9 - Disarmament as Restraint on the Use of Force

Summary

Disarmament – in the sense of eliminating weapons – has not been a success as a means of restraining the use of force between states. Significant discarding of conventional weapons took place in Europe after the Cold War under an agreement (CFE) between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Large scrapping of whole categories of tactical nuclear weapons also occurred through parallel commitments under the so-called Presidential Initiative by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev. However, the subject of ‘general and complete disarmament’ that has long been on the international agenda, has hardly even been taken seriously. And while the non-nuclear weapon states allowed the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970 to be prolonged indefinitely, the five nuclear weapons states parties have failed to live up to their obligation to agree on disarmament. A significant failure is also that the US and some other nuclear weapon states have failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty concluded in 1996. The US and the Soviet Union/Russia have sought – not disarmament but – important strategic stability through ‘arms control’ in bilateral agreements. In 2021, they prolonged the START agreement setting limits on the number of American and Russian strategic nuclear weapons and carriers and providing for important mutual verification.