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for 15 UNCLASSIFIEE show considerable flexibility with respect to formulation and trade-offs. For example, the U.S. can imagine an approach through which equal warhead levels could be reached through equal percentage reductions on both sides (i.e., the U.S. reducing from its planned levels of deployment -- 224 GLCM and Pershing II launchers carrying 572 lissiles/warheads) In introducing the equal percentage reductions example, the delegation should take care not to indicate to the Soviets any acceptance of the principle of equal reductions or equal percentage reductions per se. When used in situations where there is not a beginning balance, or where there is not agreement that the reductions will ultimately lead to equal levels of forces (as is the case in the U.S. START build-down proposal) equal percentage reductions do not lead to equal force levels. If applied in different contexts, the principle of equal reductions or equal percentage reductions could damage U.S. interests. If pressed for an endorsement of the general principle of equal reductions or equal percentage reductions, the delegation should note that while the U.S. cannot endorse the general principle, the LRINF missile issue has some unique features that, in the interest of making progress on this important issue, may make the use of the certain specific equal percentage reduction approaches acceptable to the United States and its Allies within the limited context of the LRINF missile agreement under discussion. C. Space Arms Control. In response to initiatives from the Soviet Union involving space arms control, the U.S. delegation should remind the Soviet delegation that an extensive body of international law and treaties exists with respect to space, including the Outer Space Treaty and the ABM Treaty. Further, the delegation should point out that it is the Soviet Union which has the largest number of warheads which would transit space; it is the Soviet Union which has an existing ASAT system, and it is the Soviet Union which has a deployed ABM system which can attack objects in space. The delegation should explain that the United States is prepared to consider Soviet proposals related to space during the course of formal negotiations. However, because issues involving space cannot logically be separated from the major areas to which they relate, we are only prepared to deal with these proposals in the context of nuclear offensive and defensive negotiations as appropriate to each. d. ASAT Limitations. The U.S. will not propose substantive ASAT initiatives at this time. If pressed by the Soviet Union for agreement to an immediate ASAT moratorium, the delegation should point out that, as the U.S. has consistently made clear, while the U.S. will not agree to such a proposal as a precondition for negotiations, in formal negotiations on the full range of nuclear arms control issues, the United States is prepared to consider areas of mutual restraint which might be negotiated in the context of a broader range of agreements which would provide for stabilizing reductions in nuclear arms. SUNSLASSIFIED SECRE