The Vienna Force Reduction Talks: Moving Toward Deep Cuts

Abstract

Against the background of forty years of East—West confrontation, with Western suspicions of the Soviet Union kept alive by events like the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, of Afghanistan in 1979, and menacing military manoeuvres at the time of the 1981 declaration of martial law in Poland, it is not surprising that the leaders of NATO were confused and sceptical about the sudden shift of Soviet policy which came with the emergence in March 1985 of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader. Given the interest shown by their own public opinion, NATO leaders found it expedient to accept Gorbachev’s proposal of April 1986 for a new negotiation on NATO—Warsaw Pact force reductions. Yet they remained sceptical as to President Gorbachev’s motives. Many doubted Soviet willingness to make far-reaching force reductions. Others thought the Soviet leadership was motivated by plans of its own General Staff to replace quantity with quality in Soviet armed forces, to cut their size, to reorganise them and to equip them with advanced weapons, making them a greater threat than ever.