The Separation of Arms Control Talks: The Reagan Redefinition of Arms Control and Strategy

Strobe Talbott , Deadly Gambits : The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control (New York: Knopf, 1984 ), p. 352.

A widely shared interpretation is that without SALT II each superpower would add approximately 5000 warheads to its arsenal by 1990; while the US would retain the lead in SLBMs and bomber weapons, the USSR would increase its advantage in missile throw-weight. For an example of this reasoning, see Harold Brown and Lynn Davis , Nuclear Arms Control Choices (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1984), pp. 5-6.

One of the most forceful advocates of the verity of the action/reaction hypothesis was Robert McNamara. As Secretary of Defense, in September 1967 he said:

What is essential to understand here is that the Soviet Union and the United States mutually influence one another's strategic plans. Whatever their intentions or our intentions, actions - or even realistically potential actions - on either side relating to the buildup of nuclear forces necessarily trigger reactions on the other side. It is precisely this action- reaction phenomenon that fuels an arms race.

' The Dynamics of Nuclear Strategy', Department of State Bulletin , 9 October 1967. An earlier articulation of this hypothesis by a leading American statesman is President Kennedy's address at the American University in 1963 in which he spoke of the superpowers 'caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new weapons beget counterweapons', cited in Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. , A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), p. 769.

For influential critiques of the action-reaction hypothesis see Graham T. Allison. 'What Fuels the Arms Race?', in Robert L. Pfaltzgraff Jr. (ed.), Contrasting Approaches to Strategic Arms Control (Lexington, MA: Lexington , 1974); and Albert Wohlstetter , 'Is There a Strategic Arms Race?', Foreign Policy (Vol. 15, Summer 1974) and 'Rivals but no Race' Foreign Policy (Vol. 16, Autumn 1974). Also consult the recent but unpublished works of Charles H Fairbanks, Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, on the historical existence of'arms races'.

Michael R. Gordon , 'US-Soviet Arms Control Negotiations: Nuclear and Space Weapons', AEI Foreign Policy and Defense Review (Vol. 7, No. 2, 1985), p. 21. For an earlier analysis, by an administration supporter, of the administration's difficulty in establishing a coherent identifiable arms control policy, see Colin S. Gray , 'Wanted: An Arms Control Polity', Arms Control Today (Vol. 12, No. 2, February 1982).

Thomas S. Kuhn , The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1970), passim. It should be acknowledged that a strict Kuhnian conception of paradigms, referring only to empirically-based natural science, would be inappropriate for the discussion of trends in international relations. Anthony Giddens , New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies ( London: Hutchinson, 1976), p. 147. Richard A. Bernstein , The Reconstructing of Social and Political Theory (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976), p. 90.

The citations are drawn from statements by Edward Rowny , Eugene Rostow , and Richard Perle , in Arms Control Policy, Planning, and Negotiating, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, US Senate, 97th Congress, 1st session, June 1984; Kenneth Dorn , Arms Control Overview, Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate, 98th Congress, 2nd Session, June 1984; Kenneth Adelman , Jonathan Howe , and R. James Woolsey , The Role of Arms Control in US Defense Policy, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives, 98th Congress, 2nd Session, June-July 1984. A recent summary of the Reagan approach to arms control can be found in K. Adelman , 'Arms Control With and Without Agreements', Foreign Affairs (Vol. 63, No. 2, Winter 1984 -85), p. 85.

Hedley Bull , Arms Control: A Stocktaking and Prospectus (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper No. 55, 1969), p. 11. For a discussion of the transformation in thinking from disarmament to arms control, see Michael Mandelbaum , The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Three influential books that transformed the 'new thinking' into arms control theory and were published almost simultaneously were: Donald G. Brennan (ed.), Arms Control, Disarmament, and National Security (New York: George Braziler, 1961); Hedley Bull , The Control of the Arms Race ( New York: Praeger, 1961); and Thomas C. Schelling and Morton H. Halperin , Strategy and Arms Control ( New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1961).

The essential feature behind arms control theory is the 'recognition of the common interest, of the possibility of the reciprocation and co-operation even between potential enemies with respect to their military establishments'. ( Thomas Schelling and Morton Halperin , op. cit, p. 2.) Also see Robert R. Bowie , 'Basic Requirements of Arms Control',in Donald Brennan , op. cit, pp. 43-55.

Robert Bowie , op. cit, p. 46.

Major Alain Cain , 'SALT II - in Retrospect'. Royal United Services Institute (September 1985), p. 46. A recent theoretical work that argues that 'the superpowers can survive only by working together' is Robert Jervis , The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).

For a discussion of paradigms as shared examples, see Thomas Kuhn , op. cit, pp. 187-91.

As one early strategist argued, 'It is not the "balance" - the sheer equality or symmetry in the situation - that constitutes mutual deterrence; it is the stability of the balance'. Thomas C. Schelling , The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 232.

Philip Windsor , 'Security and Arms Control in the NATO Alliance', in Lawrence S. Hagen (ed.), The Crisis in Western Security (London: Croom Helm, 1982), p. 31.

For an analysis of this process by which arms control acquired significant political tasks see Robin Ranger , Arms and Politics, 1958 -1978 (Toronto: Macmillan . 1979). Barry Blechman makes the striking observation that the American arms control theory, which divorced arms negotiations from politics, was reversed in practice whilst the Soviet arms control theory, which it could be argued would stress the linkage of negotiations to political relations, was also reversed in practice: 'The Brezhnev regime found pursuit of SALT very much in its interest, despite continued erosion of the hroader context of US-Soviet relations. In fact, as US-Soviet relations deteriorated, the Soviets pressed harder across the range of negotiations, adopting increasingly conciliatory positions and raising expectations in several; an early indication of this Soviet reversal was the signing of SALT I right after the bombing of Hanoi'; in 'Do Negotiated Arms Limitations Have a Future?', Foreign Affairs (Vol. 59, No. I, Fall 1980), p. 107.

Philip Windsor , op. cit, passim.

Barry Blechman , op. cit, passim.

'President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger Brief Members of Congress on Strategic Arms Limitation Agreements'. 15 June, US Departmenr of State Bulletin (10 July, 1972), pp. 40 and 42.

Examples of American linkage of arms control to Soviet international behaviour abound. For example, in 1968 the US postponed the SALT negotiations in protest over the invasion of Czechoslovakia and in 1980 the SALT II treaty was withdrawn from US Senate consideration after the invasion of Afghanistan. e.g., '... despite its public protestations to the contrary, as early as 1978 the Carter Administration's positions in SALT and other arms negotiations were strongly influenced by the deterioration of US-Soviet relations, punctuated by such events as the Soviet military involvement in the Horn of Africa and in East German and Cuban roles in the Shaba incident in Zaire'. Barry Blechman , op. cit, p. 107.

'The President's Address to the Joint Session of the Congress at the Conclusion of his Trip to Austria, the Soviet Union. Iran and Poland ', 1 June. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (Vol. 8, 5 June 1972), p. 977.

Edward Rowny . Arms Control Policy, Planning and Negotiating, op. cit, p.6. Also see John Newhouse. Cold Dawn: The Story of SALT (New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston. 1973).

Philip Green . Deadly, Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. 1966).

Major Alain Cain , op. cit p. 45.

In other terms. 'Discovery commences with the awareness of an anomaly'. Thomas Kuhn. op. cit. p. 52, Richard L. O'Meara . 'Regimes and Their Implications for International Theory', Millennium: Journal of International Studies (Vol. 13, No. 3, Winter 1984), p. 250.

Robin Ranger , 'Nuclear Arms Control and Europe: The Enduring Dilemma', in Lawrence S. Hagan. op. cit, p. 88.

One of the first descriptions of 'perception theory' can be found in Arthur M. Cox. The Dynamics of Detente: How to End the Arms Race (New York: Norton, 1976), pp.43-5. However, the argument that nuclear weapons can achieve important political/psychological objectives in world politics, depending on how third parties see the balance between the superpowers, was perhaps first articulated by Edward Luttwak in a critique of SALT II; See Edward Luttwak , Strategic Balance 1972 ( Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Washington Papers, No. 3. 1972), pp. 74-5: Ray S. Cline , World Power Assessment (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1975), p, 56: Donald C. Daniel (ed.), International Perceptions of the Superpower Military Balance (New York: Praeger, 1978).

There have always been alternatives to MAD expressed in both official rhetoric — McNamara's 'no cities' doctrine and flexible response - and policy. The American Single-Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) has since 1962 had elements of counterforce targeting. However, these alternatives have existed more at the fringe than at the centre of the nuclear debate.

An early theoretical anticipation of this 'stability-instability' paradox can be found in Glenn Snyder, 'The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror', in Paul Seabury (ed.), The Balance of Power (San Francisco, CA: Chandler, 1965). For analysis of why Kissinger's strategy of issue-linkage failed, see George W. Breslauer , 'Why Detente Failed: An Interpretation', in Alexander L. George (ed.). Managing US-Soviet Rivalry: Problems of Crisis Prevention (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1983), pp. 319-49; John L, Gaddis ,'The Rise, Fall, and Future of Detente', Foreign Affairs (Vol. 62, No. 2. Winter 1983-84 ), pp. 354-77: and Stanley Hoffman , 'Detente', in Joseph S. Nye (ed.). The Making of America's Soviet Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 1984). pp. 231-64.

Colin Gray has observed that 'most American strategic thinkers have always known that there was a uniquely "Soviet way" in military affairs, but somehow that realization was never translated from insight into constituting a serious and enduring factor influencing analysis, policy recommendation, and war planning'. 'Nuclear Strategy: The Case for a Theory of Victory ' International Security (Vol. 3, No. 1, Summer 1979).

An early example of this 'disdain for Soviet strategic thinking can be found in Edward L. Katzenbach, Jr. , 'Russian Military Development ', Current History (Vol. 39, No. 231, November 1960).

See Christopher Bertram (ed.). The Future of Arms Control: Part I: Beyond Salt II (London : IISS, Adelphi Paper No. 141, 1978 ); and Bertram , The Future of Arms Control. Part II: Arms Control and Technological Change (London: IISS, Adelphi Paper No. 146, 1978).

Herman Kahn. On Thermonuclear War (Princeton. NJ: Princeton University Press , 1960).

Henry Kissinger , 'NATO: The Next Thirty Years', Survival (Vol. 21, No. 6, November-December 1979).

Future of Strategic Deterrence (London: IISS, Adelphi Papers Nos. 160 and 161, 1979).

The Schlesinger Doctrine or National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM)-242 contained three principal elements. The first element was an emphasis on the targetting of a wide-range of Soviet military forces and installations. The second was on providing the National Command Authority (NCA) with the ability to execute selected options throughout the process of strategic nuclear exchange. Thirdly, NSDM-242 introduced the notion of'withholds' or 'non-targets', which ranged from population centres with no military value to centres of political leadership.

Lawrence D. Freedman , 'US Nuclear Weapons in Europe: Symbol, Strategy, and Force Structure', in Andrew J. Pierre (ed.), Nuclear Weapons in Europe ( New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1984), p.72.

Lawrence D. Freedman , 'Negotiations on Nuclear Forces in Europe, 1969- 1983', in Hans H.Holm and Nikolaj Peterson (eds.), The European Missile Crisis: Nuclear Weapons and Security Policy (London: Frances Pinter. 1983), p. 133.

William E. Hoehn, Jr. , Outlasting SALT II and Preparing for SALT III, R-2528-AF (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1979), p. 31. In his famous 1977 speech at the IISS, Schmidt spoke of removing 'the disparities of military power in Europe parallel to the SALT negotiations', 'The 1977 Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture', Survival (Vol. 20, No, 1, January-February 1978), p. 4. For an unofficial look at SALT III. see Ivan Selin , 'Looking Ahead to SALT III', International Security (Vol. 5, No. 3, Winter 1980-81).

See testimony of General Edward L. Rowny and Eugene V. Rostow in Arms Control Policy: Planning and Negotiating Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, US Senate, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 21 and 24 July and 1 December, 1981.

'US Arms-Control Policy: Speech by President Reagan, 18 November 1981', Survival (Vol. 24, No.2, March-April 1982).

Strobe Talbott , op. cit,pp. 346-7.

John Newhouse , 'The Diplomatic Round: Talks about Talks', The New Yorker. 31 December 1984, p. 46.

From text of Geneva Communique, The Washington Post, 9 January 1985).

John Newhouse and Strobe Talbott , op.cit, suggest that the alignment of bureaucratic actors on the issue of merger has been the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Defense Department, against the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department, for some kind of merger.

One of the most consistant advocates of a need to merge INF talks into considerations on central nuclear systems has been Lawrenc Freedman: see his 'The Dilemma of Theatre Nuclear Arms Control', Survival (Vol. 23, No. 1, January-February 1981); Arms Control in Europe , Chatham House Paper No. 11 (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1981); 'Nuclear Arms Control', in Phil Williams (ed.), The Nuclear Debate: Issues and Politics, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984); and Andrew J. Pierre , 'Nuclear Weapons in Europe', op. cit

am indebted to a number of government officials who took time out from their busy schedules to discuss the rationales behind a separation of the talks.

Uwe Nerlich , The Alliance and Europe: Part V: Nuclear Weapons and East-West Negotiations (London: IISS, Adelphi Paper No. 120, 1975-76), p. 4. For other accounts of the FBS issue in SALT I see John Newhouse , Cold Dawn: The Story of SALT ( New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1973), pp. 174-5 ; and Gerard Smith , Doubletalk: The Story of the First Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (New York: Doubleday, 1980), pp. 88-91.

Lawrence Martin , 'A Strategic Symposium: SALT and US Defense Policy', Washington Quarterly (Vol. 2, No. 1, Winter 1979), p. 32,

Ibid., p. 31.

Uwe Nerlich , 'Theater Nuclear Forces in Europe: Is NATO Running Out of Options?' Washington Quarterly (Vol. 3, No. 1, Winter 1980 ), p. 110.

For the strategy behind the Pershing IIs and GLCMs see Donald R. Cotter , 'NATO Theater Nuclear Forces; An Enveloping Military Concept', Strategic Review (Spring 1981). For accounts of the Soviet rationale behind the deployments of the SS-20 see Raymond L. Garthoff , 'The SS-20 Decision', Survival (Vol. 25, No. 3, May-June 1983); Stephen M. Meyer , Soviet Theatre Nuclear Forces, Part I: Development of Doctrine and Objectives (London: IISS. Aldelphi PaperNo. 187, 1983-84); and Stephen M. Meyer , Soviet Theatre Nuclear Forces: Part II: Capabilities and Implications ( London: IISS, Adelphi Paper No. 177, 1982), pp. 6-7.

Christoph Bertram , 'Implications of Theater Nuclear Weapons in Europe', Foreign Affairs (Vol. 60, No. 2, Winter 1981-82), p. 310; another succinct account of this trend toward multilateral decision-making in the Alliance during the late 1970s can be found in Theodor H. Winkler , Arms Control and the Politics of European Security (London: IISS, Adelphi Paper No. 177, 1982), pp. 6-7.

Christoph Bertram , op. cit, p. 312.

Jonathan Alford , 'The Place of British and French Nuclear Weapons in Arms Control', International Affairs (Vol. 59, No. 4, Autumn 1983 ), p. 570.

The Soviet Union has long argued in arms negotiations with the United States that it should be accorded 'equal security'. Principally this has taken the form of arguing for the explicit or implicit inclusion of British and French nuclear forces in the calculation of the size of forces appropriate for their defence needs.

Beaufre advocated a strategy of potential threat. The object of this strategy was 'to prevent an enemy power making the decision to use armed force'. See Andre Beaufre , Deterrence and Strategy (London: Faber and Faber, 1965).

Security and Arms Control: The Search for a More Stable Peace, US Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, September 1984, p.22: equality or parity is also stressed in all the testimony cited above in note 7.

Lawrence Freedman , 'Time for Reappraisal', Survival (Vol. 21, No. 5. September-October 1979), p. 201.

There has been some confusion over why NATO embarked on a LRTNF modernisation programme. Schmidt in his 1977 speech spoke of the need for NATO to achieve parity in Europe with the Soviets. The 1979 communique spoke of de jure equality implying that NATO would not match the Soviets weapon for weapon. Such an interpretation can be found in Harold Brown's FY 1981 Annual Report to the Congress; that report also stressed the doctrinal need to replace obsolescent systems in the 'spectrum of deterrence' consistent with the policy of flexible response and the need to respond to SS-20 deployments (pp. 6-7, 47 and 94). In his last Annual Report to the Congress FY 1982, Brown adds strategic parity to doctrinal considerations and Soviet actions to the reasons for the LRTNF programme (p. 64). The implications of such divergent justifications are significant in that if the modernisation were taken out of doctrinal considerations, then in terms of the dual-track decision the deployment track should always run a little farther than the arms control track; or, in other words, there should always be LRTNF. If, on the other hand, deployment taken solely in response to the SS-20, then a 'zero-option' in arms control makes sense and would not jeopardise alliance security.

See Anthony S. Cordesman , 'Deterrence in the 1980s: American Strategic Forces and Extended Deterrence', in Robert Nurick (ed.), Nuclear Weapons and European Security (New York: St. Martin's, 1984), p. 73.

For a succinct critique of the June and October 1983 START proposals and an alternative strategy, see Glenn A. Kent. A New Approach to Arms Control, R-3140-FF/RC (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1984).

A recent example of this can be found in Kosta Tsipis , et al. The Verification of Arms-Control Agreements', Scientific American (Vol. 252, No. 3, March 1985), pp. 39-45.

The President's Report to Congress on Soviet Noncompliance with Arms Control Agreements, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary. 23 January 1984; General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, A Quarter Century of Soviet Compliance Practices under Arms Control Commitments: 1958-1980 October 1984; and The President's Unclassified Report to Congress on Soviet Noncompliance with Arms Control Agreements, The White House, Office ofthe Press Secretary, 1 February 1985.

Robert Axelrod , The Evolution of Cooperation ( New York: Basic Books, 1984).

Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr. , 'The Uncertain Future of Arms Control ', Arms Control Today (Vol. 15,No. 7, July-August 1985), pp. 4-5.

See Barry Blechman , op. cit, passim.

Report ofthe President's Commission on Strategic Forces, April 1983, p. 23

Thomas Kuhn , op. cit, p. 92.

An exception to this general rule during SALT was the March 1977 'Comprehensive Proposal'; see Strobe Talbott , Endgame : The Inside Story of SALT II (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), pp. 38-67.

Thomas Kuhn , op, cit, p. 111.

Robert Bathurst , 'Two Languages of War', in Derek Leebaert (ed.), Soviet Military Thinking (London : Allen and Unwin, 1981), p. 33.