Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War

The Prevention of Nuclear War Agreement was created to reduce the danger of nuclear war between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The agreement was signed in Washington, D.C. on June 22, 1973 during a relative period of détente. The United States and the U.S.S.R. agreed to reduce the threat of a nuclear war and establish a policy to restrain hostility.

In reality, the agreement had little impact, with Henry Kissinger doubting whether it was "worth the effort" and describing the outcome as only "marginally useful".

The agreement was initially presented to US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on his 1972 visit to Moscow by the Soviets. Kissinger described the initial draft as "a dangerous, Soviet maneuverer to lure us into renouncing the use of nuclear weapons, on which the free world's defence after all depended ... Given the Societ superiority in conventional weapons, such a move would demoralise our allies and deeply disquiet China, who would see it as a sign of the much dreaded U.S.-Soviet collusion ... It was strong stuff. We were being asked to dismantle the military strategy of NATO and at the same time to proclaim a virtual U.S.-Soviet military alliance designed to isolate or impose our will on China or any other country with nuclear aspirations."

With the help of British diplomat Thomas Brimelow, Kissinger presented a counterproposal which he described as "180 degrees removed from his (Brezhnev's) original design ... In short, in over a year of negotiation we had transformed the original Soviet proposal of an unconditional renunciation of the use of nuclear weapons against each other into a somewhat banal statement that our objective was peace, applying as well to allies and third countries and premised on restrained international conduct, especially the avoidance of the use or the threat of force".

Unlike the original Soviet proposal, which Kissinger considered entirely unacceptable, the agreed text provided "marginally useful" accommodations to the United States, not specifically in the realm of preventing nuclear war but in Kissinger's specialist subject of geopolitical realpolitik: in his estimation it would make "it impossible for the Soviets to turn on either NATO or the Middle East without violating the agreement. And it even gave us a kind of legal framework for resisting a Soviet attack on China." Nevertheless, Kissinger doubted whether the agreement was "worth the effort."

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Wikipedia