Arms Control by Committee

Managing Negotiations with the Russians

George Bunn

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 1992
• eBook ISBN: 9780804765923
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book is essentially a series of case histories of U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms control negotiations, as seen from the American side. It describes the processes of governmental decisionmaking for arms control in Washington, D.C., and the techniques for joint U.S.-Soviet decisionmaking at the negotiating table. As general counsel of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and member of U.S. delegations to disarmament conferences for eight years, the author was in a unique position to assess the difficulties of fashioning an arms control treaty that could pass muster within the executive branch of the U.S. government, be approved by U.S. allies, be successfully negotiated with the Soviets, and then win the approval of the U.S. Senate. This process will be even more complex now that the United States will face at least four nuclear powers from the former U.S.S.R. The book has three purposes. The first is to add to the recorded history of the following negotiations: the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, the ABM Treaty of 1972 and its companion SALT Interim Agreements, and the 1987 INF Treaty. The author asks in each case, What did the president and his assistants do (or fail to do) to negotiate a successful agreement? The second purpose is to use the case book approach, common in law schools and business schools, as a teaching device for those who wish to learn how the American government made decisions about arms control negotiations, how U.S.-Soviet negotiators reached decisions, and what the results of the decisions have been. The book's third purpose is to generalize about what works and what does not work in the complex world of arms control negotiations, including information on the impact of negotiating committees and comparisons of the process for negotiating arms control treaties with that for achieving arms limits through action and reaction, without written agreement. The concluding chapter looks to the future: What changes will occur in the arms control process given the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union?

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• ONE - Questions About the Negotiations
• TWO - The Limited Test Ban Treaty and Two Missed Opportunities for a Comprehensive Ban
• THREE - The Threshold Test Ban Treaty and Another Try at a Comprehensive Ban
• FOUR - The NPT: Banning Transfer of Nuclear Weapons Takes Two Decades
• FIVE - The NPT Finally Brings Widespread International Safeguards on Reactors
• SIX - SALT I: The ABM Treaty and an Opportunity Lost to Ban MIRVs
• SEVEN - SALT II Misses an Opportunity to Move On from SALT I
• EIGHT - The INF Treaty: Negotiating from a Position of Strength?
• NINE - In Washington, D.C.: The Decisionmaking Process
• TEN - At the Table: The Negotiating Process
• ELEVEN - Too Many Cooks? The Impact of the Negotiating Committees
• TWELVE - “Arms Control Without Agreements” and the CFE Treaty
• THIRTEEN - Will the Process Change with the End of the Cold War?
• Reference Matter
• Notes
• Sources
• Index