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

The Race to Destruction
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
287
Soviet nuclear weapons are on land-based missiles, Fred Kaplan
comments that
it could not possibly have been a ‘surprise’ to anyone but Reagan
that the Soviets rely on their land-based missiles above all others.
Everyone who deals with nuclear issues knows that 70 percent of
Soviet warheads are on land-based missiles, just as every
schoolchild knows 2+2 = 4. The fact that Reagan did not know
and that he still finds it puzzling, reveals not only that he has no
feel for strategic issues, but also that he does not comprehend his
own Administration’s arms-control record, does not understand
why the Soviets found his proposals unacceptable, does not
realize that those who made the proposals almost certainly
designed them to be unacceptable.
Mondale proceeded “to outflank Reagan on his right wing,” Kaplan
observes, opposing Reagan’s fanciful remarks on transfer of SDI
technology to the USSR. 31
The concentration on land-based missiles is a tactical ploy designed
to avoid the danger of a halt in the arms race; rejection of a freeze, a
test ban, and other such measures serves the same goal. The US favors
an agreement to reduce the number of warheads as long as it does not
impede technical advances in weaponry, even though these increase the
danger to US security while numerical reductions have only the most
limited effects. We return to the reasons, but the tendencies are clear in
the negotiating posture.
“Reagan’s determination to pursue both anti-satellite weapons and a
space-based missile defense seems likely to end” the tacit agreement
that space is “more useful as an observation post than as a potential