zero option

noun

1. (in international nuclear arms negotiations) an offer to remove all shorter-range nuclear missiles or, in the case of the zero-zero option all intermediate-range nuclear missiles, if the other side will do the same

Example Sentences

Then there is the zero option — no new funds — which, in the absence of any discernible progress on Capitol Hill, is the baseline assumption on which transit executives must formulate their budgets.

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In Metro’s case, the zero option is a disaster that would deepen the hole from which the local economy must climb.

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During their 1986 summit at Reykjavik, Iceland, both leaders agreed to the zero option, details were worked out, and the INF Treaty was signed in 1987.

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People in the streets, in both the U.S. and Europe, refused to go away, with public calls for a “zero option,” no short-range missiles on either side.

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Duly, Andropov did refuse the zero option; but his successor Mikhail Gorbachev had different pressures and priorities – economically, the arms race was unsustainable by then – and accepted the zero option as a sincere rather than tactical demand from the US.

Read more on The Guardian