Unraveling the Gray Area Problem: The United States and the INF Treaty

By Luke Griffith

In Unraveling the Gray Area Problem, Luke Griffith examines the US role in why the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty took almost a decade to negotiate and then failed in just thirty years. The INF Treaty enhanced Western security by prohibiting US and Russian ground-based missiles with maximum ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. Significantly, it eliminated hundreds of Soviet SS-20 missiles, which could annihilate targets throughout Eurasia in minutes. Through close scrutiny of US theater nuclear policy from 1977 to 1987, Griffith describes the Carter administration's masterminding of the dual-track decision of December 1979, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) initiative that led to the INF Treaty. The Reagan administration, in turn, overcame bureaucratic infighting, Soviet intransigence, and political obstacles at home and abroad to achieve a satisfactory outcome in the INF negotiations.

Disagreements between the US and Russia undermined the INF Treaty and led to its dissolution in 2019. Meanwhile, the US is developing a new generation of ground-based, INF-type missiles that will have an operational value on the battlefield. Griffith urges policymakers to consider the utility of INF-type missiles in new arms control negotiations. Understanding the scope and consistency of US arms control policy across the Carter and Reagan administrations offers important lessons for policymakers in the twenty-first century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Release date: Dec 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781501773082

Book preview

Unraveling the Gray Area Problem

The United States and the INF Treaty

Luke Griffith

Cornell University Press

Ithaca and London

To Lisa

Arming to disarm was considered the height of folly … but that is what we decided to do.

Deputy National Security Adviser David Aaron, March 11, 2020

For the first time in history, the language of arms control was replaced by arms reduction.

President Ronald Reagan, December 8, 1987

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Reference Guide for TNF/INF Negotiations

Introduction: Abolitionist Dreams

1. A Crisis of Confidence: Bungling the Neutron Bomb

2. Neither Mad Dogs nor Reluctant Dragons: The Guadeloupe Summit

3. Carter in Command: Devising the Dual-Track Decision

4. Between Green Cheese and the Moon: The Reagan Administration and the Zero Option

5. Engaging the Defective Vending Machine: The Reagan Administration and the INF Negotiations

6. For Matrimony or Alimony? Reagan, Gorbachev, and the INF Endgame

Conclusion: Trust but Verify

Epilogue: From George H. W. Bush to Donald Trump

Abbreviations Used in the Notes

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

1.1. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance

1.2. Deputy National Security Adviser David Aaron with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and General William Odom

1.3. Richard Burt, who became ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1985

2.1. President Jimmy Carter and leaders of Europe in Guadeloupe

4.1. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger with President Ronald Reagan

4.2. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Richard Perle and President Ronald Reagan

4.3. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, National Security Adviser Richard Allen, and President Ronald Reagan

4.4. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Lawrence Eagleburger

6.1. Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Kenneth Adelman and President Ronald Reagan

6.2. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev

Acknowledgments

It is difficult to write a peer-reviewed manuscript, and I am quite grateful to the people and institutions that made it possible.

At Ohio University I want to thank the Contemporary History Institute and the Baker family for funding my research and writing. My adviser, Professor Chester Pach, also earned considerable praise. He taught me to write, exhibiting patience with my academic development. He highlighted the importance of domestic politics in foreign affairs, varying phraseology, and word choice. In addition, he wrote dozens of letters of recommendation in support of my academic career. Professor Ingo Trauschweizer, too, played an important role in my graduate school experience. He offered keen insights on the larger themes of my manuscript and provided guidance about how to write a book proposal. He wrote scores of letters of recommendation on my behalf as well.

My research gained new relevance at the RAND Corporation, where I was fortunate to be the Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow. I am indebted to the Stanton Foundation for supporting my project. In addition, I am thankful for my mentor, Senior Political Scientist Karl Mueller, who had a formative impact on my career. Mueller emphasized logic flow and organization. I cannot overstate his influence on my writing and analysis. At RAND Senior Vice President Andrew Hoehn and General Frank Klotz also suggested helpful revisions to my work.

Without the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, I doubt that my manuscript would be published by Cornell University Press. They funded my research, and Director Roger Zakheim supported my project from the beginning. He created an additional postdoctoral fellowship to bankroll my research at the zenith of the pandemic. Professor Henry Nau, too, helped to complete my manuscript. He recommended revisions that improved each chapter. More important, he arranged interviews with policymakers from the Reagan administration.

I am indebted to the US officials who were interviewed for my project. Their unique perspectives and recollections of the INF saga could not be found in the archives. From the Carter administration, I want to thank James Thomson and Ambassador David Aaron. From the Reagan administration, I want to thank Secretary of State George Shultz, Ambassador Kenneth Adelman, Ambassador Richard Burt, Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. At the Heritage Foundation, I want to thank Edward Fuelner and Lee Edwards.

In addition, Cornell University Press’s reputation for excellence is well earned. Sarah Grossman is the ideal acquisitions editor. From start to finish, she believed in my book. She championed my work to the editorial board and guided me through the publication process. Jackie Teoh, Susan Specter, Kate Mertes, and Don McKeon were quite helpful as well. Furthermore, I want to thank my peer reviewers. The first reviewer praised my initial draft, a highpoint of my academic career. Their review was essential to secure my book contract. The second reviewer prescribed constructive revisions to enhance my writing, argument, source base, and analysis. I went to great lengths to implement their feedback.

However, my highest acclaim is for my wife, Lisa, whose steadfast support of my academic aspirations made those goals realizable. She provided the emotional and financial support required to conduct research and write a complicated book. She persuaded me that it was possible to secure gainful employment as a historian. She moved across the country with young children to support my career. Without Lisa, I could not have completed this book. My sons, Aaron and Evan, were a welcomed reprieve from my writing as well. Someday they might appreciate why their father spent a decade researching and writing about theater nuclear issues in the late Cold War.

Abbreviations

Reference Guide for TNF/INF Negotiations

Ground-Based Missiles Eliminated by the INF Treaty

United States

Short-range

Pershing IA ballistic missile (740 kilometers)

Pershing IB ballistic missile (740 kilometers)

Intermediate-range

BGM-109G ground-launched cruise missile (2,500 kilometers)

Pershing II ballistic missile (1,800 kilometers)

Soviet Union

Short-range

SS-12 ballistic missile (800 kilometers)

SS-22 ballistic missile (900 kilometers)

SS-23 ballistic missile (500 kilometers)

Intermediate-range

SS-4 ballistic missile (2,000 kilometers)

SS-5 ballistic missile (3,700 kilometers)

SS-20 ballistic missile (5,000 kilometers)

Notable Nuclear Weapons Excluded from INF and TNF Negotiations

Strategic nuclear weapons > 5,500 kilometers

Examples: intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, long-range bombers

Tactical nuclear weapons < 500 kilometers

Example: neutron bomb (or enhanced radiation weapon)

British and French independent nuclear stockpiles

American forward-based systems

Example: dual-capable intermediate-range aircraft

Introduction

Abolitionist Dreams

On January 20, 1977, President Jimmy Carter expressed his dream of abolishing nuclear weapons. We will move this year a step toward ultimate goal, he declared, the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this Earth.¹ Eight years later President Ronald Reagan echoed Carter’s speech. We are not just discussing limits on a further increase of nuclear weapons, Reagan announced. We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.² In 2003 the director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) during most of the Reagan administration, Kenneth Adelman, recalled mocking Carter’s Inaugural Address.³ And then we have our hero who says things really more extreme than Carter ever does, Adelman remembered, and he’s unstoppable in doing it.⁴

The Carter and Reagan administrations played essential roles in securing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987, which required them to unravel the gray area problem. Due to their limited range and nuclear capabilities, gray area systems were excluded from Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) negotiations about conventional weapons in Europe.⁵ In August 1976 the Kremlin deployed the first of 441 SS-20 ground-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) on both sides of the Ural Mountains.⁶ With three warheads that could travel five thousand kilometers, the SS-20 engendered fear throughout Europe.⁷ At the time, the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies lacked missiles, aside from eighteen French land-based S-3s, that were comparable to SS-20s.⁸

To arrest the SS-20 buildup, the Carter administration rallied allied support for a multilateral program, the dual-track decision of December 1979, that allowed its successor to approach arms talks with Moscow from a stronger position. In fall 1983 the dual-track decision prescribed the deployment of the Euromissiles: 108 Pershing II IRBMs and 464 BGM-109G ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs).⁹ It also recommended arms negotiations with the Kremlin.¹⁰

The dual-track decision was successful—but not in the way envisioned by Carter and his aides. They recommended global limitations on US and Soviet ground-based missiles with maximum ranges of one thousand to fifty-five hundred kilometers. If arms talks with Moscow went well, they still planned to station hundreds of missiles in Europe.¹¹ Reagan pursued a more ambitious objective.¹² In November 1981 he proposed the zero option.¹³ In return for the cancellation of the Euromissiles, it required the dismantlement of six hundred operational Soviet missiles carrying eleven hundred warheads in 1981.¹⁴ A skillful negotiator, the Reagan administration benefited from allied resolve to deploy US missiles in fall 1983, which created bargaining chips to trade for SS-20s. After March 1985 it was also fortunate to engage General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, whose concessions broke the INF deadlock.¹⁵

Signed in December 1987, the INF Treaty enhanced Western security for thirty years. It prohibited US and Russian ground-based missiles with maximum ranges of five hundred to fifty-five hundred kilometers. By 1991 it required the destruction of 2,692 missiles, including 441 SS-20s. American officials predicted that one hundred SS-20s could annihilate every significant outpost in Europe.¹⁶ From 1988 to 2001 six hundred on-site inspections were conducted in the United States, Russia, and Europe.¹⁷ It was a wonderful deal, Secretary of State George Shultz remembered. It was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.¹⁸

In August 2019 the United States withdrew from the INF Treaty. Citing the presence of 9M729 (SSC-8) cruise missiles on Russian soil, as well as the exclusion of thousands of Chinese missiles from the accord, the Donald Trump administration labeled the INF Treaty a relic of the bipolar Cold War.¹⁹ President Trump proposed trilateral arms talks with Russia and the People’s Republic of China, but the Xi Jinping government refused to participate.²⁰ Trump also acquired funds to develop ground-based intermediate-range conventional missiles, which could be fielded in 2023.²¹ Given the threat posed to US and allied security by Russian and Chinese INF-type missiles, there is an urgent need to reexamine the origins of the INF Treaty.

Scope and Research Questions

I have written a history of US foreign relations.²² I trace American theater nuclear policy from 1977 to 1987, when US and allied officials devised and implemented the dual-track decision.²³ The epilogue analyzes the ratification of the INF Treaty, the verification regime, and the demise of the agreement in 2019. I explain the perspective of the five basing countries—the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the United Kingdom (UK), Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands—and of the Soviet Union.²⁴ In addition, I reveal how domestic politics and antinuclear movements on both sides of the Atlantic influenced the US and allied approaches to theater nuclear issues.²⁵

I emphasize American relations with the UK and West Germany, the most important NATO allies during the formulation of the dual-track decision and the INF negotiations.²⁶ Led by Prime Ministers James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher, London had skin in the game. Since 1969 Moscow had proposed limitations on Britain’s nuclear arsenal.²⁷ To keep British forces out of superpower negotiations, Callaghan and Thatcher advocated theater nuclear modernization, a euphemism for deploying a lethal new generation of weapons to Europe.²⁸ Guided by Chancellors Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl, West Germany was instrumental to the success of the basing program. In October 1977 Schmidt also called international attention to the SS-20 buildup.²⁹ Given mounting antinuclear opposition at home, his government unraveled in fall 1982, leaving Kohl to host US Pershing IIs and cruise missiles.³⁰

Relying on fresh evidence, this book sheds light on presidential decision-making, alliance management, and nuclear arms control. It answers important questions. Who was the architect of the dual-track decision? Was the Carter administration an ineffective manager of NATO? How did the American approach to the dual-track decision evolve under Carter and Reagan? Was Reagan a nuclear abolitionist? If so, did he possess a plan to abolish nuclear weapons, or did he improvise throughout the INF negotiations? Was the INF Treaty a product of contingency and structural forces? Are there lessons that can be derived from the experience of negotiating the treaty that could help contemporary policymakers to constrain Russian and Chinese ground-based intermediate-range missiles?

I utilize a broad definition for theater nuclear forces (TNF) and INF. Both terms are employed to refer to ground-based missiles with maximum ranges of one thousand to fifty-five hundred kilometers. Short-range missiles could travel five hundred to one thousand kilometers. I use the American definition of strategic nuclear forces, which can fly fifty-five hundred kilometers. They were included in SALT and Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (START).³¹ I transition from TNF to INF in chapter 4, when the chief negotiator, Paul Nitze, recommended the phrase to dispel European fears of theater nuclear war.³²

Reevaluating the Carter Administration

On theater nuclear issues, the Carter administration’s management of the North Atlantic Alliance requires reevaluation. Previous scholars, aside from Edward Keefer and Stuart Eizenstat, neglected its leadership role in devising the dual-track decision.³³ Some suggested that Schmidt was the architect of the two-track program.³⁴ The Carter administration, others argued, was an ineffective leader of NATO.³⁵ Postrevisionists, too, omitted the dual-track decision from its achievements.³⁶ Even nuanced studies claim that the Carter administration failed to foresee popular opposition to the dual-track decision.³⁷

The Carter administration learned from the neutron bomb fiasco of 1977 and early 1978, a precursor to transatlantic consultations about TNF arms control and modernization. The neutron bomb was designed to counter a Soviet tank offensive.³⁸ Carter, who preferred to reduce US reliance on nuclear weapons, never wanted the bomb. He failed to scrutinize the plan crafted by US and allied policymakers to trade the neutron bomb for SS-20s.³⁹ Before producing the weapon, Carter demanded that allies announce readiness to deploy.⁴⁰ Schmidt, who faced domestic antinuclear opposition, never did. In April 1978 Carter deferred production of the neutron bomb, a mistake that contributed to a crisis of confidence in NATO.⁴¹ In late 1978 and early 1979, Carter sought allied deployment commitments prior to producing Pershing IIs and cruise missiles.

In addition, US officials embraced a dual-track approach in summer 1978—months before the Schmidt government.⁴² They foresaw that a proposal to station missiles in Europe would fuel antinuclear opposition, but they needed bargaining chips to exchange for SS-20s.⁴³ US strategic nuclear forces—intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and long-range bombers—were tied up in SALT II. Since 1969 US and allied officials had agreed that British and French nuclear systems were off the table.⁴⁴ From 1969 to 1987 American policymakers hesitated to trade away forward-based systems (FBS), aircraft capable of striking the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries with nuclear weapons from bases and aircraft carriers around the world.⁴⁵ In nonnuclear roles, US dual-capable aircraft were used to counter Soviet conventional forces in Europe.⁴⁶ They also enabled NATO allies, such as the British, West Germans, Belgians, Dutch, and Italians, to participate in nuclear operations.⁴⁷ At Guadeloupe in January 1979, Carter prescribed the essential elements of the dual-track decision, but Schmidt was not ready to act.⁴⁸

In 1979 the Carter administration shaped the deployment package, arms control strategy, and relationship between the two tracks.⁴⁹ US policymakers, including National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, cooperated to rally allied support for the dual-track program.⁵⁰ They provided deft leadership in NATO’s High Level Group (HLG) and Special Group on Arms Control and Related Matters (SG), the bodies that fleshed out the basing program and arms control approach. To persuade reluctant allies to host US missiles, Carter and his aides compromised on subsidiary issues. However, the dual-track decision reflected Carter’s—not Schmidt’s—thinking about détente and deterrence.⁵¹ Schmidt wanted a zero option solution, which would cancel the unpopular basing program. In December 1979 allied policymakers accepted the US argument that missile deployments would go forward regardless of the results of negotiations with Moscow.⁵²

Patience and Perseverance

Without Reagan, the historian James Graham Wilson writes, there would have been … likely no INF Treaty.⁵³ In fall 1981 Reagan embraced the zero option based on principles that were developed prior to January 1981.⁵⁴ First, Reagan was predisposed to support proposals that reduced nuclear weapons. This idea that Reagan came to some new appreciation of arms control, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle recalls, is rubbish.⁵⁵ Second, Reagan was a seasoned negotiator who relied on his experience as the former president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).⁵⁶ To strengthen America’s bargaining position and offset the SS-20s, he aimed to deploy the Euromissiles. In November 1981 he also predicted that horse trading would be necessary in Geneva.⁵⁷

Third, Reagan was a hardline anticommunist who distrusted the Soviet leadership and feared it would violate a potential deal.⁵⁸ Given the road-mobile SS-20s in Europe and Asia, Reagan envisioned a global agreement. More ambitious, he hoped to verify the death of the SS-20 program with unprecedented on-site inspections.⁵⁹ Our reconnaissance satellites can keep a reasonable count on how many missiles the Soviets have on hand, Reagan explained in March 1978. But there is no way without on site inspections (which the Russians will never agree to) to verify whether the Soviets are indeed complying with the [SALT II] treaty.⁶⁰ In 1987 Gorbachev accepted Reagan’s proposal for on-site inspections.

In November 1981 the Reagan administration proposed the central provision of the INF Treaty, the zero option, but it lacked a coherent strategy to achieve its goal.⁶¹ On one hand, the State Department was amenable to horse trading. It suggested an offer to reduce INF to the lowest possible level. On the other hand, the position of the Department of Defense (DOD) is misunderstood. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger’s aide Perle did not monopolize theater nuclear statecraft.⁶² Reagan made final decisions on INF issues, and he often rejected Perle’s advice. Weinberger and Perle were also serious about the zero option—it was just a take-it-or-leave-it offer.⁶³ I am not opposed to arms control outright, Perle later clarified. If we are in a negotiating situation, we should make proposals that are in our interests and stick by them. Ronald Reagan was a real hero in this regard.⁶⁴

From 1981 to 1983 the Reagan administration’s approach to the INF negotiations was more effective and open-minded than existing scholarship suggests.⁶⁵ During this period American policymakers never expected to secure the zero option, but they achieved their secondary objective in fall 1983, when NATO allies deployed the Euromissiles. Equally important, the zero option was not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Reagan offered to eliminate INF in phases under an interim accord.⁶⁶ In November 1983 he proposed an equitable INF agreement, a global ceiling of 420 warheads on missiles.⁶⁷ There were limits to Reagan’s flexibility as well. Like the Soviet leadership, he never authorized a proposal that had a realistic chance of being accepted.⁶⁸ Instead, he argued that Moscow must devise an acceptable interim deal.⁶⁹

The INF Treaty required the liquidation of twice as many Soviet missiles as American ones, which reflected the balance of power in the late Cold War.⁷⁰ Gorbachev inherited severe problems at home and abroad.⁷¹ In this context he authorized unilateral concessions, such as the exclusion of British and French forces from the INF Treaty. Reagan, who recognized Moscow’s eroding leverage, waited for Gorbachev to accept his terms.⁷²

Human agency, too, explains the INF Treaty.⁷³ Reagan rebelled against orthodox nuclear strategy and embraced Gorbachev.⁷⁴ Critics, such as President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, opposed the zero option. Aides and allies, including National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and Thatcher, considered Gorbachev untrustworthy. Supported by Shultz, Reagan understood that eliminating INF would augment Western security. He also recognized that Gorbachev would not exploit the removal of American missiles from Europe. Reagan’s attachment to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a space-based missile defense concept, impeded his efforts to reduce nuclear weapons. But Reagan’s unorthodox views about international security facilitated the INF Treaty.

Bargaining Leverage, Politics, and Effective Leadership

The INF saga demonstrated the value of bargaining leverage during arms control negotiations. Carter understood the importance of bargaining chips, and so did Reagan.⁷⁵ Over the long term, the deployment of American missiles to Europe that imperiled Soviet security made it easier to negotiate the INF Treaty. Gorbachev acknowledged that the Euromissiles created an incentive to disarm.⁷⁶ The combination of low-flying cruise missiles and high-flying Pershing IIs was likely to overwhelm Soviet air defense systems, which had struggled against American aircraft in the Vietnam War. In May 1987 they even failed to prevent a sport plane from landing in the Red Square after being flown from West Germany.⁷⁷ Today’s missile defense systems cannot stop a committed salvo.⁷⁸ The Euromissile deployments also simplified the INF negotiations. American and Soviet diplomats could exchange apples for apples, rather than devising arcane formulas to ensure a satisfactory exchange of dissimilar systems, such as American nuclear-capable aircraft and Soviet SS-20s.

For US policymakers, political considerations often proved decisive during the Euromissile episode. In the 1970s and 1980s the idea of stationing American missiles in Europe was quite unpopular. All five basing countries faced peace protests and antinuclear opposition in their respective parliaments. Therefore, the Carter administration prioritized the political elements of the basing program. Cruise missiles and Pershing IIs are difficult to destroy in the field, especially if they operate in a large area.⁷⁹ However, they were deployed on NATO bases, which allies deemed less controversial. With limited mobility, both missiles were vulnerable to Soviet preemption.⁸⁰

The American approach to the INF negotiations, too, was influenced by European and congressional politics. An advantage of the zero option, US officials agreed, was that it deflated the tires on the European peace movement.⁸¹ It also offered Congress and the American public a more ambitious objective than the freeze movement’s call to halt the arms race.⁸² By proposing to eliminate INF, Reagan hoped to clarify for European politicians, Democrats, and peace activists that Moscow was responsible for the INF deadlock.⁸³ He was also serious about eliminating nuclear weapons. In winter 1982/83 the Reagan administration adapted negotiating tactics due to allied politics as well. For instance, it heeded Thatcher and Kohl’s recommendation to delay a new INF proposal until the conclusion of the West German election in March 1983.⁸⁴

At times, the phrase effective leadership is used to evaluate the Carter and Reagan administrations’ approaches to theater nuclear issues. To lead the North Atlantic Alliance, Carter and Reagan needed to provide clear, consistent policy direction toward a well-defined objective. Given allied participation in the basing program, it was also important to build and sustain European support for American theater nuclear policy. Based on circumstances, US officials had to reach hard-fought compromises with NATO allies without sacrificing their central goal. For the Carter administration, it was a dual-track approach with allied deployment commitments from West Germany, the UK, and Italy, the only countries required to move forward with theater nuclear modernization. For the Reagan administration, it was a bilateral, verifiable agreement that eliminated the SS-20s.

Continuity and Change

By tracing America’s role in the dual-track decision from 1977 to 1987, I fill a gap in historiography.⁸⁵ I also illuminate the continuity to US theater nuclear policy under Carter and Reagan.⁸⁶ Both administrations prioritized the modernization track. Otherwise, they doubted that Moscow would engage in productive disarmament talks.⁸⁷ They also maintained two policies from SALT: British and French forces, as well as American dual-capable aircraft, were not subject to negotiation. They preferred to limit the talks to ground-based intermediate-range missiles, which would simplify the negotiations. To prevent Soviet noncompliance, they envisioned global—not regional—constraints on SS-20s in Europe and Asia.

The Carter and Reagan administrations adopted different approaches to theater nuclear issues as well. Carter and his aides planned to verify an agreement with national technical means (NTM), the regime utilized in SALT that primarily relied on reconnaissance satellites.⁸⁸ On the other hand, the Reagan administration called for on-site inspections. Typically, the Carter administration engaged in meaningful transatlantic consultations, which is clear in the records of the HLG and SG.⁸⁹ In contrast, the Reagan administration often marshaled allied support for important decisions after the fact.⁹⁰ For example, it unilaterally rejected the tentative walk in the woods deal, a term popularized by scholar Strobe Talbott’s book about the INF negotiations, Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control.⁹¹ In fall 1982, Nitze negotiated the walk in the woods agreement without Reagan’s permission.⁹² The exception came in winter 1982/83, when the Reagan administration implemented European advice to stick with the zero option prior to the West German election.

More important, Carter and Reagan disagreed over the zero option. In 1979 the Carter administration predicted that a zero option proposal would deadlock the negotiations, allowing the SS-20 buildup to continue.⁹³ Its forecast appeared prescient until March 1985, when Gorbachev revolutionized negotiations about INF. Conversely, Reagan never strayed from the ultimate goal of abolishing ground-based intermediate-range missiles. To some the zero option was impossibly visionary and unrealistic; to others merely a propaganda ploy, he concluded in December 1987. With patience, determination, and commitment, we’ve made this impossible vision a reality.⁹⁴

Chapter 1

A Crisis of Confidence

Bungling the Neutron Bomb

On March 18, 1978, President Carter was fishing on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Hate to spoil your fishing, Brzezinski wrote, but … we are about to take the final steps to implement with the Allies the three-part policy on Enhanced Radiation Weapon (ERW).¹ The neutron bomb—or ERW—was created to counter a Soviet armor blitz. Fired from Lance missiles or artillery, it could utilize a high-energy explosion to slaughter tank operators with radiation at nine hundred kilometers. In theory, the blast area could be occupied several hours after detonation, which would be useful during a nuclear war in Europe.²

Carter, who provided poor leadership on the neutron bomb, never wanted the weapon. He planned to reduce US reliance on nuclear weapons by upgrading conventional forces. Then NATO could deter and counter Soviet aggression without crossing the nuclear threshold.³ US officials also worried that a proposal to deploy nuclear weapons to Europe would be rejected by allied politicians, who faced antinuclear opposition in their parliaments.⁴

Pushed in different directions by NATO allies and Congress, US officials formulated a misguided plan that could satisfy all parties. Eyeing defense hawks at home, they proposed to produce the controversial neutron bomb. Sensitive to antinuclear opposition in West Germany, they offered to cancel the weapon’s deployment in exchange for limitations on Soviet SS-20s, which might allow Chancellor Schmidt to avoid a basing debate. However, Carter wanted a firm deployment commitment from Schmidt, who refused. Brzezinski kept Carter abreast of the policymaking process, but Carter sank his teeth into the proposal during this fishing trip.⁵ In April 1978 Carter deferred production of weapons with enhanced radiation effects.⁶

Carter’s volte-face on the neutron bomb contributed to a crisis of confidence in the North Atlantic Alliance.⁷ Brzezinski, Vance, and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown offered Carter the same advice: abandoning the neutron bomb would poison transatlantic relations and reinforce the perception that Carter was soft on defense issues.⁸ NATO allies, such as Schmidt, were furious. Schmidt had expended time, energy, and political capital lobbying for the unpopular weapon. Schmidt never forgave him, Ambassador William Woessner observed from Bonn. Europeans generally after that had no confidence in the reliability of our promises.⁹

The neutron bomb fiasco was a precursor and the political impetus for the dual-track decision, which was largely an effort to restore West German confidence in US extended deterrence and repair Carter’s relationship with Schmidt. You cannot understand the INF decision nor the concern over the SS-20, Richard Burt, who studied theater nuclear issues in the 1970s and influenced INF policy in the State Department in the 1980s, later explained, without understanding the earlier problem with the neutron bomb.¹⁰ The Carter administration learned from the experience, implementing those lessons during transatlantic consultations about theater nuclear issues in 1978 and 1979.¹¹ I became fairly close with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Burt remembered. Brzezinski went to Carter and said, ‘We really damaged our relationship with Schmidt over the neutron bomb… . We have got to think of a response to the SS-20.’ ¹²

A Towering, Dark Cloud

On August 31, 1976, the director of ACDA, Fred Iklé, bemoaned the Soviet theater nuclear buildup.¹³ The previous day, the Kremlin had deployed the first SS-20.¹⁴ The United States and its NATO allies lacked comparable missiles. France had eighteen aging land-based S-3s, but Paris had withdrawn from NATO’s integrated military structure in 1966. Paris refused to include its forces in superpower arms talks.¹⁵ In 1969 the Kremlin also unveiled the supersonic Tu-22M Backfire bomber, which was superior to the American FB-111 and F-111.¹⁶ Due to their limited range and nuclear capabilities, SS-20s and Backfires were omitted from SALT and MBFR. Russia’s strength in regional nuclear bombers and missiles, Iklé lamented, grows like a towering, dark cloud over Asia and Europe.¹⁷

The Carter administration inherited the gray area problem, which stemmed from the development of weapons that were omitted from SALT. In the 1980s the INF negotiations dealt with unresolved SALT issues.¹⁸ In the previous decade the Nixon and Ford administrations contributed to the gray area problem by rejecting Soviet proposals to constrain allied nuclear forces and American FBS. They failed to control 709 Soviet ground-based theater nuclear missiles—the aging SS-4s and SS-5s—as well.¹⁹ In this context SS-20s exacerbated West German anxiety about the credibility of American extended deterrence. Carter and his aides also inherited new technologies—the neutron bomb, cruise missiles, and the Pershing II—which presented challenges and opportunities.

Gray area systems were excluded from SALT I and II, which covered ICBMs, SLBMs, and long-range bombers.²⁰ The Nixon and Ford administrations considered arms control part of détente.²¹ In SALT they pursued limitations on Soviet nuclear weapons and anti– ballistic missile (ABM) systems.²² They aimed to diminish the danger of nuclear war, control the cost of the arms race, reduce superpower tensions, and enshrine deterrent theory in policy.²³ The Lyndon Johnson administration harbored similar aspirations. It proposed strategic arms negotiations with Moscow, but it shifted gears in August 1968 when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia.²⁴ SALT commenced in November 1969.

In the 1970s and 1980s American and Soviet arms controllers struggled to define strategic nuclear weapons, which were covered in SALT. On one hand, the Leonid Brezhnev government labeled nuclear weapons that could strike superpower territory strategic. SS-20s can’t hit [America] from anywhere, General Secretary Brezhnev observed in March 1977, but you can drop thousands of missiles on us from Europe.²⁵ Therefore, Moscow proposed limitations on British and French forces and American FBS, such as US dual-capable aircraft— FB-111s, F-111s, F-4 Phantom IIs, A-4 Skyhawks, A-6 Intruders, and A-7 Corsair IIs. ²⁶ On the other hand, the Nixon and Ford administrations insisted that SALT was a bilateral negotiation that only covered nuclear weapons that traveled at least fifty-five hundred kilometers.

The American terms were reflected in SALT, but US and Soviet negotiators bickered about allied nuclear forces and FBS. American officials countered the Soviet position in several ways. First, they explained that dual-capable aircraft were less powerful than strategic nuclear systems. Second, they claimed that FBS offset Soviet conventional superiority in Europe. Third, they lamented Moscow’s unwillingness to limit its theater-range missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft.²⁷ At Vladivostok in November 1974, US and Soviet diplomats agreed to exclude FBS and allied forces from SALT II.²⁸ The Vladivostok accord incentivized the Kremlin to develop nuclear weapons that did not travel fifty-five hundred kilometers.

The road-mobile SS-20 embodied the gray area problem. In 1971 SS-20 research and development commenced. The initial flight test occurred in September 1975, and the first operational missile was deployed on August 30, 1976. With three independently targetable 150-kiloton warheads, SS-20s flew just under fifty-five hundred kilometers. To increase survivability, they were transported on six-axle vehicles and rail cars. In the Soviet Union’s vast territory, SS-20s were quite difficult to track and destroy. They could also be fired within minutes.²⁹ In summer 1981 US