October 13, 2020—Remember Reykjavik!

“Gorbachev said he could not do it. If they could agree to ban research in space, he would sign in two minutes. They should add to the text ‘The testing in space of all space components of missile defense is prohibited, except research and testing conducting in laboratories’ . . .” Authoritative Memcon from Reykjavik Summit, October 12, 1986

Yesterday was the 34^th anniversary of when President Ronald Reagan walked out of his October 11-12, 1986 meeting with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland.

This meeting was intended to plan a subsequent major summit, but it turned out to be far more important than many previous or subsequent summits. Click here for my October 11, 2018 Newsmax article discussing that “Unplanned Summit that Changed the World,” repeated in full below.

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Reykjavik: The Unplanned Summit That Changed the World

By Henry F. Cooper, Newsmax, Thursday, 11 October 2018 03:13 PM

On October 11-12, 1986, President Ronald Reagan met with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev — and it became a historically pivotal moment in our Nuclear and Space Talks (NST) with the Soviet Union. Although the Reykjavik “summit” was billed as a failure around the world, it actually changed everything in our negotiations, and the consequences are important to this day.

The key moment came when Reagan walked out because Gorbachev demanded, in exchange for the deep reductions the president wanted in our offensive nuclear forces, that he agree to limit our space-based defense research and experiments to the laboratory, rather than in space. That, of course, would have severely limited the president’s objectives in his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

I played a leading role in the Defense and Space Talks (DST) component of the NST that began in March 1985 — initially as Deputy and then Chief Negotiator. Our charge from President Reagan was, in effect, to find creative ways to say “Nyet” to the Soviet demands that we ban all so-called “space strike arms” that could shoot down other systems launched into space or launched from space to attack targets in space, in the atmosphere or on the ground.

Denying those demands was central to our NST talks, which also included the Intermediate-range Nuclear Force (INF) talks and the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) — where Reagan’s top priority called for an elimination of all INF systems and deep reductions in all strategic nuclear forces.

After limited Soviet movement in INF and START had occurred from our negotiations in Geneva — while we held the line on SDI, we had set the stage for the meeting in Reykjavik, intended to make more specific plans for a full scale summit. But Gorbachev obviously had other plans.

The meeting began swimmingly, as Gorbachev made many concessions toward our position on offensive nuclear arms — to ban all INF systems and cut the START systems in half. Then as the planned session neared an end, Gorbachev made his demand that SDI experiments be limited to the laboratory.

Agreement would have gutted Reagan’s most important objective to build the most truly effective defenses, which would be based in space, as we have understood since the conclusions of the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) studies in the early 1960s. SDI was all about determining whether late-1980s technology would make that objective possible.

The answer was clearly, “Yes” — and the SDI experiments were clearly demonstrating that was so — and the Soviets knew they could not compete with our technological capabilities that would neuter their advantage in offensive ballistic missiles.

In short, President Reagan walked out, and we were able subsequently to pocket the concessions Gorbachev had made in our INF and START Treaties — the first ever actually to reduce nuclear weapons, while our SDI efforts continued.

Many, including yours truly, believe that Reagan’s SDI changed the world — as Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher later said, “SDI ended the Cold War without firing a shot.” And many senior former Soviet officials have pointed to Reykjavik as the turning point that began the death knell of the Soviet Union.

Regrettably, the Democrats in Congress and the Clinton administration accomplished what the Soviets could not and completely gutted the SDI program, especially the space components and the pivotal technology that so marked the SDI era (1983-93). And we were then within years of actually being able to build truly cost-effective space-based interceptors when Reagan’s SDI was killed for political reasons.

Now, President Trump’s interest in a Space Force could deliver on Reagan’s objective, now with even more advanced technology and for considerably less expense. I pray that it will.

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These hopes from two years ago have not been realized by the Trump administration.

So, I believe it is worth a bit of elaboration on that pivotal Reykjavik moment in our Nuclear and Space Talks (NST) with the Soviet Union. Although it was immediately billed as a failure around the world, it actually changed everything in our negotiations, and the consequences are still important.

The key moment came near the end of the talks after the President had achieved many of his objectives for an agreement including deep reductions in offensive nuclear forces. Gorbachev then at the last minute insisted that the President agree to limit our space-based defense research and experiments to the laboratory, rather than in space — as indicated in my above quotation from the negotiating record. That constraint would have gutted the President’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

As indicated in the below photo, disappointment was evident minutes later in the demeanor of both Reagan and Gorbachev as they left Hofdi House to end the “meeting to plan a summit.”

White House spokesman, Larry Speaks later said, “We had high hopes and we came very close to realizing them but in the end we are deeply disappointed at the outcome.” And after their meetings, General Secretary Gorbachev said that he had told President Reagan, “We are missing an historic chance. Never had our positions been so close together.”

Before flying back to Washington, President Reagan said of their 11 hours of negotiations, including the final unscheduled meeting that ended in stalemate: “We moved towards agreement on drastically reduced numbers of intermediate-range missiles in both Europe and Asia and sharply reducing our strategic arsenals for both . . . We made progress in the area of nuclear testing, but there was remaining at the end of our talks one area of disagreement.”

President Reagan agreed to conducting research and experiments on his space-based missile defense system according to the terms of the ABM Treaty for a decade, but wanted a definite plan to deploy it after then — and he refused to limit those activities to the laboratory as Gorbachev demanded, as noted above.

His conditions became explicit objectives in our Defense and Space Talks (DST) component of the NST that had begun in March 1985. We were prepared to conduct our research on space-based defenses consistent with the ABM Treaty for 10 years, provided the Soviets agreed to our right to deploy those space-based defenses afterward.

At the December 8-10, 1987 Washington Summit (at which we concluded the then much heralded INF Treaty), we actually achieved agreement with the Soviet negotiators on language corresponding to what had we sought in Geneva. But that DST agreement was publicly undermined by our leaders who no doubt did not understand what they were doing.

In any case, our charge from President Reagan from the outset of our talks in March 1985 was, in effect, to find creative ways to say “Nyet” to the Soviet demands that we ban all so-called “space strike arms” that could shoot down other systems launched into space or launched from space to attack targets in space, in the atmosphere or on the ground.

The meeting in Reykjavik followed limited Soviet movement in INF and START in our negotiations in Geneva — while we held the line on SDI. The advancing efforts of the SDI program and its experiments were demonstrating that advances in American technology was paving the way for truly effective ballistic missile defenses, including those based in space.

So … Gorbachev made many concessions in Reykjavik toward our position on offensive nuclear arms — to ban all INF systems and cut the START systems in half — and as the planned session neared an end, he demanded that our space experiments be limited to the laboratory.

While pocketing Gorbachev’s concessions on offensive nuclear arms, Reagan rejected that demand outright because the most truly effective defenses would be based in space, as we have understood since the conclusions of the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) studies in the early 1960s.

But 1960s technology was not sufficiently mature to achieve that objective. SDI was all about determining whether late-1980s technology would make that objective possible.

In short, President Reagan walked out and subsequently we were able to keep and expand on the concessions Gorbachev had made in concluding our INF and START Treaties — the first ever actually to reduce nuclear weapons, while our SDI efforts continued to press the technological advances to eventually build truly cost-effective space based defenses — at least through the remainder of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

Indeed, in January 1992 at the United Nations, Boris Yeltsin (who became Russia’s President after the Soviet Union broke up) basically accepted the position we advocated for five years in Geneva when he proposed that SDI take advantage of Russian Technology and that we together build a Joint Global Defense to protect the Word Community. And we made progress in subsequent negotiations with Russia, at least until Bill Clinton was elected President.

The Clinton administration dropped those negotiations; reverted to the Cold War strategy of relying on the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) mutual suicide pact as the “cornerstone of strategic stability” with Russia; and completely gutted the best SDI technology efforts — and no administration since has revived the key SDI technologies that made space-based interceptors viable three decades ago.

The George W. Bush administration withdrew from the ABM Treaty that had blocked development, testing and deployment of space-based, air-based, sea-based and mobile land-based ABM systems — i.e., the most cost-effective ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems.

Beginning with the George H.W. Bush administrations, we have developed and deployed sea-based and mobile ground-based BMD systems to protect against shorter-range missiles — Theater Missile Defense (TMD) systems. We are finally beginning to take advantage of those capabilities to defend the U.S. against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

But efforts to exploit the most cost-effective concepts of the SDI era remain dormant if they exist at all — for BMD systems based in the air and especially in space that could shoot down attacking ballistic missiles as they rise from their launchers essentially anywhere on Earth and when they are most vulnerable.

That “boost-phase intercept” capability would be very helpful in countering today’s hypervelocity threat — indeed had we that capability we might have deterred Russia and China from developing it. And so now we are playing “catch-up,” without any apparent air-based or especially space-based defense.

Instead, we have invested mostly on the least cost-effective BMD systems, those employing Ground-based BMD systems based in Alaska and California. Click here for a very informative, in-depth 2009 discussion of the key issues of the George W. Bush era by the Independent Working Group (IWG) on Missile Defense, The Space Relationship & the Twenty First Century.

The Obama administration did nothing to reverse this error and consider the most cost-effective BMD systems — those based in space. And so far, neither has the Trump administration in spite of how its important Space Force initiative could exploit such an important global BMD capability.

Hopefully, the Trump administration will eventually reverse these truly terrible decisions by reviving the most cost-effective missile defense system of the SDI era (1983-93), Brilliant Pebbles.

We knew how to do so three decades ago, and that such a global defenses with 1000 Brilliant Pebbles was credibly costed (by the Pentagon’s organization that conducts independent cost estimates as part of formal acquisition activities) at $10 billion in 1988 dollars — now inflated to $20 billion — for development, deployment and 20-years operation.

Click here for an August 14, 2017 Newsmax article I coauthored with Retired USAF Lt. General James A. Abrahamson (SDI’s first SDI Director who began the Brilliant Pebbles effort) discussing and recommending that space-based defenses should be front and center in President Trump’s announced plans to increase BMD funding — which he has since done, though his Space Force leaders have not responded with serious acquisition programs.

Click here for our June 21, 2017 Wall Street Journal article disputing an editorial that claimed space based defenses would be “no doubt expensive” and that “it’s difficult to score technologies still under development” by defending the 1988 cost estimates for this then clearly achievable system designed to intercept attacking ballistic missiles in their boost-phase while their rockets still burn brightly, before they can release their decoys and other countermeasures — and throughout their flight, including high in the atmosphere on re-entry.

Were he still alive, I’m sure that USAF Lt. General George Monahan would have joined us in disputing these excessive cost estimates that are grossly misleading, to say the least, and responding to the ignorance of what was achieved a quarter century ago.

As the second SDI Director, George led the “season of reviews” discussed by the SDI Historian at the time, Retired USAF Colonel Donald Baucomb. Click here for Baucomb’s history of the Rise and Fall of Brilliant Pebbles, including that Brilliant Pebbles became the first SDI program to enter a Defense Acquisition Board approved Concept and Demonstration and Validation (DemVal) program during General Monahan’s watch.

Moreover, the above mentioned cost estimate was fully vetted, including by TRW and Martin Marietta, after they won a five company competition to execute that DemVal effort — regrettably canceled by the Democrat leaders in congress in mid-1992 and completely gutted (along with most of the rest of Reagan’s SDI effort) by the Clinton administration in early 1993, as discussed by Don Baucomb.

Finally, I want to close by noting that many, including yours truly, believe that Reagan’s SDI changed the world — as Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher later said, “SDI ended the Cold War without firing a shot.” As she stated when I hosted her at SDI’s National Test Facility in Colorado Springs on August 2, 1991, after reviewing displays from many SDI contractor and government laboratory teams:

“I firmly believe that it was the determination to embark upon that SDI program and to continue with it that eventually convinced the Soviet Union that they could never, never, never achieve their aim by military might because they would never succeed.”

And many senior former Soviet officials have pointed to Reykjavik as the turning point that began the death knell of the Soviet Union. And we should have seen the fruits of Reagan’s SDI efforts long ago for a much smaller ballistic missile defense investment than we have since made.

We were then within a few years of being able to build truly cost-effective space-based interceptors when Reagan’s SDI was killed for political reasons. Regrettably no administration since the Clinton administration has reversed this foolish decision.

Now, President Trump’s interest in a Space Force could deliver on Reagan’s objective, now with even more advanced technology and for considerably less expense. But, regrettably, it has not addressed this obvious deficiency; I pray that eventually it will.

Click here for my most recent review of more of the history that gave us the historic opportunity we missed thirty years ago — with the hope that we will eventually get it right.

Bottom Lines:

Many believe that President Reagan’s commitment to SDI at the Reykjavik Summit was the turning point in ending the Cold War. Amb. Vernon Walters, then our UN Ambassador, told me at the time that Soviet Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev said that Reykjavik was a “watershed event.” He ought to have known, as he led the Soviet experts group at Reykjavik. Many other former Soviet leaders have pointed to Reykjavik and Reagan’s SDI commitment as key to ending the Soviet Union and freeing millions throughout previously Soviet-controlled Europe.

Regrettably, Reagan’s top priority SDI program ended with the end of the George H.W. Bush administration and has remained dormant ever since — while its associated technology has advanced and is now being exploited by others, including especially China. It’s long past time to revive Reagan’s SDI vision and his commitment to building the most cost-effective ballistic missile defenses — those based in space.

Hopefully, we collectively will remember the lessons of Reykjavik — and do the right thing!

Stay tuned.

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