Readings Flashcards
Arms Control and Great Power Politics- Crawford & Vu, 2020
The main concept is that arms control and great power politics work in tandem with one another. The two main ideas are that preventing the Russian and Chinese alliance will prevent hostile anti-American coalition and allowing it to happen is durable.
-Ex: Trump supported New Strategic Arms reduction treaty to frustrate ties between Russia & China
-These authors believe that the new START program should aim to stave off the growing Sino-Russian alignment
Why Arms Control is so Rare, Cole and Vayman, 2020
focuses on why arming is so common and control is rare. How do we assure COMPLIANCE without risking security??How do states assure that the other isn’t cheating without giving away too much info- military, weapons, etc.
-Transparency- Security trade-off: the level of openness affects both how easy it is for A to assure herself that B is not covertly cheating on the deal
The Flawed Case for nuclear Disarmament
The author states that disarmament will NOT reduce the probability of nuclear war, people OVEREXAGGERATED the the possibility of preventing accidental and. Unauthorized use of nuclear weapons, and that it does contribute to preventing nuclear proliferation.
-disarmament would only lead to vulnerability and an increased willingness to launch conventional war
-REARMAMENT will be more dangerous as there would be less focus on safety which would cause more accidents
-a better strategy is to reduce nuclear forces
-The problem is that absolute long-term safety from the use of nuclear weapons lies in a permanent revolution in international relations, not in disarmament
Atoms for Peace Speech, Eisenhower, 1953
*Eisenhower knows that the USSR is becoming powerful
-“But for me to say that the defence capabilities of the United States are such that they could inflict terrible losses upon an aggressor, for me to say that the retaliation capabilities of the United States are so great that such an aggressor’s land would be laid waste, all this, while fact, is not the true expression of the purpose and the hopes of the United States”
-The US will never put the USSR in a bad place where it has to surrender what is theirs or be looked at negatively
*The president recommends that all of the governments involved should begin and continue to make joint contributions from their stockpiles of normal uranium and fissionable materials to an international atomic energy agency which would be set up under the UN
What History can Teach, Cameron
*Essay argues that arms control was used as one tool in a broader strategy of war prevention, designed to contain a series of challenges to the US and Soviet dominance of the international system that both sides worried could upset bipolarity and increase the chances of conflict.
*Todays leaders should integrate arms control into a more comprehensive strategy of political accommodation fit for 21st century conditions
* Washington should seek to maintain network of treaties for as long as possible
* Great power exercise in threat management should be balanced with engagement with allies to find necessary compromises
Arms control Association, When Ukraine Traded Nuclear Weapons for Security Assurances: An interview with Mariana Budjeryn
*None of the three non-Russian successor states possessed a full cycle, so that would have to invest in these facilities to complete the missing links
*Would have had to invest time to reshape nuclear force to benefit Ukraine
*Ukraine wanted to be a state free of nuclear weapons
*The West made it clear that there was to be only one nuclear power under the Soviet Union, but Ukraine simply wanted a fair deal
*The Budapest memorandum was not what Ukrainian negotiators sought to get; they wanted more robust set of security guarantees US has not upheld its part
Nuclear Disarmament without the Nuclear-Weapon States: The Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, Muller & Wunderlich
*Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a new approach to the have nots coming together and producing an international disarmament treaty without any nuclear state
oWill not damage the NPT
oCategorical prohibition of nuclear weapons in all aspects, from development to possession, deployment to use
Critics:
*Critics say that the TPWN weakens verification obligations compared to the NPT it has comprehensive safeguards
*Critics say that the TPNW creates divisions in the NPT review process, but negotiations had been stalled for years and if it will deepen division is not determined
*Critics say supporters apply an ethics of absolute ends rather than an ethic of responsibility, but this is NOT correct
The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives, Koch
*Claimed that the US would work on its own (unilaterally) but challenged the Soviet Union to take comparable steps
*Talks about cases in which PNIs were developed, the concerns and goals that motivated them, and the national/international processes that led to them
*The US asked the SU to…
-eliminate all its ground-launched nonstrategic nuclear forces, including nuclear artillery, nuclear warheads for short-range ballistic missiles and air-defense missiles, and nuclear land mines
-remove all tactical nuclear weapons from surface ships and submarines, withdraw nuclear weapons for land-based naval aircraft, destroy many naval tactical warheads and consolidate the rest in central storage areas
-limit ICBM modernization to one single-warhead system
-end all programs for future ICBMs with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs)
-confine mobile ICBMs to garrison.
* Between 1990 and 1994, the US stockpile dell by 50%
* PNI were not legally binding which made it difficult to keep Russia accountable
Negotiating the New Start Treaty, Gottemoeller (Ch. 1,5,10,13)
- Replacing START
o Bush administration felt that with the expiration of START, a single limit on warheads would be effective enough to continue arms control process
o Russian federation believed that the new treaty should place limits on delivery vehicles, launchers, and their warheads; have verification measures - Both presidents agreed that the subject of the new agreement would be strategic offensive arms, the parties would seek reductions below the Moscow treaty, and the agreement would include effective verification measures that frew on experience of START
- Russia wanted less inspections and would flush their mobile ICBMs when they knew inspections were underway
- ROR ia a document that expresses the senate’s advice treaty can be changed but this was not feasible as the Russians would back out
The End of Arms Control?, Brooks
Talks about the demise of arms control.
* Arms control is not an obvious good rather a tool used to ensure national security and enhance strategic stability
* Mutual assured destruction: many people are trying to move away from it but it is something that must be accepted and managed
-the US may come to realize that Russia is a nonnegotiable partner not only because they defy treaties, but they disagree on various issues
-For the US, one problem is the loss of transparency and predictability which both enhance stability
-The risk of Russia taking irresponsible action to demonstrate its power and importance is too great
-Public opinion in both countries will assume that the demise of New Start means and increase in strategic forces and an arms race
-The first is that all states possessing nuclear weapons, including Russia and the United States, are almost certainly overconfident in their ability to manage crises and prevent their escalation.
-The second reason crisis management may be more difficult than expected is the nature of the new war-fighting domains of space and cyberspace. The risk is that routine acts in these two domains can be misinterpreted as precursors to an attack
The Ratification Premium, Kreps, Saunders, Schultz (skim the model)
*Argues that the relevant question is not whether it takes a hawk to pursue cooperative politics, but rather a wise dove could also do so
*Dovish presidents can overcome their credibility gap by paying a “ratification premium” usually in the form of increased defense efforts in areas not covered by the treaty
-The doves’ disadvantage therefore manifests itself not in an inability to get dovish deals ratified, but rather in the higher premium required to obtain support
*The model distinguishes between two types of legislators: the pivotal legislator whose vote is needed to ratify & the potential endorser who has information about the desirability of the treaty
-Nixon had success with SALT I while Carter faced GOP hawks with SALT II
-BUSH had no issues with the Senate on OSRT but OBAMA had many issues with New Start
Politics over Promise, Miller
This talks about why domestic factors play a large part in arms control, especially in the prevention of approving good agreements.
domestic political impediments:
-congress
-WHO,state department, arms control and disarmament agency, defense department
-elections
-Internal negotiations some people have to be bought off, slow process, losers can circumvent restrictions and take their case to the public, internal critics ill usually have to be paid for their public support, policy formulation is the President’s game
Implications:
-technology can imrpove faster than the process& president is not the most powerful
Peeling the Orange: regional paths to a nuclear-free world, Hamel-Green (3-14)
- The NWFZ approach is one in which we gradually make areas without nuclear weapons, and it will eventually single out those who have them
- Negotiations require regional groups or individual states to act within their own right on a nuclear threat by entering into binding treaties to outlaw nuclear weapons in the territories under their control and see international recognition and security guarantees on the bases of their verified, non-nuclear, non-threatening status
- The first NWFZ to be established was by the US- the 1959 Antarctic Treaty which established a nuclear-weapon-free and demilitarized zone by prohibiting military bases, weapons testing, and banned nuclear explosives and disposal of nuclear waste
- NWFZ can provide insight and advice, especially on compliance and verification & they can educate on nuclear threats
