WI Reykjavík successful.

So, at the Reykjavík Summit the world came the closest it's ever come to full nuclear disarmament. Both Reagan and Gorbachev genuinely wanted to reduce nuclear arms but Reagan simply refused to concede on the SDI program, he didn't see how SDI could be viewed as a threat and was adamant that it was a "shield" and even offered to share it with the USSR (while I personally bellvie his offer to share it was genuine, various geopolitical factors would have made this unlikely)

Lets say though that Reagan has a moment of doubt , does a turn on SDI and agrees to the Soviet proposal. What would both the immediate US political reaction (remember Reagan was being attacked from both the Left and Right) and what would be the long term effects of the Reykjavik Agreement? Could we see full disarmament by 2000?

"The USSR and the United States undertake for ten years not to exercise their existing right of withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, which is of unlimited duration, and during that period strictly to observe all its provisions. The testing in space of all space components of missile defense is prohibited, except research and testing conducted in laboratories. Within the first five years of the ten-year period (and thus through 1991), the strategic offensive arms of the two sides shall be reduced by 50 percent. During the following five years of that period, the remaining 50 percent of the two sides strategic offensive arms shall be reduced. Thus by the end of 1996, the strategic offensive arms of the USSR and the United States will have been totally eliminated."
 

Deleted member 43582

Well China, Britain and France just got a pretty neat influence boost.
 
i doubt either side would fully disarm....theyd just tuck a few secret ones here and there til the day comes to try get back on top of the world influence meter
 

Robert

Banned
Reykjavik was successful from the point of view of the United States, and the West.

The possibility of ending missile defense for the promise of mutual disarmament was the only hope the Soviet Union had to survive.

Had it been agreed to the Soviet Union might have lasted a few more years, and Gorbachev would have received the Nobel Prize.
 

Krall

Banned
In Britain and France I can't imagine how they could publicly justify having nuclear weapons after the US/USSR disarm.

I'm not sure China would hold onto their arsenal either - they have a relatively small nuclear arsenal and a strict "no first use" policy, as well as a policy of never using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. So if there are no other nuclear states in the world, there's no reason for them to maintain a nuclear arsenal.

Plus, holding onto their nuclear arsenal when everyone else is getting rid of theirs would probably alienate China diplomatically.
 
Neither the US or the USSR is going to disarm completely. tThere is a reduction agreement that is ratified thanks to Democratic Senators.
 
I doubt that Israel would ever give up its nukes, especially with no chance of an American nuclear umbrella - unlike most other nations, the Israeli nukes were (and are) a deterrent against conventional destruction, not nuclear destruction only.

I'm also pretty skeptical about India and Pakistan, though I guess they might agree if they can also get an SDI umbrella.
 
In Britain and France I can't imagine how they could publicly justify having nuclear weapons after the US/USSR disarm.
Well for the UK it's because they're a smaller country that they have them as opposed to the US or USSR which can maintain absolutely massive conventional armies. Case in point, the US Marine Corps was larger than the British Army and probably operated more helicopters and jets than the whole armed forces combined. Plus the French share a land border with Germany which the Warsaw Pact is currently parked in the eastern half of. Give it another four years when John Major turns up, assuming that he still does, then he might be more amenable to the idea. So if some NATO countries aren't fully on board with the idea then I can't see the Soviets scrapping all their nuclear weapons either, best case scenario I think would be a massive reduction in numbers so that they only have enough to kill the entire world the once over as opposed to six or eight times.
 
Full disarmament was antithetical to every NATO doctrine of the period, which recognized the tremendous imbalance in conventional forces between it and the Warsaw Pact. It never would have happened.
 
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