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Whatever happened to arms control?
BY STEPHEN N WALT MARCH 29, 2012
rfhere's been a lot of needless hoopla over Obama's "open mic" comment at the Nuclear Security Summi, including an almost certainly ghost-wri L Len piece by Mitt Romney here at FP. ("barna was overheard telling Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that he Nvould have more flexibility'. to negotiate a deal on missile defense after?. election, which is horh correct and hardly a store secret. The flap illusirates the main point I was trying to make a few days ago, when I wraa about how the absurdly long U.S. election cycle was a major impediment to a inore effective foreign policy. at may also be ail impediment to Ramney's chances. because the longer the campaign goes on. the more opportunities he has for foot-In-mouth moments that expose his ignorance about foreign policy, including his silly comment about Russia being our major geopolitical rival,.
In any (MSC,. incident got me thinking about how much the arms control agenda has chang,ed since the heyday of the Cold War. Back them there was a serious constituency. the United States pitshin,g nuclear arms control, which saw it as key to reducing the risk of nuclear war, managing the I Lg.-Soviet relationship, and dampening the danger of internaiimnal conflict morn generally. Arms control was intended co save some money, preserve each side's second-strike deterrent cap:Abilities, and help stabili2,e the political relationship between Moscow nd Washington. it was thus a key ingredient in the basic agenda of detente, which sought to keep U.S.-Soviet competition within bounds. One can argue about how effective it was, but worth noting thal. nuclear war didn't occur. and the U.S. amd its allies triumphed nver the Soviet Union without fighting a ,Tar with (1!em.)
Accordingly, the main items on the arms control agenda involved direct negotiations with our Soviet adversades (Lhe SALT and START ireades, the INF treaty on intermediate nuclear forces in Euro, ele.). h.P.,0,:olicy...701.3125,...er-he.e...arn+s-controu
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These efforts hmlved tough and protracted negotiations between more-or-less equals (even though the I,. and irs allieR wcrc Int stronger tha n the Soviet I lnion and its various clients), anti therawas no possibility of either side issuing ultimaumns or imposin,g a one-sided deal on .e other. The other main arms control item was the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and this arrangement resulted llom tacit collusion between the tWo superpowers fa preserve their niVrt nuclear superiority. After the basic NPT deal allowed nuclear powers keep their own arsenals (in exchange for pledges to share nuclear technology and make some son of long-term effort disarmament). vthile putting, in place a regime that made it much harder for miler Slat. CO pin (he nuclear club.
Pat what about now? Since the end of tbc Cold War, tbe contra' agenda has become decidedly ...- sided. Yes, there's been a not-very-signillcara ''New Star, treaty with Russia. which didn't alter the basic strategic relationship at all and which hardly anybody [including Governor Romney) has paid much attention to. The real a.ctinn in arms mini, has been a series of U.S.-led efforts to get states to give up their existing arsenals or ;Am...existing nuclear programs. In the 1990s, we put tremendous pressure on Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belants to give up the arsenals they inherited from, the former Soviet Umon. and wc eventually succeeded. Then the I Mired Stares nearly launched a preventive yea r against North Knrca in 1994, and did various deals (e.g., the ',Agreed Framework") to try to head off their development of nuclear weapons. We invaded Inm in 2003 to stop Saddam, "Weapons of Mass Destruction.' programs (which turned out to be fictitious — our had, and have been tatcheting up economic sanctions and Waging a COVert war against Iran to try to keep Tehran from getting too close to the nuclear weapons threshold. And we keep saying ...options are on the table,. which is a threat to use I,ce
I n instead of ',inns control" being the product of mutual negotiation, as ir was in the Cold War, it now consists of the United States making demands .d ramping up pressure to get weak states to comply. Instead of being ptimarily a di plornalicprocess aimed at eliciting mutually beneficial coopetalion (which might also help meliorate mutual suspicions with current adversaries), antis control has become a coercive process designed to produce capitulation,. approach may have worked in a. few cases (e.g.. Lib,. although even there the Bush administration made certain concessions to secure a final deal), but its overall track record is paltry. Aker,. North Korea eventually went ahead and tested a nuclear device,
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and escalating pressure on Tran has yet to convince its leaders to abandon their enrichment program. And as I've noted before, using military force would not eliminate Iran's ability to develop weapons if it wishes, and could easily ..111Villtie them that they had not choice but to go ahead and weapunize.
Because material power is still the central currency in world politics, this tendency doesn't surprise me all that much. When the United States has to deal with near-equals, it understands that bargaining is necessary and that a successful outcome requires patience and compromise... today, we think we can impose our will on almost anybody, so any son of compromise is regarded as some sort of craven appeasement. Rut even a country as powerful as the 1 I n ited Stares cannot simply dictate To others — as arc should have learned by now from our experiences with Iraq, Afghanistan, and a few others — and a disdain for genuine diploma, ias opposed to merely issuing ultimatums rued imposing sanctions, is getting in Thew, ofpotcntial deals t.. could reduce The risk of proliferation, dampen the danger of wa r, and enable U.S. leaders to turn their atteMion to other miorities. Being the world's 41 power confers many advantages, but it can also be a potent source of blind and counterm-oductive arrogance.
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