Sakharov, Gorbachev, and nuclear reductions

Abstract

In 1983, The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as “Star Wars”, was announced by US President Ronald Reagan, escalating tensions in the context of the Cold War and nuclear arms race. At a crucial moment in nuclear arms control, Andrei Sakharov, a prominent Soviet physicist and dissident, and General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, had a pivotal meeting in 1988, orchestrated by a scientists’ forum organized by Frank von Hippel. Sakharov argued for delinking nuclear reductions from the issue of missile defense, focusing on the impracticality of SDI and its impact on the opportunity for deep cuts in nuclear forces. Sakharov’s views resonated with the Soviet leadership and paved the way for substantial reductions in US and Soviet nuclear arsenals through the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. However, the US later reintroduced missile defense, reigniting concerns about the viability of further nuclear disarmament negotiations – AI-generated abstract.