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Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
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==SALT I Treaty== SALT I is the common name for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement signed on May 26, 1972. SALT I froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers at existing levels and provided for the addition of new [[submarine-launched ballistic missile]] (SLBM) launchers only after the same number of older [[intercontinental ballistic missile]] (ICBM) and SLBM launchers had been dismantled.<ref name="FRUS1">[http://static.history.state.gov/frus/frus1969-76v32/pdf/frus1969-76v32.pdf SALT I, 1969-1972], US State Department's [[Foreign Relations Series]] (FRUS)</ref> SALT I also limited land-based ICBMs that were in range from the northeastern border of the Continental United States to the northwestern border of the continental Soviet Union.<ref>{{cite web|title=Interim Agreement Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Certain Measures with Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT I)|url=http://cns.miis.edu/inventory/pdfs/aptsaltI.pdf|access-date=April 27, 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502005429/http://cns.miis.edu/inventory/pdfs/aptsaltI.pdf|archive-date=May 2, 2014}}</ref> In addition, SALT I limited the number of SLBM capable submarines that NATO and the United States could operate to 50 with a maximum of 800 SLBM launchers between them. If the United States or NATO were to increase that number, the Soviets could respond with increasing their arsenal by the same amount. The strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union and the United States were changing in character in 1968. The total number of missiles held by the United States had been static since 1967 at 1,054 ICBMs and 656 SLBMs but there was an increasing number of missiles with [[multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle]] (MIRV) warheads being deployed. MIRVs carried multiple nuclear warheads, often with [[Military dummy|dummies]], to confuse ABM systems, making MIRV defense by ABM systems increasingly difficult and expensive.<ref name="FRUS1"/> Both sides were also permitted to increase their number of SLBM forces but only if they disassembled an equivalent number of older ICBMs or SLBM launchers on older submarines. One of the terms of the treaty required both countries to limit the number of deployment sites protected by an [[anti-ballistic missile]] (ABM) system to one each. The idea of that system was to prevent a competition in ABM deployment between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had deployed such a system around [[Moscow]] in 1966, and the United States announced an ABM program to protect twelve ICBM sites in 1967. After 1968, the Soviets tested a system for the SS-9 missile, otherwise known as the [[R-36 (missile)|R-36 missile]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Smart|first1=Ian|title=The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks|journal=The World Today|date=1970|volume=26|issue=7|pages=296–305|jstor=40394395}}</ref> A modified two-tier Moscow ABM system is still used. The United States built only one ABM site to protect a [[Minuteman (missile)|Minuteman]] base in North Dakota where the "[[Safeguard Program|Safeguard]]" Program was deployed. That base was increasingly more vulnerable to attacks by the Soviet ICBMs because of the advancement in Soviet missile technology. Negotiations lasted from November 17, 1969, to May 26, 1972, in a series of meetings beginning in [[Helsinki]], with the American delegation headed by [[Gerard C. Smith]], director of the [[Arms Control and Disarmament Agency]]. Subsequent sessions alternated between [[Vienna]] and Helsinki. [[Robert McNamara|McNamara]] played a significant role with working to reduce the arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union. There were two distinct ways in which he worked to govern the nuclear threat. First, he thought the need to avoid the deployment of an ABM system from both countries. To do this, the second thing he believed was the only way to limit the tension was to have many negotiations and discussion about deterrence, holding each other responsible for keeping peace through full communication. One problem that he ran into was that limitation strategies weren't working and open to full of critiques, and the U.S. alongside Soviet continued to make new ballistic missiles. The US nuclear arsenals was far too large at that point in history to even pose for arms limitation at that point.<ref>{{Citation |last=Chiampan |first=Andrea |title=SALT Treaty |date=2018-02-27 |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy |pages=1–6 |place=Oxford, UK |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd|doi=10.1002/9781118885154.dipl0248 |isbn=9781118887912 |doi-access=free }}</ref> After a long deadlock, the first results of SALT I came in May 1971, when an agreement was reached over ABM systems. Further discussion brought the negotiations to an end in Moscow in 1972, when [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Richard Nixon]] and [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet General Secretary]] [[Leonid Brezhnev]] signed both the [[Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty]] and the ''Interim Agreement Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Certain Measures With Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/treaties/salt-I.html|title=Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty I (1972) | Nuclear Arms Control Treaties|website=www.atomicarchive.com}}</ref> The two sides also agreed to a number of basic principles regarding appropriate conduct. Each recognized the sovereignty of the other; agreed to the principle of noninterference; and sought to promote economic, scientific, and cultural ties of mutual benefit and enrichment.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalcoldwarexhibition.org/schools-colleges/national-curriculum/detente/salt-1.aspx|title=SALT 1 {{!}} Détente {{!}} National Curriculum {{!}} Schools & Colleges {{!}} National Cold War Exhibition|website=Royal Air Force Museum|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814043858/https://www.nationalcoldwarexhibition.org/schools-colleges/national-curriculum/detente/salt-1.aspx|archive-date=2018-08-14|url-status=live|access-date=2019-03-07}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=A Superpower Transformed : The Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s|last=Sargent|first=Daniel J.|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2015|isbn=9780195395471|pages=62–63|quote=The basic principles agreement affirmed that the superpowers would conduct their relations on "principles of sovereignty, equality, [and] non-interference in internal affairs.|doi = 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395471.001.0001}}</ref><ref name="nixon633-635_basic_principles_agreement">{{cite book |title=Richard Nixon: 1972 : Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President. |author=Nixon, Richard M. |year=2005 |pages=633–635 |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/ppotpus/4731812.1972.001/699?page=root;rgn=full+text;size=100;view=image}}</ref> Nixon was proud that his diplomatic skills made him achieve an agreement that his predecessors had been unable to reach. Nixon and Kissinger planned to link arms control to [[détente]] and to the resolution of other urgent problems through what Nixon called "linkage". David Tal argues: <blockquote>The linkage between strategic arms limitations and outstanding issues such as the Middle East, Berlin and, foremost, Vietnam thus became central to Nixon's and Kissinger's policy of détente. Through employment of linkage, they hoped to change the nature and course of U.S. foreign policy, including U.S. nuclear disarmament and arms control policy, and to separate them from those practiced by Nixon’s predecessors. They also intended, through linkage, to make U.S. arms control policy part of détente. [...] His policy of linkage had in fact failed. It failed mainly because it was based on flawed assumptions and false premises, the foremost of which was that the Soviet Union wanted strategic arms limitation agreement much more than the United States did.<ref>David Tal, {{"'}}Absolutes' and 'Stages' in the Making and Application of Nixon's SALT Policy." ''Diplomatic History'' 37.5 (2013): 1090–1116, quoting pp. 1091, 1092. {{doi|10.1093/DH/DHT064}} {{s2cid|153329825}} Nixon himself later wrote, "[W]e decided to link progress in such areas of Soviet concern as strategic arms limitation and increased trade with progress in areas that were important to us—Vietnam, the Mideast, and Berlin. This concept became known as linkage.” {{cite book|author=Richard Nixon|title=RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UyfcLYY9F0gC&pg=RA1-PT388|year=1978|page=346|publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=9781476731834}}</ref></blockquote> The agreement paved the way for further discussion regarding international cooperation and a limitation of nuclear armaments, as seen through both the SALT II Treaty and the [[Washington Summit (1973)|Washington Summit of 1973]].
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