Prospects for Space Arms Control.
Abstract
At the recent Wyoming Ministerial, U.S. Secretary of State Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze signed a memorandum of understanding on a bilateral verification experiment and data exchange related to a prohibition on chemical weapons, an agreement on advance notification of certain strategic exercises, and an umbrella agreement on START trial verification and stability measures. Despite these substantive achievements in high priority areas for the United States and the Soviet Union, media attention on the ministerial focused on an offer by the Soviets that would allow a START agreement to be concluded without a resolution of U.S.-Soviet differences in the Defense and Space (D&S) talks. Of course, the Soviet offer did not "delink" START and D&S, because the Soviets continued to demand the right to withdraw from START if the United States deployed space-based defenses. A more substantial proposal on Defense and Space was the U.S. initiative inviting a group of Soviet experts to visit Los Alamos and the TRW Corporation's test facility in San Juan Capistrano to learn more about U.S. SDI research activities. The U.S. invitation was proposed in the context of the Predictability Measures Protocol to a Defense and Space Treaty, tabled by the United States, which calls for regular exchanges of data, briefings, visits to laboratories, and observations of tests designed to foster transparency and predictability.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA344736
Entities
People
- Joseph F. Pilat
Organizations
- Los Alamos National Laboratory