East-West: America Abroad: Reciprocity at Last

Reciprocity at Last

A critical moment in the transformation of U.S.-Soviet relations came on Nov. 16, just over two weeks before the meeting in the Med. That was the day Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney announced that because the Warsaw Pact was becoming "a very different animal," the U.S. could reduce its defense spending. For the Kremlin, it was the best news out of Washington in years, and not just for the obvious reason that less is better where the other superpower's arsenal is concerned. As seen from Moscow, the eventual military consequences of the Pentagon cuts are less important than the immediate political...

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