Witness to History: The INF Treaty 20 Years Later

The clock in 1987 

If you are any kind of student of national security policy and haven’t familiarized yourself with George Washington University’s excellent National Security Archives project, you really need to do so.  Case in point is their latest project, the release of previously secret Soviet Politburo records and declassified American transcripts of the Washington summit 20 years ago between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev that show that Gorbachev was willing to go much further than the Americans expected or were able to reciprocate on arms cuts and resolving regional conflicts. 

The material is quite extensive and having made a quick scan we, of course, are very much intrigued on a number of fronts.  On the one hand, having been intimately involved with INF in the course of our master’s studies during the early 1980’s on any one of a number of levels from battlefield to Soviet, US and European political decision-making (as well as developing an unclassified nuclear exchange simulation on our PC that raised a few eyebrows around the NPS campus) we have maintained a keen interest in dealings with INF.  Doubly so now with rumblings out of Russia now about a unilateral stepping away from the INF and CFE treaties over the alleged threat (!?!) posed by the proposed third, or European site of the ballistic missile defense system.  On another level is the comparative relationship between Reaan and Gorbachev then, and Bush and Putin today, as well as the overall changes in the geo-political framework.  As such, we will post/glean items that are particularly relevant in light of current events over the coming days and so encourage you to watch these spaces.  One such example is this offering, from Gorbachev’s 17 December 1987 address to the Politburo upon his return from Washington, reflecting on the nature of what was at stake on arrival in Washington:

 

This was an important moment in establishing mutual understanding with the American leadership. It was probably even a key moment in finding a common language: speaking as equals and seriously, each keeping his ideology to himself. Of course this time we also had a response to the usual human rights claims that by now set our teeth on edge. But we did not succumb to that temptation. This approach justified itself when the talks entered the level of concrete discussion of specific problems: the discussion was realistic without any kind of euphoria, without illusions, with a readiness for reasonable compromises and mutual constructiveness.

The central moment of the visit was the INF Treaty. We had total understanding—and we arrived with this, having the full support of the Politburo—that everything would depend on the outcome of this question: the entire development of Soviet-American relations and the normalization of the international situation in general.

 

The experience of the last two years, as we began to act in the spirit of new thinking, showed that we need practical results, we need a real-life test for the ideas we proposed and that we wanted to introduce into international political practice. The world was waiting for it and demanding it. The people’s trust in our new foreign policy depended on it. we wanted and strove to test these ideas in real life. And the problem of the INF Treaty was just the deciding factor in this.

It was a trial for us. But it was also a trial of our partners, the Americans; a trial of the earnestness of their approach to the key issue of today’s world. It was a practical test of the statements they have made at the highest-level conferences, saying that nuclear war is unacceptable, that the U.S. is striving for disarmament, and that they want normal international relations.

 

And of course, there’s more where that came from…