ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT

ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT

One of the major efforts to preserve international
peace and security in the twenty-first century
has been to control or limit the number of
weapons and the ways in which weapons can be
used. Two different means to achieve this goal
have been disarmament and arms control. Disarmament
is the reduction of the number of
weapons and troops maintained by a state. Arms
control refers to treaties made between potential
adversaries that reduce the likelihood and scope
of war, usually imposing limitations on military 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 position
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 Germany’s
weapons had been largely eliminated,
the underlying causes of conflict had not. Germany’s
experience thus illustrated that no simple
cause-and-effect relationship existed
between the possession of weapons and a tendency
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 proponents
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 disappointment
when treaties have resulted in an increase
in the number or power of weapons. An advantage
of arms control over disarmament, however,
is that even states with a high degree of
suspicion or hostility toward each other can still
negotiate agreements. Disarmament agreements,
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 control
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 constructing
launch sites for nuclear missiles on the
island of Cuba, thereby threatening to put
nuclear weapons very close to U.S. soil. President JOHN F. KENNEDY declared a naval blockade
of the island, and for two weeks, the United
States and the USSR existed in a state of heightened
tension. Finally, the USSR and the USSR
faced off in what became a white-hot international
drama of brinksmanship, each side waiting
to see who would blink first.With the United
States’ promise not to overthrow Fidel Castro’s
government in Cuba, the Soviets canceled plans
to install the missiles. After the crisis, Kennedy
wrote to Khrushchev, “I agree with you that we
must devote urgent attention to the problem of
disarmament. . . . Perhaps . . . we can together
make real progress in this vital field.”
Among the earliest arms control treaties
were the LIMITED TEST BAN TREATY (LTBT), an
agreement that prohibited nuclear test explosions
in the atmosphere, under water, or in
space, which was signed in 1963 by the United
States, Britain, and the USSR, and the 1972 Biological
Weapons Convention, a superpower
treaty that banned biological weapons and provided
for the destruction of existing stockpiles.
The 1972 convention was the first and only
example, since 1945, of true disarmament of an
entire weapons category. Although negotiation
on a comprehensive test ban—an agreement
that would prohibit all nuclear testing—continued,
this solution remained elusive. Nevertheless,
in 1974, the superpowers signed the
Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), which limits
nuclear tests to explosive yields of less than 150
kilotons. (A kiloton represents the explosive
force of one thousand tons of TNT). But the
TTBT did not prevent the superpowers from
developing nuclear warheads (the bomb-carrying
segments of a nuclear missile) with power
exceeding 150 kilotons; warheads on the Soviet
SS-17 missile possess as much as a 3.6-megaton
capacity. (A megaton equals 1 million tons of
TNT.) In 1976, the superpowers signed the
Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET),
which banned so-called peaceful nuclear testing.
Numerous arms control agreements have
been designed to improve communications
between the superpowers. The first of these,
coming just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, was
the 1963 HOT LINE AGREEMENT, setting up a
special telegraph line between Moscow and
Washington. In 1978, the hot line was updated
by a satellite link between the two superpowers.
The United States and the USSR also sought to
create protocols designed to prevent an accidental
nuclear war. This effort led to the 1971 agreement,
Measures to Reduce the Risk of Outbreak
of Nuclear War, which required advance warning
for any missile tests and immediate notification
of any accidents or missile warning alerts.
One highly celebrated arms control agreement
is the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons, or Non-Proliferation
Treaty, designed to prevent the spread of nuclear
weapons to other countries. The agreement
involves well over one hundred states. Under it,
countries not possessing nuclear weapons give
up their right to acquire such weapons, and
countries with nuclear weapons waive their
rights to export nuclear weapons technology to
countries lacking that technology.
Another class of arms control treaties seeks
to ban weapons from as-yet-unmilitarized areas.
These include the 1959 ANTARCTIC TREATY,
which prohibits military bases, maneuvers, and
tests on the Antarctic Continent; the 1967 Outer
Space Treaty, a ban on the testing or deployment
of “weapons of mass destruction” in Earth’s
orbit or on other bodies in the solar system; the
1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, prohibiting nuclear
weapons in Latin America; and the 1971 Seabed
Treaty, banning the placement of weapons of
mass destruction on or below the seabed.
SALT I and After
The STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TALKS
(SALT I and SALT II) were first undertaken in
the era of détente in the early 1970s, when relations
between the United States and the USSR
became more amicable. SALT I led to two agreements:
the ANTI-BALLISTIC-MISSILE TREATY OF
1972 (ABM Treaty), which eventually limited
each superpower to one site for antiballistic missiles
(ABMs), the missiles designed to intercept
and destroy incoming missiles; and an “interim”
arms agreement limiting the number of intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers
and submarine-launched ballistic missiles
(SLBMs) to those already deployed by specific
dates in 1972. It also required that any modernization
and replacement of ICBMs and SLBMs
be on a one-for-one basis and prohibited any
development of new, more powerful ICBMs.
The agreement was meant to set limits before a
more definitive SALT II treaty could be negotiated.
When the SALT II Treaty was signed in
1979, it set a limit of 2,400 strategic missiles and
bombers for each side. Although the U.S. Senate
did not ratify this treaty, the United States
abided by it for several years.
The ABM Treaty of SALT I was much more
successful than the interim ICBM-SLBM agreement.
Because the SALT agreements limited
only the number of ICBM launchers, or missiles,
both superpowers went on in the 1970s to
develop missiles with multiple warheads, called
multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles
(MIRVs). Launcher totals thus remained
constant, but the number of warheads increased
dramatically. Adding warheads to missiles also
made nuclear deterrence more unpredictable; a
superpower with MIRVs could have enough
warheads to destroy the opponent’s retaliatory
capability, thereby making MAD ineffective.
Both superpowers felt that their land-based missile
forces had become vulnerable to a first strike
from the other side.
Compliance with the SALT treaties became a
contentious issue in the 1980s when the United
States accused the USSR of violating treaty provisions
on the development of new missiles. The
administration of President RONALD REAGAN
decided that alleged Soviet violations made it
necessary to end U.S. compliance with the agreements.
In 1986, the United States exceeded limits
set by SALT II when a B-52 bomber equipped
with cruise missiles (nuclear missiles that fly at a
low altitude) entered active service.Another U.S.
military proposal, the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI), also complicated the ABM Treaty. In
1983, Reagan made a televised speech in which
he announced plans to develop a space-based
missile defense system. He presented SDI as an
alternative to MAD. SDI would, he claimed,
effectively shield the United States from a Soviet
missile launch, including an accidental or thirdparty
attack. SDI would also protect the landbased
leg of the United States’ nuclear triad, the
other two legs of which are aircraft bombers and
submarine-launched missiles. Many doubted
whether such a missile defense system could
actually be created, and others criticized SDI as
a dangerous upset in the nuclear balance. A
debate also arose as to whether SDI was in violation
of the ABM Treaty.
Relations between the superpowers eventually
warmed when Mikhail Gorbachev emerged
as leader of the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. Relatively young and dynamic compared with
his predecessors, Gorbachev initiated reforms
for increased openness in the Soviet Union that
facilitated arms control agreements. In 1987,
President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary
Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, another major step
in arms control. The INF Treaty called for the
elimination of an entire class of short- and
intermediate-range (300- to 3,400-mile) nuclear
missiles. These included 1,752 Soviet and 859
U.S. missiles. It was the first treaty to result in a
reduction in the number of nuclear weapons.
The agreement also involved the most complete
verification procedures ever for an arms control
treaty. These included data exchanges, on-site
inspections, and monitoring by surveillance
satellites.
After the INF Treaty, the superpowers continued
to try to work out a strategic arms reduction
treaty that would cut the number of
long-range missiles by 50 percent. By that time
the superpowers each had nuclear arsenals that
could destroy the other many times over, and a
50 percent reduction would still leave nuclear
deterrence well intact.
A New World Order
Between 1989 and 1991, a number of significant
events brought about the end of the Cold
War. In 1989, Gorbachev surprised the world
when he led the Soviet Union in its decision to
give up its control over Eastern Europe. By the
summer of 1991, not only had the Warsaw
Pact—a unified group consisting of the Soviet
Union and its allies in Eastern Europe—dissolved,
but so had the Soviet Union itself. Soviet
COMMUNISM, one-half of the superpower equation
for over 40 years, had imploded.
During this time of increasingly warm relations
between the superpowers, a number of
major arms control treaties were created. On
November 19, 1990, the United States, the USSR,
and 20 other countries signed the CONVENTIONAL
FORCES IN EUROPE TREATY (CFE
Treaty), which President GEORGE H. W. BUSH
called “the farthest-reaching arms agreement in
history,” an accord that “signals the new world
order that is emerging.” The treaty grew out of a
1989 proposal by Bush that the superpowers
each be limited to 275,000 troops in Europe. As
events unfolded in Eastern Europe, however,
and the countries of the former Eastern Bloc
became independent from the USSR, that number
of troops began to seem high. Under the
CFE Treaty, each side was allowed to deploy, in
the area between the Atlantic Ocean and the
Ural Mountains, no more than 20,000 tanks,
30,000 armored troop carriers, 20,000 artillery
pieces, 6,800 combat airplanes, and 2,000 attack
helicopters. The treaty required the Soviet
Union to disarm or destroy nearly 20,000 tanks,
artillery pieces, and other weapons, to give a 27
percent reduction in Soviet armaments west of
the Urals. That decrease was small, however,
compared with the 59,000 weapons the USSR
shipped east of the Urals to central Asia between
1989 and 1990 as it sought to realign its forces in
response to world events. On the other side, the
NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION
(NATO) forces—the postwar alliance ofWestern
European and North American states, including
the United States—were required to destroy
fewer than 3,000 pieces of military equipment.
In May 1991, NATO decided to reduce its forces
even further. The United States, for its part,
reduced the 320,000 troops it had in Europe by
at least 50 percent.

Arms agreements on nuclear weapons were also reached during this period. On July 31, 1991, Bush and Gorbachev signed the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I).
Negotiations on the technically complex accord had begun as early as 1982. The agreement required the USSR to reduce its nuclear arsenal by roughly 25 percent and the United States to reduce its arsenal by 15 percent, within seven
years after ratification by both nations. Numerically speaking, the USSR would reduce its
nuclear warheads from 10,841 to 8,040, and the
United States would reduce its warheads from
12,081 to 10,395. These amounts would bring
the nuclear arsenals of each nation roughly back
to levels that existed in 1982, when START negotiations
began. The agreement also limited the
development of new missiles and required a
number of verification procedures, including
on-site inspections with spot checks, monitoring
of missile production plants, and exchange
of data tapes from missile tests.
Arms Control in the Post-Cold War Era
In June 1992, President George H. W. Bush
met with Russian president Boris Yeltsin. In a
“joint understanding,” the two sides agreed to
reductions of nuclear weapons beyond the levels
provided for in the 1991 START agreement, with
the ultimate goal of decreasing the total number of warheads on each side to between 3,000 and
3,500 by the year 2003. The two presidents also
agreed to eliminate MIRVs by 2003. This agreement
was signed, as START II, in early 1993.
The administration of President BILL CLINTON,
who became president of the United States
in 1993, revived the debate surrounding missile
defense systems—and created fears that a new
arms race might begin—when it developed proposals
for the Theater High-Altitude Area-
Defense System (THAAD). THAAD would be
an elaborate missile defense system aimed at
protecting allied nations from short-range missile
attacks launched by countries such as North
Korea. Critics maintained that THAAD would
violate the ABM provisions of SALT I, widely
believed to be the most successful arms control
provisions ever; upset the nuclear balance; and
possibly lead to an arms race. Proponents of
THAAD maintained that the ABM Treaty was a
relic of the Cold War and that missile defenses
could protect against accidental nuclear
launches.
As for Europe, the new structure of power
there would also create new challenges for arms
control. Agreements such as the CFE were made
when the Soviet Union still existed, and did not
necessarily conform to current realities. As the
war in the former Yugoslavia demonstrated during
the early 1990s, a new political situation
posed new risks. Would certain states become
regional powers and upset the balance of power?
Would agreements that were stabilizing for the
Soviet Union turn out to be destabilizing for
Russia and other states of the former USSR?
Would nationalism rise as a destructive force, as
it had before and during previous wars?
Some experts were proposing that the Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE) develop conventional arms control
agreements to replace the CFE Treaty. The CSCE
was formed in 1973 in an attempt to promote
détente between the United States and the
USSR. It includes 52 countries—50 European
nations plus the United States and Canada.
European leaders hoped the CSCE would play a
greater role in determining a peaceful, stable
future for Europe, with efforts in arms control
being one of its major goals. Formally declaring
this goal, European leaders signed the Pact of
Paris in November 1990. Some leaders were proposing
that the CSCE replace NATO as the chief
military and political organization in Europe.
During the early 2000s, U.S. defense policy
changed dramatically. The election of President
GEORGE W. BUSH signaled the rise of neo-conservative
policy thinking about post-Cold War
security, a framework that no longer prioritized
defense against nuclear attack from Russia or the
states of the former Soviet Union. Instead, TERRORISM
and so-called rogue states were said to
pose the greatest danger.
In a profound departure from the superpower
analysis that had formed the basis of Cold
War planning, the threat was now said to come
from smaller, weaker nations. Defense planners
identified potential threats from North Korea,
Iraq, and Iran, which were said to be developing—
or as in the case of Pakistan, had already
developed—nuclear weapons. They pointed to
the failure of international non-proliferation
agreements as reasons for the United States to
reconfigure its defenses and rethink its previous
agreements.
Accordingly, the Bush administration
moved swiftly on both fronts. In 1999, Bush had
campaigned on the promise of reviving the Reagan-
era SDI project to provide an anti-missile
defense system. In 2001, the president unilaterally
withdrew from the ABM Treaty of 1972 in
order to remove any legal hindrance from testing
and development of missile defense.
The end of the ABM Treaty proved controversial.
Advocates of preserving the treaty praised it
for preserving strategic stability, allowing for easy
verification of each side’s nuclear capacity, and
maintaining the concept of deterrence. Sharply
critical of U.S. unilateral withdrawal, both the
Russians and Chinese announced they would
respond by increasing their nuclear arsenals.
Downplaying this threat, critics of the ABM Treaty
doubted that either nation could afford to do so.
Great uncertainties began to cloud the
future of arms control. Following the SEPTEMBER
11TH TERRORIST ATTACKS on the United
States, the White House announced its radical
new doctrine of preemptive attack: departing
from historical tradition, the Bush administration
declared its intention of attacking enemy
nations first. Accordingly, despite global objection
to the doctrine, the Bush administration
ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.Meanwhile,
the risks of nuclear proliferation were starkly
demonstrated in 2002 when Pakistan and India
came to the brink of nuclear war, and again that
year when North Korea, abrogating its non-proliferation
agreement, defied the United States to
stop it from developing nuclear weapons. With
Washington laying out its largest defense spending
in a quarter century, arms control and disarmament
were clearly perceived to not be a
priority of the Bush administration.
FURTHER READINGS
Dunn, Lewis A., and Sharon A. Squassoni. 1993. Arms Control:
What Next? Boulder, Colo.:Westview Press.
Laird, Melvin R. August 23, 2001. “Why Scrap the ABM
Treaty?”Washington Post, A25.
Mufson, Steven. December 16, 2001. “ABM Treaty May Be
History, But Deterrence Doctrine Lives.” Washington
Post, A37.
Sheehan, Michael. 1988. Arms Control: Theory and Practice.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Weisman, Steven R. March 23, 2003. “A Nation at War: A
New Doctrine, Pre-emption, Idea with a Lineage whose
Time Has Come.” New York Times, 1B.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty of 1972; Blockade; Hot Line
Agreement, 1971; Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; International Law; NATO; Nixon, Richard Milhous;
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; Nuclear Weapons; Terrorism;
War.