US Presidency
1982

Those who demand that we renounce the use of a crucial element of our deterrent strategy must show how this would decrease the likelihood of war. It is only by Comparison with a nuclear war that the suffering caused by conventional war seems a lesser evil. Our goal must be to deter war of any kind. And those who decry the failure of arms control efforts to achieve substantial results must consider where the fault lies. I would remind them that it is the United States that has proposed to ban land based intermediate-range nuclear missiles the missiles most threatening to Europe. It is the United States that has proposed and will pursue deep cuts in strategic systems. It is the West that has long sought the detailed exchanges of information on forces and effective verification procedures. And it is dictatorships, not democracies, that need militarism to control their own people and impose their system on others.