UN General Assembly
1991

The political developments of the first half of this year created the major prerequisites for this change. There have been breakthroughs in two central areas of disarmament - conventional arms in Europe, and strategic nuclear arms. Armaments are being reduced, although only recently it was held that an arms build-up was precisely what guarantees national security. As President Bush pointed out in his address to the General Assembly yesterday, this proves that relations between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States, between East and West, are no longer relations between adversaries. Such drastic cuts are possible only between partners who have recognized that they have shared, rather than conflicting, security interests.