In the end, discussion of very deep reductions of nuclear weapons (complete elimination of all strategic arms in the Soviet position and all ballistic missiles in the American proposal) was doomed to failure. The two countries were simply not yet ready to tackle such a fundamental decision - they lacked the conceptual foundation, even minimal experience in actual reductions, and, above all, many important issues were left outside the purview of negotiations. The summit did help, however, to resolve a number of practical issues, which helped move INF and START negotiations forward.
From the nuclear disarmament perspective, the value of the Reykjavik summit was less in the specific proposals that were discussed by the parties, but rather in the fact that the two leaders boldly tackled the issue of very deep reductions - perhaps not complete elimination (for example, they did not discuss tactical nuclear weapons and the United States wanted to keep nuclear-armed aircraft), but very close to it. On that conceptual level, Reykjavik was the logical next step to the 1985 summit in Geneva, where the same two leaders, Reagan and Gorbachev, announced in a joint statement that "nuclear war cannot be won and should never be waged" - maybe an obvious point for many, but the first formal recognition of the truth by leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union. It would be perhaps folly to attempt to repeat the Reykjavik experience, but it might be desirable to resurrect the spirit and the boldness demonstrated by two leaders who, in spite of all differences between them, passionately believed in the idea of nuclear disarmament.
