
consider modifications in our NST
position that would not only test Soviet willingness to conclude an
agreement acceptable to us, but would also place us in a better
position to sustain our alliance and defense interests in case no
agreement is reached.
—Elimination of ballistic missiles. Our
proposal to phase out ballistic missiles by 1996 has virtually no
chance of being accepted by the Soviets. Moreover, it has caused
acute concern among our allies. For the time being, we have dealt
with allied concerns by saying we would give priority to 50 percent
reductions. But as long as we link a 10-year ABM non-withdrawal pledge to a 10-year
phase out of ballistic missiles (and as long as the Soviets
condition any START agreement on
resolution of the SDI issue), 50
percent cuts will not be achievable. Key alliance partners will
continue to view the 10-year elimination of ballistic missiles as an
integral part of our proposal, and this will remain an irritant in
our relations with them.
We should maintain the goal of eliminating ballistic missiles as a
stabilizing step in the process of achieving a less-nuclear world.
But we can afford to proceed toward that goal more gradually, at a
pace with which our allies (and our own military) would be more
comfortable. Instead of requiring the elimination of ballistic
missiles in 10 years, we should propose either stretching out the 50
percent reductions over a 10-year period or maintaining the
five-year schedule for 50 percent reductions and obligating the two
sides to pursue negotiations during those five years on follow-on
reductions which, if agreed upon, would [Page 785] be carried out in the second five-year period.
The 10-year ABM non-withdrawal
commitment would be retained under either alternative.
It may be argued that, if we withdraw the 10-year elimination of
ballistic missiles, we should either scale back the ABM commitment to five years (to match
the 50 percent reduction schedule) or propose new levels of
reductions (e.g., 80 percent cuts) to be achieved in 10 years while
retaining the 10-year ABM
commitment. But both of these approaches would be harmful to the
negotiations:
• Shortening the ABM
commitment would be seen by the Soviets as backtracking on the
central U.S. concession made at Reykjavik. Moreover, as long as
the agreement is not too restrictive on permitted SDI activities, we could live with
a 10-year non-withdrawal commitment without jeopardizing
essential SDI objectives.
• Agreement now on reductions significantly deeper than 50
percent by 1996 is probably not negotiable and, in any event, is
not necessary to achieve our stability objectives. Just because
the Soviets proposed eliminating nuclear weapons by 1996 doesn’t
mean they can accept a low number by then. With the prospect of
post-1996 SDI deployments, the
Soviets will resist going much below 6000 by 1996. Regarding
stability, if the Soviets agree to our proposed sublimits and if
we go forward with mobile ICBMs, 50 percent reductions would be sufficient to
permit us to deploy survivable strategic forces. Of course, even
deeper cuts would be better, but not essential.
—Broad interpretation. There is little
likelihood the Soviets will accept the broad interpretation of the
ABM Treaty. Moreover, seeking
in an agreement to protect all of the SDI activities permitted by the broad interpretation
could add significantly to SDI’s
difficulties on the Hill, since many there do not accept its
legality and believe it impedes agreement with the Soviets. Sam
Nunn, in particular, has voiced strong objections to the broad
interpretation, and he might well persuade the Congress to impose a
ban on U.S. SDI activities
inconsistent with the “narrow” interpretation. Indeed, as long as
our position on permitted ABM
activities is viewed as the cause of the impasse in Geneva, SDI funding levels (even for
activities consistent with the narrow interpretation) will be
seriously jeopardized.
While reaffirming the legality of the broad interpretation of the
1972 Treaty, we should indicate to the Soviets our willingness to
negotiate a new boundary between permitted and prohibited ABM activities that would, in effect,
supersede the original one. Tactically, we might not wish to move
off the broad interpretation right away. Eventually, however, we
should be prepared to accept a compromise between the broad and
narrow interpretations. Several options are available. One would be
to permit the testing of ABM
components based on new physical principles that function as sensors
but not those that function as kill mechanisms. In recent
discussions with RAND analysts, Roald Sagdeev, head of the Soviet
Space Research Institute, suggested the idea [Page 786] of basing restrictions on this distinction
between sensors and kill mechanisms.
Before discussing any new boundary with the Soviets, we would need to
study carefully how various constraint options would affect the
SDI program. Currently, State
lacks much of the information required to carry out such a study—and
OSD is not eager to make it
available. We should therefore try to work directly with the SDIO
managers to develop an approach that could facilitate an NST agreement without unduly
constraining the program.
An important reason for modifying our position would be to improve
the prospects for SDI funding on
the Hill. Accordingly, before presenting any new position to the
Soviets, we should consult with key Congressional figures, explain
our plans to negotiate a compromise, and try to secure a commitment
from them not to undercut our efforts with damaging funding cuts or
legislated restrictions.
Any agreement less permissive than the broad interpretation is likely
to involve adjustments in the structure and schedule of the SDI program beyond 1991. Some
experiments presumably could not be conducted as cost-effectively as
originally planned, and target dates for accomplishing certain
research goals would probably have to slip. However, in deciding
whether to accept such adjustments, several factors should be
considered:
• It is essential that the decision on deploying SDI be taken on
scientifically-valid grounds, not that it be taken by any
particular date. Indeed, some scientists involved in the program
have suggested that proceeding at a more deliberate pace would
permit a more thorough and scientifically-valid consideration of
alternatives.
• Without an agreement bounding and reducing Soviet ballistic
missiles capabilities, the technical challenges facing SDI would be substantially
greater.
• Unless we are viewed as reasonably flexible in seeking
agreement with the Soviets, the SDI program could be in serious trouble. An
agreement would not, of course, stop all Congressional
opposition to SDI. But an
agreement would, in effect, give a legal seal of approval to all
activities it permitted (including those outside the narrow
interpretation), and this could make a significant difference in
support and funding for SDI.
—Mobile ICBMs. The Soviets will continue to oppose a ban
on mobile ICBMs. Moreover, the
Administration’s soon-to-be-finalized ICBM report will almost certainly call for mobile
basing for both Midgetman and the 50 additional MX. If at the same time we continue in
NST to propose a ban on mobile
ICBMS, those on the Hill who
would welcome a pretext to cut back on our ICBM programs could cite the fact that our own
negotiating position would not allow us to proceed with our
preferred deployment plans. Congressional supporters of [Page 787] Midgetman, such as
Les Aspin, could well
hold funding for MX hostage to a
withdrawal of our proposed mobile ban.
To avoid adversely affecting our own ICBM modernization plans and to facilitate progress in
NST, we should agree to permit
mobile ICBMs in START, although we should seek to
limit their numbers and insist on rigorous verification
measures.
Timing. We should seek USG approval for taking the steps
outlined here as early as possible in NST Round VII, which begins in mid-January. We will
therefore need to make a major effort internally over the next month
or two to develop a modified position on permitted ABM activities. Unless we move early
next year to break the current impasse, we could soon find our hands
tied by Congressional pressures and the electoral calendar; and
prospects for this Administration completing an agreement would then
become remote. And if the Soviets are unprepared to accept
reasonable compromises, we are better off learning that fact sooner
rather than later.
