Nuclear Arms Control Background and Issues (1985) / Chapter Skim
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From page 1... ...
Within the United States, the lack of consensus is reflected in the heated debate on all aspects of the U.S.Soviet relationship. To many, the nuclear arms race has become a symbol of the danger of nuclear war.
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From page 2... ...
negotiations which are directed at intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe; a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing; and limitations on anti-satellite systems. To this list should be added a number of specific agreements and proposals directed at another aspect of the nuclear arms race, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional countries.
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From page 3... ...
A strong case can be made that nuclear deterrence has prevented the outbreak of war directly involving the superpowers since World War IT. Nevertheless, many people have long seen the very process of building up larger and more sophisticated strategic forces as substantially increasing both the likelihood and the consequences of nuclear war.
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THE OBJECTIVES OF ARMS CONTROL The underlying objective of arms control is to increase the stability of the military relationship of the nuclear powers, thus reducing the risk of nuclear war. The objective of stability can be divided into two separate, and sometimes conflicting, concepts, "arms race stability" and "crisis stability." Arms race stability is achieved by stopping or moderating the competition in nuclear arms.
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From page 5... ...
The resulting nuclear arms competition in unstable areas of the world would dangerously increase the unpredictability of not only regional politicalmilitary relations but also of U.S.-Soviet relations as well. Crisis stability, or the reduction of the risk of nuclear war in a crisis, can be increased by measures that assure the survival and effectiveness of retaliatory strategic forces in the face of a preemptive counterforce attack.
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Another benefit often associated with arms control is that it would reduce military spending, freeing resources for the civilian economy. However, since less than 20 percent ofthe military budget is allocated to strategic nuclear forces, even far-reaching nuclear arms control agreements would affect only a small part of the military budget.
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From page 7... ...
Similarly, the treaty prohibits the development, testing, or deployment of ABM systems or components that are sea-based, air-based, space-based, or mobile land-based. By preventing the deployment of nationwide ballistic missile defense systems, it is argued that the ABM Treaty contributes substantially to both arms race stability and crisis stability because such a system, whatever its capabilities, would be perceived as an attempt to develop a shield to negate the deterrent effect of strategic retaliatory forces.
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A comprehensive nuclear freeze would prohibit the further testing, production, and deployment of all nuclear weapons and delivery systems. A comprehensive nuclear freeze would clearly meet the objective of arms race stability.
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Even if modernization is permitted or encouraged, substantial reductions in measures of overall military nuclear power tend to enhance arms race stability. Selective reductions of threatening systems can obviously improve crisis stability, but strictly proportional reductions in all systems, threatening and retaliatory alike, would have little effect on this objective of arms control.
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From page 10... ...
and Soviet nuclear forces could increase crisis stability and reduce the risk of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation. One class of actions would seek to reduce the risk of nuclear war, particularly by accident or miscalculation, by helping to assure that both sides are operating with a correct understanding of the threatening situation and the other side's intentions.
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Nevertheless, when either side has had, or has been perceived to have, a militarily or politically exploitable level of superiority, progress in achieving nuclear arms control agreements has proven difficult. The role of perceptions of military capabilities must not be underestimated; perceptions can play a much greater political role than the real military significance of apparently unbalanced forces.
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It is also not surprising that within the United States there has been a continuing controversy about the status of the strategic balance. The inherent complexity of the problem, particularly when coupled with the strong political emotions surrounding it in both countries, has been a major factor in the difficulty in negotiating mutually acceptable arms control agreements.
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Despite its continued quantitative and qualitative advantage during this period, the United States decided that meaningful superiority could not be maintained against a determined Soviet adversary. It concluded that the real measure of strategic forces was the ability to achieve "assured destruction" of the enemy by inflicting unacceptable damage on the other side after absorbing the worst credible preemptive attack.
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The SALT IT Treaty formalized the status of parity between the two sides by establishing equal aggregate ceilings on strategic delivery systems and a series of equal subceilings on various components of the strategic forces. In spite of these major arms control agreements, the 1970s saw a major buildup in potentially destabilizing U.S.
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From page 15... ...
Even as it began to build up its strategic forces, the United States further broadened the concept of extended deterrence to emphasize the capability to conduct nuclear war fighting missions, including the capability to wage protracted general nuclear war. On March 23, 1983, President Reagan foreshadowed a fundamental change in the strategic doctrine that had prevailed in the previous two decades.
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The United States argues that British and French forces were designed to provide an independent minimum deterrent against Soviet nuclear attack on those countries, that French nuclear forces have no commitment to NATO, and that the People's Republic of China, with no military association with the United States, has no role in the U.S.-Soviet strategic balance. From its perspective the Soviet Union must deal with the prospect of facing the British, French, and Chinese nuclear forces in a general nuclear war with the United States, and must size its own strategic forces against the combined threat.
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Verification has always been associated with disarmament and arms control proposals. For a long time it seemed to provide an almost impenetrable barrier to progress in the field.
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In response to a Senate request, President Reagan submitted a report to Congress on January 23, 1984, stating that "The United States Government has determined that the Soviet Union is violating the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Helsinki Final Act, and two provisions of SALT 1:~: telemetry encryption and a rule concerning ICBM modernization. In addition, we have determined that the Soviet Union has almost certainly violated the ABM Treaty, probably violated the SALT IT limit on new types, probably violated the SS-16 deployment prohibition of SALT II, and is likely to
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POLITICAL OR MILITARY "LINKAGE" A fundamental issue in the development and negotiation of arms control agreements is the extent to which they should be "linked" to other political or military considerations. Perhaps the issue can be more realistically stated as the extent to which arms control negotiations can be isolated from other political and military activities.
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deployment of Pershing Its and ground-launched cruise missiles in NATO. THE NEGOTIATING PROCESS It is not particularly difficult to design nuclear arms control proposals that a broad political spectrum of American citizens would judge to be unambiguously advantageous to U.S.
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plans in the late 1960s and early 1970s to deploy ballistic missile defense systems contributed to the successful negotiation ofthe ABM Treaty in 1972. At the other extreme, there is the question of whether unilateral restraint can contribute to the successful negotiation of an agreement.
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The question remains whether such actions accelerate the negotiating process and point it in a favorable direction or weaken negotiating leverage to obtain the best agreement. DOMESTIC POLITICAL ACCEPTABILITY The extent of public and political support for arms control agreements is a serious issue underlying the arms control process.
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It is hoped that this approach will help readers arrive at their own conclusions on these matters of such critical importance to the United States and the world at large.
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