A New Look at Naval Arms Control

1 This article will use the term `naval arms control' in its broadest form - as long as the action can be described as meeting the fundamental criteria of arms control: first, the likelihood of war is reduced; second, if war breaks out, its consequences are reduced; and third, costs are reduced.

2 `Press Conference by President Bill Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin, Canada Place,' Vancouver, British Columbia. (Washington DC: The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 4 April 1993), p. 8.

3 NATO has already taken steps to revise its internal alert measures for exactly the same reasons. See the address of Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Sir Brian Kenny, at the annual reunion of SHAPE staff officers, 10 October 1992, in SHAPE Officers' Association Newsletter, no. 90, December 1992, pp. 9-10.

4 This position was taken well before the shift in the US international security strategy by a former General Counsel and Ambassador for the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. See George Bunn, `International Law and the Use of Force in Peacetime: Do US Ships Have to Take the First Hit?' Naval War College Review, vol. 39, no. 3 (May-June 1986), pp. 69-80.

5 Robert Dalsjö, Johan Tunberger & Lars Wedin, `Rethinking Naval Arms Control: From World War Three to Third World Threat', FOA D-10272 (FOA Preprint), (Stockholm: National Defense Research Establishment (FOA), January 1993), pp. 29-30.

6 Alan J. Vick, `Building Confidence During Peace and War', N-2698-CC, (Santa Monica', CA: The RAND Corporation, March 1988), pp. 15-21; and Joseph Nation, `Force Standdown and Crisis Termination,' P-7292-RGS, (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, December 1986), pp. 22-23, 26-28.

7 The US Congress enacted legislation in 1990 that would extract domestic penalties from violators of the Missile Technology Control Regime.