A message from the authors
For several decades, arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament played a key role in many states’ security and foreign policies.
Reagan Gorbachev signing INF on December 8, 1987
Source: Courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
However, the arms control architecture that has been in place since the Cold War is unravelling.
Conventional arms control in Europe has all but expired. Strategic nuclear arms control between Russia and the United States is on life support, while China is expanding its nuclear arsenal and remains unwilling to discuss nuclear risk reduction measures, let alone join the United States in serious arms control negotiations. The Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions are under pressure after the use of chemical agents in Syria, the poisoning of Russian dissidents and unfounded Russian allegations of biological weapons activities in Ukraine. Ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missile systems are proliferating around the world. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence undermine traditional forms of quantitative arms control. Even seemingly successful humanitarian arms control initiatives, in particular the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Mine Ban Treaty, have been unable to curb the widespread and devastating use of anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions during the war in Ukraine.
Considering the dire state of arms control in virtually every domain, what rationale is there for states and non-state actors to allocate resources for arms control? And what do we actually mean when we talk about arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament?
To understand what arms control means, we first need to go back to the roots of modern arms control theory and the concept of stability, which were developed in the 1960s. It is also important to grasp that not all forms of arms control are necessarily aiming for stability – some focus on the security of human beings instead.
After a deep dive into the various concepts of arms control, we describe the different weapons and weapon systems, including their subcomponents, which can be regulated using arms control. Moreover, we discuss the different forms arms control can take in practice, be it negotiated, multilateral treaties or unilateral, non-binding political commitments, going on to explain why verification is so important. Lastly, we assess the possible future of arms control.
Definition and objectives
To understand how arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament can help reduce the likelihood of war, the scope of violence, and the political and economic costs of being prepared for war, we will now consider them each in a little more depth.
The trinity of arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament
Arms control
As set out above, the primary goal of arms control, as it is usually understood today, is to prevent or reduce the likelihood of the outbreak of war. This is generally done by maintaining stability.
Stability through numerical equilibrium
Source: Grübelfabrik, CC BY-NC-SA
Stability
Stability can mean different things to different people, but it is most commonly used to describe a state in which nobody has the incentive to strike first – that is, to start a war. This is also what is meant by the term ‘strategic stability’. The term ‘crisis stability’, in contrast, refers to the absence of incentives to strike first or gain a military advantage in a crisis, for example by launching a surprise attack.3
But why might states feel compelled to strike first? In his seminal article The Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack, written in 1958, Thomas Schelling explains how this might come about.
If I go downstairs to investigate a noise at night, with a gun in my hand, and find myself face to face with a burglar who has a gun in his hand, there is danger of an outcome that neither of us desires. Even if he’d prefer just to leave quietly, and I’d like him to, there is danger that he may think I want to shoot, and shoot first. Worse, there is danger that he may think that I think he wants to shoot. Or he may think that I think he thinks I want to shoot. And so on. ‘Self defense’s is ambiguous, when one is only trying to preclude being shot in self defense.
Schelling, Thomas C. 1958. “The Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack”, P-1342. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, p.1.
This, Schelling concluded, is the problem of surprise attack. In an environment where striking first carries an advantage – and at the time this was widely assumed to be the case – a party might well feel tempted to do so if it feels that war could be imminent. Consequently, the primary goal of arms control would be to stabilise the whole situation by reducing incentives that may lead to war.4
Strategic stability is not the only form of stability that arms control can help to maintain. Another form of stability is arms race stability, which refers to the absence of a largely unrestricted arms race. And to grasp how arms control might help constrain an arms race, we need to take a look at the security dilemma.
Security dilemma
Non-proliferation
While arms control is usually concerned with restricting existing arsenals of weaponry both quantitatively and qualitatively, non-proliferation aims to limit the spread of certain weapons and weapons technologies, in particular but not exclusively nuclear weapons and nuclear technology, to other countries. Non-proliferation also serves the three overarching goals of arms control, but in a somewhat more indirect manner. Take nuclear weapons as an example: The core assumption is that a world in which only a few countries possess nuclear weapons is safer for everyone because it decreases the likelihood that a state could try to upset the existing international order in a way that might eventually lead to a regional war escalating into a global nuclear conflict. But as can be seen in Learning Unit 12, there are other regimes where the ‘haves’ pledge not to export other conventional weapons technologies to the ‘have nots’.
Furthermore, non-proliferation helps to avert regional arms races as it seeks to prevent a situation in which one state acquires nuclear weapons and a rival in the neighbourhood feels compelled to catch up.
International non-proliferation initiatives have their roots in the 1950s and 1960s, when the United States and the Soviet Union joined forces to contain the global spread of nuclear weapons, recognising that it would be in their mutual interest to keep the number of nuclear weapon states as low as possible. One key motivation was to prevent West Germany from becoming a nuclear power. Eventually, US-Soviet collusion on nuclear non-proliferation resulted in the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT, see LU05).7
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is a central part of the global effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote cooperation in peacful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of nuclear and general disarmament.
Current Adoption
Data: UNODA Treaties Database
Nuclear non-proliferation has been hugely successful, but this was not widely anticipated at the time. In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy warned that by the 1970s, as many as 25 states could have acquired nuclear weapons. Today, the actual number of nuclear weapon states is nine. The official nuclear weapon states are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China. Unofficial nuclear weapon states are Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.
Timeline at www.armscontrol.org
The fact that there has not been comprehensive nuclear proliferation since the invention of the atomic bomb is a testament to the NPT. The NPT sets forth that states who do not possess nuclear weapons will not acquire them, that nuclear weapon states will eventually pursue nuclear disarmament, and that all states are allowed to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. This is also known as the grand bargain. However, despite this arrangement, many analysts and policymakers were unconvinced that the NPT could work. Firstly, a multilateral treaty preventing the spread of a powerful military technology was unprecedented. Secondly, a situation in which only a few countries were allowed to possess nuclear weapons, while others were not, was deemed unlikely to be sustainable over the long term.8
This points to one of the inherent problems of non-proliferation: It is always asymmetric. Some states are allowed to possess or acquire certain military capabilities (the ‘haves’), but others are not (the ‘have nots’). This asymmetry, which some may even call injustice, can lead to political disputes in the international arena that need to be managed diplomatically. One example is the NPT review conferences which take place every five years. You can find out more about the review conferences in Learning Unit 5.
Counter-proliferation
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, some Western countries, and the United States in particular, started to see the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to terrorist groups and rogue states as an increasingly urgent threat to international peace and security. The fact that these actors were regarded as irrational and unreceptive to diplomatic initiatives gave rise to the concept of counter-proliferation.
In contrast to non-proliferation, which focuses on diplomatic measures, counter-proliferation comprises measures undertaken by law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the military to forestall or roll back the spread of certain weapons and weapons technologies. This may include the interdiction of illicit shipments, the freezing of financial assets, sabotage, covert action and the use of military force. One example of counter-proliferation is the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) initiated by the United States, which aims to interdict not only weapons of mass destruction, but also their delivery systems and other related items.
Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)
The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) was founded by the United States in May 2003 as a reaction to the 9-11 attacks. It aims at combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems, and related materials and enhancing international cooperation in detecting, intercepting, and preventing the transport of these items. The US invited other states to join voluntarily.
Two prominent examples of counter-proliferation are the Israeli air strike on the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 and the US-Israeli cyber operation against Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in around 2010. But while such measures may temporarily slow down proliferation, they are unlikely to have a lasting effect on a state’s WMD program.9
Disarmament
Disarmament, the third relevant element, aims to serve the objectives of arms control not by maintaining stability or limiting the spread of certain weapons and related technologies, but by eliminating the weapons themselves. It may be understood both as an end state and as a process leading towards the eventual abolition of some or even all categories of weapons. Consequently, any reduction in military capabilities is usually considered disarmament, even if it does not directly lead to the total elimination of these capabilities.
The concept of disarmament differs significantly from arms control and non-proliferation because it considers weapons and arms races an independent cause of war. Its origins date back to the late 19th and early 20th century, but it particularly gained prominence after World War I, when the reduction of national armaments was considered necessary if not essential for creating peace and security. This was because of the widespread belief at the time that the arms race between the great powers had been a major contributor to the outbreak of the war. Weapons were considered the cause, not the result of insecurity.10
Disarmament process - endstate
Source: Niklas Schörnig/Grübelfabrik, CC BY-NC-SA
Disarmament became an even more pressing issue during and after the Cold War because of the enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons. Since the employment of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic in every conceivable scenario, proponents of disarmament argue that the safest way to avoid such calamity would be to fully dismantle the world’s nuclear arsenals. However, many scholars and practitioners contend that total nuclear disarmament is unlikely to succeed without radical political change at the international level.11
Humanitarian arms control and gender – A paradigm change
While arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament are first and foremost concerned about the security of the state, humanitarian arms control and gender approaches put the individual human front and centre.
Humanitarian arms control
If you would like to know more about humanitarian arms control, please visit Learning Units 9 and 10. We also have a learning unit dedicated to the history of arms control.
Feminism and gender
Feminist and gender approaches to arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament have helped to shed light on some questions that are not normally addressed in the mainstream discourse.
As these approaches have highlighted, women are almost always conspicuously absent in the highest national and international institutions of power. As a consequence, they have played no more than a marginal role in shaping arms control policies, even though these policies have a distinct impact on women’s lifes that is often overlooked. For example, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons poses a particular threat to women and girls because it exposes them to various forms of gender-based violence. Feminist activists are therefore devoting a considerable amount of effort to promoting gender equality and increasing the participation of women on all levels of government, including in international organisations, to ensure that such issues are being addressed.13
The need to promote gender equality is, however, not the only conclusion drawn from feminist analysis. Because feminist and gender approaches pay special attention to discrimination and inequality, much critical feminist scholarship has emphasised how existing structures, theories and practices in international relations marginalise certain voices or forms of knowledge in public discourse. This can include the voices of those being affected by nuclear testing or forms of knowledge that challenge the conventional wisdom about the usefulness of nuclear deterrence. Feminists also frequently employ an intersectional approach, meaning that they take class, ethnicity, race, age, nationality and other potential forms of discrimination besides gender into account.14
Lastly, the gender perspective often identifies militarism and militarised national security structures, which may encompass the defence industry, national laboratories and the military, think tanks, politicians and even academic institutions, as a fundamental cause of conflict and insecurity.
[T]he practice of war entails far more than the killing and destroying of armed combat itself. It requires the creation of a “war system,” which entails arming, training, and organizing for possible wars; allocating the resources these preparations require; creating a culture in which wars are seen as morally legitimate, even alluring; and shaping and fostering the masculinities and femininities that undergird men’s and women’s acquiescence to war.
Cohn, Carol/Ruddick, Sara. 2004. “A Feminist Ethical Perspective on Weapons of Mass Destruction”, in: Hashmi, Sohail H./ Lee, Steven P. (eds) Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 405–406
Because arms control and non-proliferation tend to accept certain levels of armament as a legitimate response to international security challenges, many feminists promote total disarmament as the only way of achieving a more peaceful world – not unlike members of the peace movement and proponents of general disarmament. You can find out more about gender and disarmament in Learning Unit 16.
Summary
As we have seen in this chapter, the concepts of arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament essentially share the same objectives, but they derive from very different world views about the causes of war and peace.
Overview of the concepts
| Concept | Arms control | Non-proliferation | Disarmament | Humanitarian arms control | Feminism |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cause of war | Military instability and incentives to strike first | International actors (states) trying to upset the international order | Weapons and arms races are considered an independent cause of war | Does not try to reduce the likelihood of war but change how it is conducted | Militarism and militarised national security infrastructures |
| Remedy | Maintaining a stable military balance and removing first-strike incentives | Limiting the possession of certain weapons to only a handful of states | Eliminating all weapons or a specific category of weapons entirely | Banning weapons that have especially dire humanitarian consequences | Overcoming militarism, including general disarmament |
Supporters of the respective concepts can vehemently disagree over how to achieve the three central objectives of arms control most effectively. However, policymakers, who often need to make decisions in a time-critical and uncertain environment, usually cannot afford to choose one concept over another, which is why they tend to implement various policies in tandem, even though this may seem contradictory.15
Footnotes
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Brodie, Bernard. 1976. “On the Objectives of Arms Control”, in: International Security 1 (1): 17–36, https://doi.org/10.2307/2538574. ↩
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Schelling, Thomas C. /Halperin, Morton H. 2014. Strategy and Arms Control, reprint of the 1961 edition. Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2. ↩
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Colby, Elbridge/Gerson, Michael S. (eds). 2013. Strategic Stability: Contending Interpretations. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press. ↩
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Schelling/Halperin, Strategy and Arms Control, 2 ↩
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Grieco, Joseph M. 1988. “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism”, in: International Organization 42 (3): 485–507; Mearsheimer, John J. 2014. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Updated Edition. New York: Norton & Company. ↩
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Jervis, Robert. 1978. “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma” in: World Politics 30 (2), January: 167–214, https://doi.org/10.2307/2009958. ↩
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Cameron, James. 2020. “What History Can Teach”, in: Daedalus 149 (2), 1 April: 116–32, https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01793. ↩
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Gavin, Francis J. 2020. Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 12. ↩
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Braut-Hegghammer, Målfrid. 2011. “Revisiting Osirak: Preventive Attacks and Nuclear Proliferation Risks”, in: International Security 36 (1), July: 101–32, https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00046. ↩
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Webster, A. 2006. “From Versailles to Geneva: The Many Forms of Interwar Disarmament”, in: Journal of Strategic Studies 29 (2), 1 April: 225–46, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390600585050. ↩
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Craig, Campbell. 2020. “Can the Danger of Nuclear War Be Eliminated by Disarmament?”, in: Sauer, Tom/Kustermans, Jorg/Segaert, Barbara (eds): Non-Nuclear Peace, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 167–80, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26688-2_9. ↩
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Kmentt, Alexander. 2015. “The Development of the International Initiative on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons and Its Effect on the Nuclear Weapons Debate”, in: International Review of the Red Cross 97 (899), September: 681–709, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1816383116000059. ↩
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Wright, Susan. 2010. “Feminist Theory and Arms Control” in: Sjoberg, Laura (ed.) Gender and International Security: Feminist Perspectives, 1. publ, Routledge Critical Security Studies Series. London: Routledge, 191–213. ↩
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Cohn, Carol. 1987. “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals” in: Signs 12 (4): 687–718. ↩
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Maurer, John D. 2018. “The Purposes of Arms Control”, in: Texas National Security Review 2 (1): 9–27, https://doi.org/10.26153/TSW/870. ↩