viable nuclear strategy; the observing nation may react to this realization by ramping up its own weapon production and perhaps adopting a first strike nuclear strategy as well. The Soviet Union began decommissioning and dismantling the FOBS deployment in 1982 (officially in January 1983). The R36-O missile was completely removed from service by February 1983. Starting in May 1984, the Soviet Union razed its FOBS-capable silos. There's confusion over whether all 18 silos were destroyed. One source suggests that six silos were instead modified for the purpose of ICBM modernization testing, as per a SALT II agreement (see Outer Space Treaty and SALT II). Outer Space Treaty and SALT II Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 stated that: Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner. The overriding opinion of US administrators was that the Soviet FOBS did not violate the treaty, mostly for the reason that the system didn't go into a full orbit. For instance, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara argued that the Soviet Union had only agreed "not to place [nuclear] warheads in orbit," continuing on to point out that the FOBS executes its mission on a "fractional orbit, not a full orbit." Senator Henry M. Jackson, chairman of the Joint Atomic Energy Subcommittee on Military Applications, countered that the Soviet FOBS was at least a "good faith violation of the treaty," alluding to the notion that the weapon could go into technical orbit. This is certainly true: the only thing stopping the Soviet FOBS' payload from completing a full revolution around the Earth (and thereby literally going orbital and violating the treaty) was the firing of the system's retrorocket. Even so, McNamara also drew attention to the fact that the treaty did not ban any form of weapons testing—not even the testing of an orbital nuclear weapons system. None of the Soviet Union's test R-36Os were ever equipped with a nuclear warhead; so, even if it were the case that the launches went orbital, they still would not have broken the treaty. Unlike the Outer Space Treaty, the SALT II agreement of 1979 explicitly prohibited the pursuance and deployment of the FOBS: The SALT II agreement