Missile (ABM) Treatywas negotiated and signed as part of the same
procedure.
A second treaty, SALT II, was ready for signing by 1979, and dealt more
specifically with the total numbers and explosive power of warheads, rather
than with the mere delivery systems limited under SALT I. It took account of
the new technology of MIRV (multiple independently-targeted re-entry
vehicle) warheads that SALT I had ignored. Since the development of this
technology in the late 1960s the number of missiles had become much less
important because each missile could carry up to a dozen, or even more,
separate warheads. Little could be done to control the total number of these
precisely, and negotiations proceeded obliquely by calculating the maximum
number of warheads a missile of a given thrust and size could theoretically
carry, and assuming that all missileswouldcarry this maximum. At the same
time as the SALT II negotiations were taking place deployment of another new
technology, the slow, low-flying, but very sophisticated, cruise missile, was
being planned. Although outside the remit of the SALT procedure, as they
were non-strategic, cruise missiles could not be ignored as they could be
launched from ground, air, ship or submarine, and travel several thousand
miles; although their main purpose was against battlefield targets, they could
also theoretically be used against strategic targets. (Ground-launched cruise
missiles only came under control later in the politically very different context
of theIntermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.)
The SALT II Treaty was successfully negotiated despite these difficulties,
although the limits agreed on allowed the number and sophistication of
weapons on both sides to increase considerably. It was, however, never ratified
because the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, combined with unrelated poli-
tical opposition to the USSR in domestic US politics, forced President Jimmy
Carter to withdraw it from Senate consideration. Despite this both sides agreed
to abide by it and, to a very large extent its limits were followed, despite a
collapse of de ́tente after Ronald Reagan’s accession to the presidency in 1981,
past its proposed expiry date of the end of 1985 and until the whole atmo-
sphere of superpower arms control negotiations had changed in the late
1980s.
Sanctions
When sanctions are referred to in politics, it is almost always as a shorthand for
the supposed application of non-violent sanctions in international relations. A
sanction, of course, is simply a punishment applied by a stronger to a weaker
actor to persuade him to stop doing something, as opposed to a pure punish-
ment which may have an entirely retributive intent. The apparent attraction of
sanctions in this sense in the international arena is that they are seen, very
Sanctions