Arms Control

Management or Reform?

Lawrence Freedman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367550752
• eBook ISBN: 9781000199185
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Originally published in 1986, although the pace of arms control negotiations has been stepped up, there is still little sign of agreement. In this paper the author examines the current negotiating effort, with particular emphasis on its implications for European security. He provides an up-to-date analysis of the superpower discussions on nuclear arms control, including the impact of 'star wars', and also of the talks at Vienna on conventional force reductions and at Stockholm on confidence-building measures. He notes a shift in emphasis from 'parity' to 'transparency' in Western proposals, and questions whether this promises greater results than were achieved from earlier approaches. He also warns of the risks of arms control arrangements obstructing possibilities for reforming the European security system.

1
INTRODUCTION

In the aftermath of the November 1985 summit between President Ronald Reagan and General-Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, arms control was widely seen to be back on track. The lack of progress in building on the ‘spirit’ of that summit during the first few months of 1986 dampened enthusiasm, but it is still generally felt that the major powers are embarked on a serious negotiating exercise that could well produce results over the next few years.

Much of this paper is taken up with examining this exercise and the issues being addressed. It draws attention to the many problems still to be overcome if agreements are to be reached, as well as to the areas of possible compromise that have already become apparent. It also offers a critical analysis of the arms control process. The line of argument developed here is not that of the hawk who complains that arms control has served only as an instrument of Soviet policy by lulling us into a false sense of security and so providing an excuse for avoiding military preparedness. Nor is it that of the dove who points contemptuously to collections of permissive ceilings and marginal constraints which barely inconvenience military planners and are merely superpower confidence tricks reflecting the lack of political will to stop the arms race.

Rather, the analysis highlights the confusion surrounding the objectives of arms control, and the effects of this confusion on the practice. The objectives are often taken for granted, on the assumption that it is the degree of mistrust separating the two sides that determines the extent to which the objectives can be met. Closer examination, however, soon reveals that arms control is pursued for many different reasons, which are by no means always in concert. There is also a tension between two alternative approaches, which do not so much separate East from West as the reformers from the managers — hence the title of this essay.

To the reformers, arms control is worthwhile only if it produces major changes in the international system. The Reagan administration, for example, has argued that negotiations to achieve strategic arms limitations, and so merely consolidate the status quo, are pointless. The minimum aim must be to reduce. Together with Mr Gorbachev, President Reagan has agreed that the objective must be to eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth, and Mr Gorbachev has even provided a timetable for achieving this by the end of the century. Such a goal would be music to the ears of the many non-governmental groups that campaign vigorously for disarmament, had they not heard political leaders express similar sentiments so often in the past. But these groups are in no doubt that this is the direction in which the politicians must be pushed. They hope that-a virtuous cycle can be created: the arms race is seen as the source of superpower antagonism; put the arms race into reverse and a reduction in antagonism should follow.

By contrast, the managers argue that the East-West antagonism derives from genuine conflicts of interests and ideology, and that it will therefore persist until these conflicts are resolved. It is much more than a creature of the arms race. Furthermore, talk of eliminating nuclear weapons from the earth is utopian. The secret is out. There could never be a situation in which there could be confidence that all potentially hostile powers both lacked nuclear weapons and could not develop them during the course of a conflict. Moreover, many of this persuasion would argue that even if such a situation were achieved, it would not necessarily be an improvement. The current position is one where war between the major powers has been effectively deterred through fear of the nuclear consequences. The effort to bring arsenals down to zero could be extremely destabilizing in itself, for as the levels get lower the significance of individual weapons becomes greater. In a world of nuclear plenty, a few extra weapons make little difference. In a world that was ostensibly nuclear-free, these same weapons could make all the difference. The managers therefore argue that the objective of arms control is not to change a basically satisfactory status quo but to ensure that the antagonism does not get out of hand, so that even the most intense crisis can be survived without disaster.

Unfortunately for both the reformers and the managers, the actual consequences of arms control are often different from those that either group might prefer. The arms control process itself — the internal bureaucratic round, the proposals and counterproposals, the formal and informal negotiations, the summits — can be as significant in its effects as any of the agreements that might emerge, especially as agreements have been few and far between. The process may promote greater harmony all round, but it also often serves to sharpen tensions within governments and alliances, not to mention those between traditional adversaries. It provides opportunities for deflecting as well as promoting far-reaching reforms. More seriously, the interaction between arms control and the development of military capabilities and strategic doctrines can produce curious and perplexing results. When, as has been the case recently, strategic doctrine becomes controversial, the debate occasioned by the arms control process can expose internal contradictions and encourage shifts in military policy.

It is important that any approach to arms control takes all this into account. To mention ways in which the arms control process can be counterproductive is not to deny its many positive features. It provides a means of ensuring that the great powers talk to each other about their security concerns. In principle, it also provides an opportunity to reduce the level of armaments and military expenditure, to head off dangerous new weapons developments and to create the conditions for preventing future crises from turning into war.

At any rate, arms control is now too much a part of international life to be abandoned. In one form or another it will be with us for some time. It cannot in itself be an instrument of political or military reform; it will work best in support of other measures designed to ease East-West relations and improve the overall security position or reinforce general trends working in those directions. Inevitably it is easier and often more valuable for arms control to be used for the purposes of management than of reform. What must be guarded against is arms control serving as a drag on desirable changes or, worse still, channelling change into undesirable areas. The need, therefore, is to clarify objectives, not only for the sake of arms control but for security policy in general.

This is especially important for those West European governments that have encouraged the view that multilateral arms control can succeed where unilateral disarmament would only be counter-productive — both in slowing down the arms race and in relaxing East-West relations. In recent years, though, an anxiety for visible signs of progress has resulted in uncritical enthusiasm for any negotiating activity regardless of its content. This activity may have helped in terms of political management, but it has raised a promise of military reform that is unlikely to be fulfilled. The political value of negotiations will decline if they continue to fail to reach a conclusion; if they are to conclude with agreements, their strategic consequences must be addressed.

2
THE OBJECTIVES OF ARMS CONTROL

Our inquiry can begin with an examination of the strategic benefits that might be obtained through arms control. These can best be explored by looking at arms control theory, which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in response to the combination of a cold war and a nuclear arms race. The theory was based on a simple insight: despite their deep-rooted antagonism, East and West shared a critical interest in avoiding war, particularly nuclear war. Through tacit or explicit understandings, the two antagonists should work to avoid military confrontation: better to accept a stalemate than to prepare for a decisive — but probably catastrophic — showdown.

Because the underlying ideological, political and economic differences were not to be resolved, only kept in check, there was no obvious point at which the antagonism ended and the sense of shared interest began. This created the challenge for the theory. The point of transformation had to be defined accurately, and with confidence that the other side would not see the antagonism lasting a little longer and the shared interest coming later.

Agreements building upon the common interest, the argument ran, could emerge in one of two ways. One possibility was to rely on an understanding evolving naturally out of the logic of diplomacy at those moments of crisis when continued antagonism could lead to immediate disaster. However, it was risky to depend on wise statecraft in circumstances of high tension and danger; the necessary understanding might arrive too late and be too ambiguous and too tenuous. The other possibility was to negotiate agreements prior to a crisis at a time of normal international relations. This would leave far less to chance, but the difficulty remained that the negotiating conditions of ‘normal’ international affairs were still those of ‘normal’ antagonism, even if not of the heightened tension of a crisis. There would still be mutual suspicion.

The persistence of the antagonism would always be reflected in military capabilities. Force levels could be reduced, but they would never reach zero. So disarmament could not eliminate the risk of the antagonism spilling over into war. In practice, therefore, it was always necessary to be prepared to conduct a prudent crisis diplomacy. The most that prior agreements could offer was either a degree of ‘crisis stability’ or else partial disarmament, and that if war did break out it would be fought at a lower level than would otherwise have been the case. Arms controllers were managers, whose priority was crisis stability.

Crisis stability

According to the concept of crisis stability, the tempo of diplomacy and the search for political settlement need not be driven mercilessly by the tempo of military preparations and the fear of pre-emptive attack. A stable military relationship is one in which neither side can expect a lasting profit by actually initiating war. The principle is that no war must be allowed to start because of some military imperative before all diplomatic options have been exhausted. It must be possible to hold back on military action without fear of being caught by an early mobilization or a surprise attack.

This fear developed in the 1950s as a result of developments in nuclear weapons technology that were putting a premium on a first strike. ‘Victory’ in nuclear war could be achieved only by destroying the adversary’s capacity for retaliation in a disarming, pre-emptive strike and/or by catching any forces, once launched, by means of effective active defences. The risk here was of a crisis getting out of control as each side fretted about its vulnerability to enemy pre-emption.

The hope was that the balance of terror, though uncomfortable, would remain stable if properly managed. The essential condition came to be known as ‘mutual assured destruction’ (MAD), which was never intended to describe the ultimate fate of the protagonists, only to emphasize an ever-present possibility. So long as both sides were aware that any destruction would be ‘mutual’ and ‘assured’, they would always hold their nuclear fire. Something less mutual and less assured might just tempt one side into a rash gamble.

In the end, avoiding war depends on political judgment at critical moments and cannot be guaranteed by any particular configuration of military forces. Nevertheless the prospect of mutual destruction does seem to have had a sobering effect. US and Soviet forces have yet to meet in battle or even mild skirmish, despite the turbulence and periodic crises of the post-1945 world. The sense of shared interest in war-avoidance has thankfully made a deep impression on national leaders.

The need for active negotiations depends on the extent to which the independent development of military forces displays an inherent bias towards instability. Talk about an ‘arms race’ assumes that one exists, and so generates demands for positive action to correct the bias and reverse the ‘mad momentum’. However, analysis of the actual pattern of postwar military developments provides a more complex and, in some ways, more comforting picture. Certainly weapons have become individually more lethal, more ingenious and more destructive. Nevertheless, taken together, they have confirmed the military paralysis by ensuring that any initiation of hostilities could not result in easy victory or eliminate the risk of enormous cost and general catastrophe.

This position has been reinforced by stabilizing measures that required little by way of direct negotiation. Both sides have taken steps to avoid a loss of control over national forces in a crisis, and to offer too tempting a set of targets to the adversary. Command and control mechanisms have been improved so as to reduce the risks of accidental launches of nuclear weapons, and systems have been adopted that can ‘ride out’ a first strike and so reduce pressure to launch on warning or pre-empt. In the United States these measures have been well publicized in the hope that the Soviet Union would follow the example.

Because of the self-evident value of protecting at least one part of the deterrent from surprise attack, little encouragement was needed to develop ballistic-missile-carrying nuclear submarines (SSBNs). Because SSBNs are relatively invulnerable and, at least up to now, their missiles have been too inaccurate for first strikes against the adversary, their introduction established the sort of strategic relationship required by arms control theory. With a secure means of retaliation, there could be no military premium in launching a surprise attack.

Mutual assured destruction was further reinforced by the difficulties experienced in developing ballistic missile defences. In the 1960s both superpowers embarked on defensive programmes which, if successful, might have had a disturbing impact on the strategic balance by making destruction less assured. As it turned out, the major advances in radar, computing and interception during the 1960s were trumped by advances in offensive capabilities, particularly multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).

If we consider arms control in terms of crisis stability, as a description of a type of strategic relationship rather than as a set of negotiating efforts, then we already have arms control, in a healthy and robust form, and have enjoyed it for much of the past three decades. This raises questions about the purposes of the negotiating exercise. One does not rush forward to tune a TV set which is working perfectly by itself; to do so may just make a clear picture fuzzy. According to the classical theory, the purpose of arms control is solely to adjust the strategic relationship in order to restore equilibrium, or prevent its being lost. Once in equilibrium, the relationship should be left alone and energies should be devoted to other tasks.

Arms race stability

A secondary objective of arms control, which may require more by way of actual negotiating activity, is the pursuit of arms race stability. Arms race stability is more concerned with preventing peacetime rivalries from creating a crisis than with what to do should the crisis arise. The goal is to stop arms competition getting out of hand in the event of both sides overexerting themselves for fear that the other might be gaining an advantage.

The case for arms race stability begins with an understanding that two antagonists might well feel a need for armed forces with which to defend themselves against each other. It then argues that anything beyond the minimum required for self-defence is excessive, and that if both sides could be held down to that minimum, a lot of expense and mutual suspicion would be avoided. If both were subject to comparable constraints, neither would have an excuse for pushing up force levels.

This argument is consistent with a widely held view of the proper role of arms control — putting a ‘cap on the arms race’ or stopping the ‘mad momentum’ — according to which success is judged in terms of money not spent, weapons not bought or, better still, weapons decommissioned and force levels reduced. Avoiding an arms race is also felt to be a way of preventing all the passions and suspicions such races generate, since any new increment of military power tends to be justified by reference to the other side’s buildup and to the hostile intentions said to be behind it.

There is no close relationship between arms race stability and crisis stability. Two small forces might coexist uneasily, whereas two large forces might develop quite a stable relationship. For this reason, traditional arms control theory never offered any guidelines on the numerical aspect of the nuclear relationship. (The opposite was the case with disarmament theory: to the disarmer every extra weapon represented another step towards disaster; every weapon removed was a blow for peace.) If the concern was for crisis stability in the nuclear age, then once it was possible to ensure a devastating retaliation, extra weapons made very little difference. Meanwhile, up to this point, a state might feel insecure and jumpy. So if levels were allowed to slip below those needed to assure destruction, the resultant uncertainty could well be dangerous. There was no particular worry about ‘overkill’, the concept that, so long as it was possible to blow everything and everyone up once, all nuclear capabilities beyond that point constituted surplus capacity. Arms controllers did not accept that the level at which ‘kill’ could be said to have been reached was easy to pinpoint, and feared that a slight ‘underkill’ might give more scope for miscalculation than a large ‘overkill’.

It might be argued that arms race stability is more important than crisis stability, in that arms races generate the crises. However, not only is the proposition that ‘arms races always end in wars’ (or even ‘nearly always’) unsupportable by reference to historical evidence, it is also the case that crises or wars can develop for reasons quite unconnected with arms races. If anything, it might be that successful crisis stability should in practice encourage arms race stability, in that the former, if effective, should remove the prospect of gaining exactly the sort of decisive advantage that is said to stimulate arms racing. The existence of arms racing with crisis stability suggests we are dealing with a more complex phenomenon than the rhetoric usually suggests. Certainly, the tension between crisis stability and arms race stability is a real one, and its influence will be seen in later chapters.

Moreover, to describe an arms relationship in terms of a race might be a crude oversimplification. It assumes that each move is best explained by reference to an actual, or just potential, move by th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The objectives of arms control
• 3 The political context
• 4 Parity and sufficiency
• 5 Strategic arms control
• 6 Intermediate nuclear forces
• 7 Mutual and balanced force reductions
• 8 Confidence-building measures
• 9 Conclusion
• Appendices