control over the mix of offensive and defensive systems, thereby assuring both sides of the stability of the evolving strategic balance. An implicit goal of a jointly managed transition would be to identify in advance potential problems in, for example, the stability of the mix of offense and defense and to act to resolve such problems.

Of course, arms control would play an important role in such a transition. Properly structured cuts in offensive arms are not only worthwhile in their own right but they could also facilitate the shift to a more defense-reliant posture. Unilateral modernization measures can enhance transition stability. Improving the survivability of our offensive forces, for example, would especially contribute to stability in an early transition phase.

Our interest in pursuing a cooperative transition with the Soviets should not be seen, however, as granting them veto power over U.S. decisionmaking. Any U.S. decision to develop and deploy defenses would still reflect the same goals of peace and enhanced deterrence through a stable transition, even if our good faith efforts to engage the Soviets in a cooperative transition were to fail. I am convinced, however, that a successful SDI research phase proving the feasibility of survivable and cost-effective defenses would provide compelling incentives for the Soviets to consider seriously the advantages of a jointly managed transition. In Geneva, we seek to provide a forum for such consideration.

Balancing Offense and Defense in Geneva

The Soviet approach in Geneva has been to advance the self-serving and unacceptable concepts of "a ban on space-strike arms" and "a ban on purposeful research," both impossible to define in meaningful and verifiable terms. They would like to limit U.S. capabilities and stop U.S. research while avoiding constraints on their own weapon systems and research through definitional ploys. The United States is committed to the SDI research program, which is being carried out in full compliance with all of our treaty obligations, including the ABM Treaty. Indeed, the United States seeks to reverse the erosion of existing agreements, including the ABM Treaty, caused by Soviet violations. In seeking to stop or delay SDI, the Soviet Union also talks about strengthening the ABM Treaty. However, their approach for doing so has so far been based on artificial distinctions such as that between "purposeful" and "fundamental" research. The Soviets maintain that deep cuts are only possible, and that stability can only be preserved, if the United States agrees to halt substantive work on SDI. The United States cannot accept this thesis. We propose, instead, a serious discussion on the offense-defense relationship and the outlines of the future offense-defense balance. Were the Soviets to work with us in a meaningful exploration of significant reductions in START [strategic arms reduction talks] and INF [intermediate-range nuclear forces], we could examine how the level of defense would logically be affected by the level and nature of offensive arms. The ABM Treaty marked the beginning of an arms control process which, in retrospect, has been profoundly disappointing. The offensive reductions which were supposed to accompany it have not materialized, and the Soviets are in fundamental violation of one or more of the treaty's key provisions. Consequently, we are working to halt the treaty's erosion by the Soviet Union and

persuade them that full compliance with its terms by both sides is in our mutual interest.

The United States does not believe that there is reason now to change the ABM Treaty. Through our SDI research, we wish to determine whether or not there is a better way to ensure long-term stability than to rely on the ever more dangerous threat of devastating nuclear retaliation to deter war and assure peace. If we find there is, and if at some future time the United States, in close consultation with its allies, decides to proceed with deployment of defensive systems, we intend to utilize mechanisms for U.S.-Soviet consultations provided for in the ABM Treaty. Through such mechanisms, and taking full account of the Soviet Union's own expansive defensive systems research program, we will seek to proceed in a stable fashion with the Soviet Union. In this context, we must remember that the ABM Treaty is a living document.

Articles XIII and XIV provide for consultation with the aim of appropriate amendment of the treaty to take account of future considerations, such as the possibility of a new-and more stable-strategic balance.

Toward a New Synthesis

Current U.S. SDI research activities and arms control policies are designed to provide a basis for securing stability in a future strategic regime. The goal of stability can be guaranteed only if we maintain our commitment to the standards and criteria consistent with it.

The United States is committed to achieving strategic stability and, therefore, to a predictable and stable arms control process to complement our strategic programs to assure our primary security objective of reducing the risk of war.

97. News Conference Remarks by the Soviet Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (Bessmertnykh): Strategic Arms Limitation [Extract], June 4, 1986'

A few days ago the U.S. Administration took an action which was designed to [word indistinct] the arms race. President Reagan announced the United States' refusal to continue complying with provisional agreements on several measures in the field of strategic arms limitation concluded in 19722 or with the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty of 1979.3 This means that the present American leadership has decided to repudiate unilaterally its obligations with regard to these very important international legal documents which the USSR and the United States have observed on a mutual basis.

This step represents the logical conclusion to Washington's position with regard to the SALT II Treaty, a position which began with refusal to ratify the

'JPRS-TAC-86-017-L, September 24, 1986, pp. 35–37.

? For the presidential announcement, see Document 82. The 1972 agreements may be found in Documents on Disarmament, 1972, pp. 197–205.

3 Ibid., 1979, pp. 189 ff.

treaty. Basically, stepped-up attempts to destroy the military parity existing between the USSR and the United States, which parity is the basis for strategic stability in the world [word indistinct] physical limitations on the arms race. This action will have serious consequences for international security. They [words indistinct] with a clear understanding that their stated course is at odds with the interests of the peoples of the world, including the American people; the American leadership would like to do as much as possible to camouflage the nature and significance of this action. In order to do so they plan distortion of the true situation, reinterpretation of data and changes in concepts. The political disinformation machinery has been set in motion at full capacity. However, the news created by the White House to justify the motives and to cover up the steps which have been taken to destroy the foundation of the process of strategic arms limitation and reduction do not hold up when compared with the facts.

Fact #1: The United States, despite claims to the contrary by Washington, has in recent years taken no steps to help create an atmosphere of mutual restraint in the field of strategic arms limitation. The present Administration has not reduced or even frozen below the limitations a single one of its arms programs. Quite the contrary; under peacetime conditions it has developed and carried out a comprehensive program of powerful weapons construction within all the components of the American strategic triad. A new ICBM; a new missile submarine; a new bomber; cruise missiles in all the various basing modes. Reportedly, all the programs cancelled for one reason or another by previous administrations have been reactivated. Where is there any restraint, when even World War II vintage battleships are being taken out of mothballs, restored and reoutfitted with nuclear weapons?

The United States has commenced implementation of its "star wars" program, the creation [sozdaniye] of space weapons. The United States wishes to extend the arms race into space. The United States is preparing to produce new weapons of mass destruction, namely chemical and binary weapons. Is there restraint in the U.S. Administration's stubborn refusal to join in the already functioning Soviet moratorium on nuclear testing? In Washington there is no desire whatsoever to ban the nuclear tests which are being conducted in order to create [sozdaniye] advanced types of weapons, including space weapons.

Fact #2: It is not the Soviet Union, as claimed by the White House, but rather the United States which has refused to conduct serious negotiations on arms limitation and reduction. The Soviet Union has put forward an entire program for the destruction of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and other types of weapons of mass destruction. It has made proposals concerning reductions in the conventional weapons of its armed forces. At the negotiations on nuclear and chemical weapons, the USSR has proposed specific measures toward implementation of the first stage of a nuclear disarmament program. It has agreed to make a radical 50 percent cut in the nuclear forces of both the USSR and the United States and to eliminate all Soviet and American medium-range missiles in the European zone. Has the United States made any new proposal at the talks lately? [Pause] No. We have not received a single new proposal from the American side. Fact #3: American representatives, including the President, are attempting to justify withdrawal from the provisional agreement and the SALT II Treaty due

to alleged Soviet violations of those documents. References have been made to the alleged appearance in the USSR of a new, second type of ICBM, the SS-25, and to excessive encoding of telemetric data during experimental missile launches; also mentioned in this context is the construction of a radio location station in Krasnoyarsk, although we should note [word indistinct] that this station has no connection whatsoever with the SALT II Treaty. None of these claims has any serious basis in fact. The Soviet side has repeatedly, with specific data in hand, demonstrated that the United States is knowingly distorting this topic, in order to divert attention from its own violations of treaties and agreements. The more they talk about Soviet violations, the more evident this truth becomes.

Fact #4: While refusing to comply with the provisional agreement and the SALT II Treaty, the United States would also like to gain some political ground by doing so. The situation is as follows: while preparing to remain technically in compliance with the SALT II Treaty for some months yet, until they deploy MIRVed missiles in excess of the ceiling of 1,200 units in connection with deployment of bombers carrying cruise missiles, the Americans have announced that during this period they will carefully observe the behavior of the Soviet side and take that behavior into account. This stance would be absurd in any case, and is particularly so at the present time. The treaty violators do not have a right to place themselves above [word indistinct].

After these agreements have been declared dead, then it will not even be necessary to comply with them technically. The present year [words indistinct] may be summarized as follows: if some U.S. military program comes into conflict with existing treaty limitations, then that accord will be scrapped rather than halt the armament process. Nothing practical is being done to reach new agreements in the field of arms limitation and the United States is eliminating already concluded treaties and agreements. This path will not bring any good to Washington, neither from the standpoint of the United States itself, nor from the standpoint of Soviet-American relations, nor in the development of the general world situation. As stated in a Soviet Government statement, the United States will not succeed in attaining military advantages by infringing upon the security of others. The Soviet Union will take the necessary practical measures to prevent the strategic military balance from being upset. The American side should have no illusions on this point.

98. Australian Paper Submitted to the Conference on Disarmament: Verification of Nonproduction of Chemical Weapons, June 4, 1986'

Introduction

The future Convention will ban the development, production, stockpiling, transfer and use of chemical weapons. States Parties will, however, have the right to develop, produce, otherwise acquire, retain, transfer and use toxic chemicals and their precursors for purposes not prohibited by the Convention. It is recognized that it will be necessary to monitor the civilian chemical industry to ensure that chemical weapons are not produced or their precursors diverted for purposes in contravention of the Convention.

Considerable work has already been done in examining the general principles involved in establishing a suitable inspection régime and in identifying those chemicals whose diversion could pose a risk to the Convention (e.g. the papers CD/353,2 CD/439,3 CD/445, CD/500,4 CD/514, CD/575,5 CD/6276 and CD/ 6327).

Consideration is currently being given in the Chemical Weapons Committee to listing chemicals which will be banned or subject to a system of monitoring. Criteria have been put forward to determine which listed or designated chemicals will require a more or less stringent monitoring régime. The Netherlands paper CD/CW/WP.133 of 11 April 1986 makes a significant contribution to this process.

It is envisaged that the system of monitoring will consist essentially of the collection and exchange of data covering the production, consumption and use of listed chemicals. This will be particularly important in relation to dual-purpose chemicals which could either be diverted directly for purposes prohibited by the Convention or could be used as precursors in the manufacture of prohibited chemicals. A process of materials accountancy will need to apply throughout the lifetime of such chemicals.

In the case of those chemicals whose diversion would pose a high risk, the data describing production, consumption and end use will need to be verified by routine, random inspection. Data covering chemicals considered to pose less of a risk, and which may be produced by industry in very large amounts, should be subject to some type of "spot-check" to remove substantive doubts that may arise about compliance with the Convention or to provide reassurance to the international community that the provisions of the Convention are being observed.

'CD/698.

2Documents on Disarmament, 1983, pp. 164–168.

Ibid., 1984, pp. 100–103.

*L.e., the U.S. draft convention, printed ibid., 1984, pp. 269-299.

'Ibid., 1985, pp. 158-163.

Ibid., pp. 462-468.

7

Ibid., pp. 512-518.