of the USSR striving for superiority. The strategems which the present leaders in Washington resort to in order to denigrate USSR policy are inadmissible in relations between States. Question: President Reagan declared that he had devised a new defensive concept. What does this mean in practice'! Ansll'er: This is something that needs special mention. After dis­ coursing to his heart's content on the "Soviet military threat", President Reagan said that it was time a different approach was adopted to ensure United States strategic interests. and announced in this connection the commencement of a large-scale effort to develop highly effective anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defences. On the face of it, laymen may even find this attractive, as the President speaks about what seem to be defensive measures. But this is only on the face of it and only to those who are not conversant with these matters. In fact, the strategic offensive forces of the United States will continue to be developed and upgraded at full tilt and in a quite definite direction-towards the acquisition of a first nuclear strike capability. Under these conditions. the plan to acquire the possibility of destroying, with the help of the ABM defences. the corresponding strategic systems of the other side. that is of render­ ing it unable to deal a retaliatory strike. is a bid to disarm the Soviet Union in the face of the United States nuclear threat. One must see this clearly in order to appraise correctly the true purport of this "new concept". When the USSR and the United States began discussing the problem of strategic arms, they agreed that there is an inseverable interrelationship between strategic offensive and defensive weapons. And it was not by chance that the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems and the Interim Agreement on 
**Analysis**
The text appears to be a critique of the military policies of the United States, specifically the concept of anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses, and its implications for the relationship between the USSR and the US. The author argues that the US is attempting to gain a strategic advantage over the USSR, rather than genuinely seeking defensive measures.

**Category**
International relations, Science and technology