Faites vos Jeux: Arms Control or Confrontation

1 Hedley Bull, The Control of the Arms Race (New York: Praeger, 2nd ed., 1965), p. xiv. Emphases added.

2 This new focus does not actually mean that nuclear proliferation has increased since the end of the East-West confrontation, as frequently claimed.

3 In 1961, Schelling and Halperin defined arms control as `all forms of military cooperation between potential enemies' and identified the `recognition of the common interest' as an essential condition for arms control. Thomas C. Schelling & Morton H. Halperin, Strategy and Arms Control (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1961), p. 2. Emphasis added.

4 Cf. J. L. Richardson, `Arms Control in the Later 1980s: The Implications of the Strategic Defense Initiative', in Desmond Ball & Andrew Mack, eds, The Future of Arms Control (Sydney: Australian National University Press, 1987), pp. 79-97.

5 `However great the hostility between [the United States and the Soviet Union] and however strong the urge to break out of the stalemate, they are both vitally interested in the prevention of general war (...).' Bull, The Control of the Arms Race, p. 73. This does not mean that all relevant actors accepted this at all times. Colin S. Gray may have articulated the thoughts of many when outlining a criterion for `victory' in a nuclear war, and it is certainly against the nature of military thinking to acknowledge that superiority is not desirable. Colin S. Gray & Keith Payne, `Victory is Possible', Foreign Policy, no. 39, Summer 1980, pp. 14-27.

6 The core-periphery concept describes a continuum between two extremes without implying bipolarity and reflects the potential for change. Cf. Barry Buzan, `New Patterns of Global Security in the Twenty-first Century', International Affairs, vol. 67, no. 3, July 1991, pp. 431-451; John Ravenhill, `The New Disorder in the Periphery', in Richard Leaver & James L. Richardson, eds, The Post-Cold War Order: Diagnoses and Prognoses (St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 70; John Ravenhill, `The North-South Balance of Power', International Affairs, vol. 66, no. 4, October 1990, pp. 731-748. The fact that after the `end of the Cold War' military expenditures in NATO and former Warsaw Treaty Organization countries are estimated at almost 75% of the world's military expenditures should more than justify labelling them as the `core' in military terms. US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1991-1992 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, March 1994), p. 2.

7 This would mean that smaller military powers aim at destroying the political capability (or `will') of great powers to wage war instead of destroying their military capability. On this distinction see Andrew Mack, `Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict', World Politics, vol. 28, no. 2 (January 1975), pp. 175-200.

8 It should be noted that not even the Soviet Union achieved a true military equilibrium with the Western military powers, in particular with regard to conventional power projection capabilities.

9 This is most apparent in the case of the issue of nuclear weapons in North Korea, where both the US and the North Korean governments perceive it mainly as a US-North Korean rather than an intra-Korean matter, as demonstrated by the crucial role of the bilateral US-North Korean negotiations on the question of nuclear inspections in North Korea. Andrew Mack, `Security and the Korean Peninsula in the 1990s', in Andrew Mack, ed., Asian Flashpoint: Security and the Korean Peninsula (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1993), pp. 1-19.

10 Jervis notes that `[i]n the Cold War each superpower knew that only the other could threaten its vital interests.' Robert Jervis, `Arms Control, Stability, and Causes of War', in Emanuel Adler, ed., The International Practice of Arms Control (Baltimore MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 175-193. Quote from p. 189. Emphasis added.

11 Ivo H. Daalder, `The Future of Arms Control', Survival, vol. 34, no. 1, Spring 1992, pp. 51-73.

12 Emanuel Adler, `Arms Control, Disarmament, and National Security: A Thirty Year Retrospective and a New Set of Anticipations', in Adler, ed., The International Practice of Arms Control, pp. 1-20; Daalder, `The Future of Arms Control', p. 52. See also Lewis A. Dunn, `Conclusion: the Decades Ahead', in Lewis A. Dunn & Sharon A. Squassoni, eds, Arms Control: What Next? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 154-161.

13 Dunn, `Conclusion: the Decades Ahead', p. 157.

14 Daalder, `The Future of Arms Control', p. 53.

15 Adler, `Arms Control, Disarmament, and National Security: A Thirty Year Retrospective and a New Set of Anticipations', pp. 13-14.

16 See for example Jonathan Dean & Randall Watson Forsberg, `CFE and Beyond: The Future of Conventional Arms Control', International Security, vol. 17, no. 1, Summer 1992, pp. 76-109.

17 Dean & Forsberg, `CFE and Beyond', p. 107; Keith Krause, `Post-Helsinki Conventional Arms Control: The Qualitative Dimension', Arms Control, vol. 12, no. 2, September 1991, pp. 211-230.

18 Krause, `Post-Helsinki Conventional Arms Control: The Qualitative Dimension', p. 218; see also pp. 221 and 225.

19 Joseph S. Nye, `Arms Control After the Cold War', Foreign Affairs, vol. 68, no. 5, Winter 1989/90, pp. 42-64.

20 On the difference between a `security community' and an `alliance' see Buzan, `New Patterns', p. 436.

21 Andrew Butfoy, `The Evolving Framework for Arms Control', Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 48, no. 1, May 1994, pp. 37-51.

22 See for example Lewis A. Dunn & Sharon A. Squassoni, `Introduction: The New Global Arms Control Agenda', in Dunn and Squassoni, eds, Arms Control: What Next?, p. 2.

23 Thomas C. Schelling, `The Thirtieth Year', in Adler, ed., The International Practice of Arms Control, pp. 21-31.

24 Dunn & Squassoni, `Introduction: The New Global Arms Control Agenda', p. 154.

25 Marc Trachtenberg, `The Past and Future of Arms Control', in Adler, ed., The International Practice of Arms Control, pp. 215-230.

26 James Fergusson, `The Changing Arms Control Agenda: New Meanings, New Players', Arms Control, vol. 12, no. 2, September 1991, at pp. 191-210.

27 Fergusson, `The Changing Arms Control Agenda', p. 204.

28 Colin S. Gray, `Arms Control Does Not Control Arms', Orbis, vol. 37, no. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 333-348.

29 Adler, `Arms Control, Disarmament, and National Security', p. 15.

30 `Preface', in Adler, ed., The International Practice of Arms Control, pp. vii-xiv.

31 It is noteworthy that the USA, a democracy, did not confront any `serious survival threat' when it used nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are also indications that the US military, including Norman Schwarzkopf, recommended to threaten the use of nuclear weapons in the war against Iraq. `To Nuke or Not to Nuke', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 50, no. 1, January/February 1994, p. 64.

32 Trachtenberg, `The Past and Future of Arms Control', pp. 226-227.

33 Adler, `Arms Control, Disarmament, and National Security', p. 15. It should be noted that this is quoted from the introductory chapter to a book commemorating the 1960 special issue of Daedalus which became a standard reference on classic arms control, later published as Donald G. Brennan, ed., Arms Control, Disarmament and National Security (New York: Braziller, 1961).

34 Samuel P. Huntington, `The Clash of Civilizations?', Foreign Affairs, vol. 72, no. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 22-49. Quote at p. 46.

35 Statement by the President of the UN Security Council on behalf of its members, reproduced in S/23500.

36 In a response to a question in Parliament, the British government (which chaired the Security Council meeting) made clear that the statement was only `a summation of points discussed and agreed at the meeting, but was not designed to have legal effect.' Quoted in Trust and Verify, no. 47, May 1994, p. 1. Emphasis added. The question asked in the House of Lords was: `What is the status in international law of the UN Security Council statement of 31 January 1992?'

37 For a useful discussion see Horst Fischer, `Die Proliferation von Massenvernichtungs-waffen und der Begriff der Friedenssicherung in Art. 39 der Charta der Vereinten Nationen', Sicherheit und Frieden, vol. 10, no. 2, 1992, pp. 102-105.

38 `For the purposes of this Treaty, a nuclear-weapon State is one which has manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to 1 January 1967.' Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Article IX. The text of the NPT is reproduced in Status of Multilateral Arms Regulation and Disarmament Agreements, Third Edition: 1987 (New York: United Nations, 1988), pp. 71-76.

39 There was not a single `nuclear-weapon state' when the Charter was drafted and only one when it entered into force. The United Nations Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 and entered into force on 24 October 1945. The first nuclear bomb was detonated on 16 July 1945.

40 Cf. Michael Brzoska, `Is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation System a Regime? A Comment on Trevor McMorris Tate', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 29, no. 2, May 1992, at pp. 215-220.

41 Cf. Eric H. Arnett & Richard Kokoski, `Military Technology and International Security: The Case of the USA', in SIPRI Yearbook 1993: World Armaments and Disarmament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 307-329.

42 `Remarks by Honorable Les Aspin, Secretary of Defense', National Academy of Sciences, Committee on International Security and Arms Control, 7 December 1993, p. 3.

43 It should be noted that also classic arms control put the perceived interests of the major nuclear powers first. Cf. N.J. Rengger, `Arms Control, International Society, and the End of the Cold War', Arms Control, vol. 13, no. 1, April 1992, p. 41.

44 The following paragraph draws on Paul Keal, `Nuclear Weapons and the New World Order', in Leaver & Richardson, eds, The Post-Cold War Order: Diagnoses and Prognoses, pp. 95-109.