Topic 13: Arms Control and WMD

Question 1

Kenneth N. Waltz
“Why Nuclear Proliferation May Be Good”

Defense Deterrence Ideal

Answer 1

The Defense-Deterrent ideal can be reached if states are able to send effective messages and align their doctrine appropriately

• The fear that recently proliferated states will become tyrannical or lose control is misguided; acquiring weapons requires a long lead-time, so governments with short attention spans unlikely to acquire them; and also, only a madman would seek political power through a nuclear attack on the people he was trying to control
• Worry not about the imbalance of nuclear forces and the potential for preemptive strikes – mere possession is sufficient to deter attack as states cannot be sure they’ve eliminated second strike capabilities
• lesser nuclear states likely to realize that, unlike US/USSR arms races, “more is not better if less is enough”; will follow policies of “get and sit”
• New nuclear states will be cautious; “as ever, the biggest international dangers come from the strongest states”

Question 2

Kenneth N. Waltz
“Why Nuclear Proliferation May Be Good”

What are the best counterarguments to Waltz’es benign view of nuclear proliferation?

Answer 2

Main Point: Nuclear weapons make conquest more difficult, discourage prevention and preemption, and make coercive threats less credible; states not likely to take major risks for minor gains

• Bipolarity has two “outstandingly good effects”: 1. it allows clear and fixed lines to be drawn; and 2. nuclear weapons
• Nuclear weapons increase the costs of war to frightening levels and thus instils more caution (think Cuban Missile Crisis)
• Maligns discourse that suggests what has never happened in a nuclear past (nuclear states launching on one another) will happen in the future
• Offensive first strikes, whether preemptive or preventive, are difficult
• thus, Waltz advocates for defense and deterrence – build fortifications that are forbiddingly strong or threaten unacceptable punishment; defense and deterrence can be made more effective by the spread of nuclear weapons

Note: deterrence is not defense, it is punishment

Question 3

Kenneth N. Waltz
“Why Nuclear Proliferation May Be Good”

Can one reject Waltz’es logic and still believe that nuclear deterrence was stable during the Cold War?

Answer 3

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Question 4

Kenneth N. Waltz
“Why Nuclear Proliferation May Be Good”

What would/should Waltz say if he could read the Ellsberg Doomsday Machine chapter assigned on p. 12?

Answer 4

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Question 5

Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr. and Abram N. Shulsky

“From ‘Arms Control’ to Arms Reductions: The Historical Experience”

Answer 5

Main Point: Arms reduction can incite arms races elsewhere and changes in military technology / strategy that make the security situation worse than when the arms levels were at their original levels

• ## There is a shift brewing from radical arms control to radical arms reduction given the USSR’s willingness to decouple the issue of intermediate range missiles from strategic defense arguments, leaving open paths to negotiate one and then the other

Question 6

Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr. and Abram N. Shulsky
“From ‘Arms Control’ to Arms Reductions: The Historical Experience”

How can negotiated regulation of arms shape incentives for war or peace, or foster “crisis stability”?

How can arms control have perverse effects?

What prospective arms control projects would avoid unanticipated consequences and be a good idea?

Answer 6

Focuses on the effects various arms reductions and cuts have had, and the various ways those reductions were taken or enforced

Demobilization:
the USSR willingly demobilized after WWII, France and the UK’s armies and economies having been dealt immense damage and their threat having been reduced; consequences of this action though – led to a shift in Soviet policy towards a more technologically adept military and a shift in military strategy that did not necessarily lead to a “weaker” military

Imposed limits (on Germany and Japan post-WWI): 
Imposed limits on arms buildup on both Germany and Japan were eventually flouted, showing the limitations of how to actually enforce such a treaty without a willing partner; buildup by a “cheating” power leads to an arms panic and also puts the non-cheating side at a strategic disadvantage as they are starting from behind; Germany’s breakout was exacerbated due to it starting from low levels of armament; delineating levels of what can and cannot be had inspires states to innovate new war machines (ex. aircraft carrier that was not covered under Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 between the US, UK, and Japan); negotiations also bring to light weaknesses in numbers that then incite legal arms races as just described; rigidity of agreements renders them inflexible when new weapons emerge