ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
(BOTTOM) LIB. OF CONG.capability. Although disarmament always
involves the reduction of military forces or
weapons, arms control does not. In fact, arms
control agreements sometimes allow for the
increase of weapons by one or more parties to a
treaty.
History
Arms control developed both in theory
and in practice during the COLD WAR,a period
between the late 1940s and 1991 when the two
military superpowers, the United States and
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR), dealt with one another from a posi-
tion of mutual mistrust. Arms control was
devised consciously during the postwar period
as an alternative to disarmament, which for
many had fallen into discredit as a means of
reducing the likelihood of war. Germany had
been forced to disarm following WORLD WAR I
but became belligerent again during the 1930s,
resulting in WORLD WAR II. Although Ger-
many’s weapons had been largely eliminated,
the underlying causes of conflict had not. Ger-
many’s experience thus illustrated that no sim-
ple cause-and-effect relationship existed
between the possession of weapons and a ten-
dency to create war.
Following World War II, advocates of arms
control as a new approach to limiting hostility
between nations emphasized that military
weapons and power would continue to remain
a part of modern life. It was unrealistic and
even dangerous, they felt, for a country to seek
complete elimination of weapons, and it
would not necessarily reduce the likelihood of
war. Whereas disarmament had formerly been
seen as an alternative to military strength,
arms control was now viewed as an integral
part of it. Arms control proponents sought to
create a stable balance of power in which the
forces that cause states to go to war could be
controlled and regulated. The emphasis in
arms control is thus upon overall stability
rather than elimination of arms, and propo-
nents recognize that an increase in weaponry is
sometimes required to preserve a balance of
power.
The development of arms control owes a
great deal to the existence of NUCLEAR
WEAPONS as well. By the 1950s, when both the
United States and the Soviet Union possessed
nuclear weapons, the superpowers became
convinced that they could not safely disarm
themselves of those weapons. In the absence of
guaranteed verification—the process whereby
participants in a treaty monitor each other’s
adherence to the agreement—neither side
could disarm without making itself vulnerable
to cheating by the other side. The goal of the
superpowers and other nations possessing
nuclear weapons therefore became not total
elimination of those weapons, but control of
them so that a stable nuclear deterrent might
be maintained. According to the idea of nuclear
deterrence, a state possessing nuclear weapons
is deterred, or prevented, from using them
against another nuclear power because of the
threat of retaliation. No state is willing to
attempt a first strike because it cannot prevent
the other side from striking back. Nuclear
deterrence is therefore predicated upon a
mutual abhorrence of the destructive power of
nuclear weapons. This idea has come to be
called mutual assured destruction (MAD).Many
experts see deterrence as the ultimate goal of
nuclear arms control.
Because many civilians generally assume
that arms control and disarmament are the same
thing, there has often been public disappoint-
ment when treaties have resulted in an increase
in the number or power of weapons. An advan-
tage of arms control over disarmament, how-
ever, is that even states with a high degree of
suspicion or hostility toward each other can still
negotiate agreements. Disarmament agree-
ments, on the other hand, require a high degree
of trust, and their formation is unlikely between
hostile nations.
Arms control is often used as a means to
avoid an arms race—a competitive buildup of
weapons between two or more powers. Such a
race can be costly for both sides, and arms con-
trol treaties serve the useful purpose of limiting
weapons stockpiles to a level that preserves
deterrence while conserving the economic and
social resources of a state for other uses.
Modern Arms Control
Although disarmament and arms control
agreements were forged prior to World War II
(1939–45), the modern arms control effort
began in earnest after the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
of 1962. That situation erupted when the United
States discovered that the Soviet Union was con-
structing launch sites for nuclear missiles on the
island of Cuba, thereby threatening to put
