missile defence systems became a destabilizing factor in the Soviet-American arms race, initiating the development of strategic offensive weapons. Soviet military experts gradually started to realize the close relationship between strategic offensive and defensive forces. For example, Provorov (1972: 92) emphasized: ‘The share of aerospace defence in the overall balance of military efforts … is becoming increasingly significant.’ That was the logic that underlied the ABM Treaty, one of the key outcomes of the first round of SALT. Representing a widespread opinion, Shoumikhin (2011: 104) stressed that SALT was a turning point which clearly signalled that MAD became the ‘dominant’ strategic paradigm, yet only on an unofficial level, in US-Soviet relations. However, there likely remained doubts in the US about whether the Soviets fully and sincerely accepted the logic of MAD. Effective missile defences could obviously undermine MAD. In 1985 the Reagan administration expressed concern that the USSR was preparing a nationwide defence against missiles. Moscow made a similar charge against the US (Gwertzman 1985).
4.3 The Circle Closes: The Role of the USSR in Nuclear Arms Control
During the 1950s to early 1980s, the Soviet Union continued to take systematic steps to curb the arms race and facilitate arms control discussions and disarmament understandings. It means that even at the height of the nuclear revolution in Soviet military affairs, as discussed above, the USSR did not abandon the idea of nuclear – as well as general and complete – disarmament. Anureev (1963: 6) clearly articulated the USSR’s unchanged position in one of his articles published in Voennaya Mysl’: ‘The Soviet Union firmly and resolutely advocated and continues to advocate for the complete ban of nuclear weapons, the cessation of production and the destruction of their stockpiles, and complete and general disarmament.’ The USSR stayed true to these objectives from the very beginning because, according to Zemskov (1969b: 57), it continued to promote the policy of ‘preventing a world war, including a nuclear one’.
However, the Soviets’ motivation in pursuing this course was based primarily on self-interest rather than on moral commitment. There were strategic and budgetary issues. First, the Soviets feared losing their competitive position as they recorded the beginning of a whole new round in the never-ending spiral of their arms race with the US. In particular, they
were becoming concerned about America’s efforts to sharply increase the striking power of their nuclear weapons by equipping a new generation of strategic missiles with multiple warheads, also known as MIRVs. These efforts were perceived in the USSR as the desire ‘to achieve strategic superiority over the countries of socialism’ (Trofimov 1970: 81, 84). It should be noted, however, that the Soviet Union eventually proceeded with the development of their own MIRVs, making them more destructive than those of the US. There is evidence that the US could equip a missile with three warheads, while the USSR – eventually with ten, as noted by Sokov (Interview no. 2). Second, the arms race was becoming an increasingly heavy burden for the Soviet economy. Ermakov (1970: 87) warned that, by means of the arms race and brinkmanship, the US sought to impose ‘exhausting [emphasis added] military-economic competition’ on the USSR.
Nevertheless, the Soviets aspired to make disarmament, in particular nuclear disarmament, a common purpose of all nations. In doing so, they appealed to emotion and reason. Milko (1961: 61) argued that general and complete disarmament would save mankind from the ‘horrors’ of bloody wars and save millions of lives, relieve the population of the ‘heavy burden’ of military expenditures and free up enormous resources for constructive purposes, and open up enormous opportunities for the development of international trade and the use of the greatest scientific discoveries, particularly in the fields of atomic energy and outer space, for peaceful purposes. Lagovsky (1970: 59) put forward a purely logical argument in favour of disarmament:
History shows that the cost of equipping and maintaining the army from century to century, from one war to another, has continuously increased, depriving the national economy of huge amounts of money. But economic resources are far from unlimited. And the less money the state spends on maintaining the army and navy, on maintaining their combat readiness (without prejudice, of course, to defence purposes), the more remains for the needs of the national economy.
The arguments in favour of nuclear disarmament in particular relied heavily on emotional appeals. The 1960 Statement of the Conference of Representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties was more specific in this regard. It contained that a nuclear war would ‘cause unprecedented destruction’, ‘turn the largest centres of world production and world culture into ruins’, as well as ‘bring death and suffering to hundreds of