B.2.1 Negotiating Positions The unilateral development of SPS by the United States would be considered by other nations as an appropriate subject for international accords. They would wish to reduce or eliminate threats which such nations perceive with regard to the satellite. Thus, the major impetus for the creation of an international agreement for SPS development might emanate from foreign nations. The United States would then be in a favorable negotiating position from which to bargain for provisions designed to defuse the vulnerabilities of SPS development in return for provisions intended to forestall perceived threats. The United States could choose to refrain from including components in the SPS which would produce threats, and any international agreement designed to eliminate such threats would serve to ratify this unilateral U.S. policy. However, from the perspective of foreign nations, it is obvious that once SPS were in existence, few nations would have the practical ability to affect the space segment of the facility in order to prevent perceived or real threats should the United States policy change. Therefore, foreign nations would seek ways in which to achieve leverage vis-a-vis the United States to help ensure the mitigation of threats. For space powers, such leverage may be in the form of the development and implementation of their own SPS or appropriate military systems. For the majority of nations, however, the leverage may come from their combined voting strength within already established international organizations, their united economic strength, and/or their united efforts with regard to allocation of international resources such as the geostationary orbit and radio frequency spectrum. It is likely, therefore, that an international agreement for SPS will be founded on trade-offs between provisions which attempt to eliminate perceived and real threats from a U.S.-developed SPS system and provisions which attempt to eliminate vulnerabilities to the U.S. system. It is anticipated that, from the perspective of the United States, the value of a multilateral agreement will be significant in reducing certain types of vulnerabilities. Although an international agreement may not be entirely effective in the elimination of military vulnerabilities, just as it may not be entirely effective in the elimination of military threats attributed to SPS, an international agreement would be very useful in eliminating institutional and international legal vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities may range from claims of
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