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interests will often be at variance with ours. The KGB continues to
practice subversion abroad. The process of domestic reform has only
just begun and has already encountered difficulties and resistance. We cannot with confidence predict how things will go in future, although we are right to wish Mr Gorbachev success.
For these reasons, we must be cautious. Most of all, we cannot afford to ignore the reality of Soviet military power. It is for my noble friend Lord Trefgarne to describe the details of that reality. It is sufficient for me to say that our vital security interests demand that we judge Soviet military intentions by deeds, not words or the number of generals on Lenin's mausoleum for the November
parade.
The best guarantor of our security remains the NATO Alliance, which we have brought a strong military defence and a clear sense of purpose and commitment. I will see this for myself when I visit NATO headquarters in Brussels tomorrow. NATO's policy of nuclear deterrence has helped to keep the peace for 40 years. NATO's united and consistent stand on arms control issues has brought concrete results, most notably with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Agreement.
Can anyone argue convincingly that without the NATO decision to deploy Cruise and Pershing, difficult though it was, we could now look forward with confidence to the prospect of an INF-free Europe?
Other difficult decisions face the Alliance, such as those
concerning the modernisation of NATO's Short range Nuclear Forces
(SNF) in the face of continuing Soviet modernisation of its own
comparable weapons. We shall continue to work for a consensus on
the collective decisions we need to take.
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NATO's arms control priorities now are a 50% cut in superower strategic nuclear arsenals; a global ban on Chemical Weapons and the elimination of conventional imbalances between NATO and the Warsaw
Pact in Europe. NATO proposals have set the agenda in all these
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