The Future of Arms Control - Softcover

Levi, Michael A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815764634 ISBN 13: 9780815764632

Verlag: Brookings Institution Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

" Arms control, for decades at the core of the foreign policy consensus, today is among the more contentious issues in American politics. It is pilloried and considered out of mode in many conservative quarters, while being viewed as nearly sacrosanct in many liberal circles. In this new book, Michael Levi and Michael O'Hanlon argue that neither the left nor the right has a correct view of the proper utility of arms control in the age of terror. Arms control in the traditional sense--lengthy treaties to limit nuclear and other military competitions among the great powers--is no longer particularly useful. Nor should arms control be pursued as a means to the end of constraining the power of nations or of promoting global government. It is still a critical tool, though, for controlling dangerous technologies, particularly those that, in the hands of hostile states or terrorist organizations, could cause massive death and destruction. Arms control and coercive action, including military force, must be integrated into an overall strategy for preventing proliferation, now more than ever before. Arms control should be used to gain earlier warning of illicit activities inside dangerous states, allowing the international community to take coercive action in a timely way. The authors propose three new criteria to guide future arms control efforts, designed to respond to today's geopolitical realities. Arms control must focus on the dangers of catastrophic technology, not so much in the hands of major powers as of small states and terrorist groups. Their criteria lead to a natural focus on nuclear and biological technologies. Much tougher measures to prevent countries from gaining nuclear weapons technoloty while purportedly complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and procedures for controlling dangerous biological technologies will be most prominent in this framework, while lower priority is giben to efforts such as bilateral nuclear accords and most t"

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Michael A. Levi, Michael E. O'Hanlon

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The Future of Arms Control

By Michael E. O'Hanlon

Brookings Institution Press

Copyright © 2005 Michael E. O'Hanlon
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780815764632

Chapter One

Introduction and Rationale

Arms control, for decades a key tool of American foreign policy, is nearly moribund today. Its detractors denounce it as dangerous and outmoded, while its advocates often pin high hopes on its ability to fundamentally alter the international security environment. Most Americans, meanwhile, ignore what appears to be a shrill and unimportant debate. As a result, politicians largely avoid acquiring any detailed understanding of the subject.

This combination of factors-polarized debate among specialists, indifference throughout the population at large, neglect by political leaders -is unhealthy. Arms control is still important, because dangerous technologies abound and no practical strategy exists whereby one country or small group of countries can successfully safeguard them. Coordinated international effort to regulate the development, production, and use of the world's most threatening technologies-in other words, arms control-is imperative. But the old ways of pursuing arms control are mostly obsolete, and the very definition of the term requires refinement and reinterpretation. A new arms control framework designed for a new world is urgently needed.

In the years that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall, traditional arms control did not die; indeed, for a moment, it appeared to flourish. The United States and Russia agreed to slash their strategic nuclear arsenals through the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START) and made rapid progress toward a follow-on, START II, while simultaneous unilateral declarations by presidents George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin led to deeply reduced deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, particularly by the United States. South Africa destroyed its nuclear weapons and joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan relinquished their shares of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal; Brazil and Argentina abandoned nuclear programs and joined the NPT as well. By 2004, only ten countries were believed to have nuclear weapons or well-advanced programs, in contrast with sixteen in the 1980s and twenty-one in the 1960s. North Korea (the DPRK) and the United States negotiated the Agreed Framework, which constrained and aimed ultimately to end North Korea's nuclear capabilities. Russia acknowledged the existence of its clandestine biological weapons program and agreed to eliminate it, while the world's leading powers signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, banning chemical weapons worldwide. Nongovernmental organizations built support for a treaty banning land mines, and much of the world signed up.

These successes came on the heels of a host of cold war arms control accomplishments. The Limited Test Ban Treaty, Outer Space Treaty, and Antarctic Treaty had removed areas of possible military competition that could have been hard for either superpower to resist had the other not done so too. The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and a series of hotline agreements had helped reduce the danger of a crisis turning into a hot war, as their drafters intended, at a time when missile defense had little prospect of significantly reducing the damage from any potential nuclear conflict. (Debate admittedly continues about whether Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative-which would eventually have collided with the ABM Treaty-contributed to the fall of the Soviet regime.) The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty helped avoid runaway proliferation in the 1970s and 1980s.

During the cold war, taking part in arms control negotiations also allowed top U.S. and Soviet officials to develop personal ties at a time when tensions were high and finding alternative means of interacting was difficult. Both sides recognized that personal relationships could be useful for calming nerves and easing communication during crises. Some in the West put too much stock in these personal relationships and let down their guard against the potential Soviet threat, which did not disappear as a result of arms control and ditente. And arms control had other important shortcomings-it did little to meaningfully limit the number of nuclear and conventional arms deployed by the superpowers or to dampen low-level conflict in the developing world. But its accomplishments were important too. And the contacts it fostered were beneficial and recognized as such by most policymakers from both major American political parties.

Yet whatever its cold war legacy and whatever momentum it carried into the 1990s, arms control began to founder as the century wound down. In 1998, India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons, despite the existence of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (these two countries were among the last holdouts) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was still open to new signatories. In that same year, North Korea fired long-range missiles, highlighting the absence of any formal multilateral restrictions on long-range delivery vehicles, and Iraq toyed with United Nations weapons inspectors searching the country for chemical and biological weapons, leading the inspectors to terminate the UN mission. Although the United States and Russia signed the START II treaty, successive delays in ratification prevented it from ever going into effect. The U.S. Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999, and at the decade's end, the days of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty were numbered (see the appendix for synopses of these and other treaties).

Amid this decline, President George W. Bush entered office accompanied by advisers who were overwhelmingly opposed to most forms of traditional arms control. Such complete lack of nostalgia for cold war treaties helped them dismiss approaches that appeared to have outlived their usefulness. In the president's first year in office, he abandoned negotiations on START III and committed the United States to withdrawing from the ABM Treaty. In 2002, he signed the Moscow Treaty, requiring the United States and Russia to cut their deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by the end of 2012, but the treaty was notable for its lack of detail and of binding, monitored provisions. President Bush also chose to reject the Ottawa Convention banning land mines and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, while shunning further negotiations on the monitoring protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention. As the president took these actions, his administration worked to develop a spirit of partnership with the government of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, especially after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In this way, Bush attempted to demonstrate that, at least in many aspects, U.S.-Russian relations had reached a point where arms control negotiations and treaties were no longer needed to facilitate diplomatic interaction or to ensure cooperation.

In that, the president was right. But the Bush administration did not develop a new framework to replace the old one. It did show leadership on a few specific and important issues. Most creatively, it promoted a loose coalition known as the Proliferation Security Initiative, which aimed at interdicting shipments of materials used in developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), particularly in the coastal waters of participating countries. And it proposed prohibiting access to nuclear power technologies that could also be used in nuclear...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Brookings Institution Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0815764634
• ISBN 13: 9780815764632
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 205
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland