Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Race to Destruction
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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disarmament conference that there can be “no progress” on a freeze “so
long as the present U.S. administration exists,” reflecting opinions
widely held among knowledgeable Europeans. 27
In a report on a denunciation of the Reagan Administration by Soviet
Foreign minister Gromyko at an East-West conference on European
security, which caused “bafflement” because of its “intensity”—
obviously another blow to world peace—John Vinocur of the Times
mentioned Gromyko’s proposal of a pledge of no first use of nuclear
weapons, a nonaggression pact between the Warsaw Pact and NATO,
cuts in military spending, renunciation of chemical weapons and a
nuclear-free zone in Northern Europe, along with measures to limit
military maneuvers. A year earlier, the USSR had introduced a proposal
for NATO and the Warsaw Pact to limit troop strength to 900,000 men
until larger reductions can be arranged and for the USSR and the US to
begin mutual troops and arms reductions. In September 1985, the
USSR announced that it would agree to withdraw chemical weapons
from Eastern Europe if the US did the same from Germany, thus creating
a chemical arms-free zone in the region; this was rejected by the US.
Former SIPRI director Frank Barnaby condemned the “absurd and
extravagant [US] verification demands” that have prevented a chemical
weapons ban. 28 We learn little about such matters here.
As always, the arms negotiations involve maneuverings by the
superpowers to achieve maximal advantage (see note 20). These issues
aside, one major US objection to Soviet arms reduction proposals is that
they require termination of Reagan’s SDI. The White House has stated
that this is out of the question. “Officials of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization remain skeptical about President Reagan’s Strategic
Defense Initiative and anxious about the way it seems to have become a
nonnegotiable article of faith within the White House,” Steven Erlanger
reports from Brussels. They prefer that SDI be “used as a bargaining