Zero Option

The "Zero Option" was the name given to an American proposal for the withdrawal of all Soviet and United States intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe. This term was subsequently expanded to describe the vision of eliminating all nuclear weapons everywhere.

Reagan's initial proposal and reactions

U.S. President Ronald Reagan proposed this plan on 18 November 1981. He offered not to proceed with the deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles – previously announced on 12 November 1979 and due to begin in 1983 – if the Soviet Union would remove its SS-4, SS-5 and SS-20 missiles targeted on Western Europe.

European and American anti-nuclear activists denounced the Zero Option as designed to be rejected so that the U.S. could deploy the new missiles without condemnation by critics there and abroad.^[1] Reagan's proposal came to widespread public attention especially in Germany, where the translated term Nullösung was chosen as Word of the Year 1981 by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache.^[2]

Following the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, however, nuclear arms control negotiations were resumed,^[3] and the Zero Option constituted the basis of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, agreed in principle in September 1987 and signed on 8 December that year.^[4]

Later similar disarmament concepts

Reagan's vision toward elimination of nuclear weapons went far beyond the goals of the INF treaty. On January 16, 1984, he delivered a speech saying:

"Our aim was and continues to be to eliminate an entire class of nuclear arms. Indeed, I support a zero option for all nuclear arms. As I've said before, my dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth."^[5]

The final total of Soviet and United States nuclear missiles, eliminated under the terms of the INF Treaty by the end of May 1991, was 2,692. The fulfilment of this multilateral agreement, which removed both intermediate- and shorter-range nuclear forces from Europe (the "Double-Zero" deal), was widely seen as a key step towards ending the Cold War.^[6]

21st Century Effort

The push for total nuclear weapons abolition was promoted again by U.S. President Barack Obama in a speech given on April 4, 2009, in Prague, where he announced...

"America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."

Obama went on in that speech to state:

"Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century. -- And as nuclear power — as a nuclear power, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone. But we can lead it. We can start it.
So today, I state clearly and with conviction, America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. -- I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, 'Yes, we can.'"^[7]

References

↑ Reagan and Nuclear Disarmament Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Spiegel Online: Ein Jahr, ein (Un-)Wort! (in German)
↑ Gorbachev's View of the SS-20s Archived June 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ US State Department History of the INF Treaty
↑ "Address to the Nation and Other Countries on United States-Soviet Relations". Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
↑ Observer, Editorial, 20 September 1987 Archived June 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
↑ Obama, Barack (April 5, 2009). Barack Obama's speech announcing the goal of Total Nuclear Disarmament. Wikisource.

External links

Issues with Arms Control from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives

Cold War

USA USSR ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact

1940s	Hukbalahap Rebellion Dekemvriana Yalta Conference Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Forest Brothers Operation Priboi Operation Jungle Occupation of the Baltic states Cursed Soldiers Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito–Stalin Split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War (Second round) Malayan Emergency Albanian Subversion

1950s	Bamboo Curtain Korean War 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit (1955) Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis Syrian Crisis of 1957 Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Bandung Conference Bricker Amendment McCarthyism Operation Gladio Iraqi July Revolution "We will bury you"

1960s	Congo Crisis Sino-Soviet split 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Soviet–Albanian split Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War Angolan War of Independence Guinea-Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence Cuban Missile Crisis Sino-Indian War Communist insurgency in Sarawak Iraqi Ramadan Revolution 1963 Syrian coup d'état Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965–66) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967–74 USS Pueblo incident Six-Day War War of Attrition Cultural Revolution Prague Spring Communist insurgency in Malaysia Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution Goulash Communism Sino-Soviet border conflict CPP-NPA-NDF rebellion Corrective Move

1970s	Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan Corrective Movement (Syria) Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping-pong diplomacy 1971 Turkish military memorandum Corrective Revolution (Egypt) Four Power Agreement on Berlin Bangladesh Liberation War 1972 Nixon visit to China North Yemen-South Yemen Border Conflict 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Carnation Revolution Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino-Albanian split Cambodian–Vietnamese War Sino-Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Dirty War Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Saur Revolution New Jewel Movement 1979 Herat uprising Seven Days to the River Rhine Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union

1980s	Soviet–Afghan War 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts 1980 Turkish coup d'état Invasion of Grenada 1986 Black Sea incident 1988 Black Sea bumping incident Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars People Power Revolution Nagorno-Karabakh War Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Revolutions of 1989 Glasnost Perestroika

1990s	Mongolian Revolution of 1990 Yemeni unification Fall of Communism in Albania Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

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See also	Brinkmanship NATO–Russia relations Soviet espionage in the United States Russian espionage in the United States American espionage in the Soviet Union Soviet Union–United States relations US–Soviet summits Cold War II

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