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Cooperation Theory and Disarmament Negotiations in the 1950s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Matthew Evangelista
Matthew Evangelista
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Abstract

Soviet-American disarmament negotiations of the mid-1950s provide a critical case for evaluating theories of cooperation such as Tit-for-Tat and GRIT. Although both sides were close to agreement on the main terms of a treaty by May 1955, the negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful. On the basis of declassified U.S. documents, it now appears that the U.S. did not favor an agreement at the time: thus the game was not Prisoners' Dilemma, but Deadlock. The case reinforces the criticism of Tit-for-Tat that its unitary actor assumption ignores domestic second-image pressures for arming, and it also calls into question “first-image” explanations, such as GRIT, that focus on individual cognitive barriers to cooperation. The importance of understanding the links between internal political coalitions and external bargaining strategies is emphasized.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , July 1990 , pp. 502 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1990

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References

1 For a recent discussion of the early negotiations, see Bundy, McGeorge, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988)Google Scholar, chap. 4. For a more comprehensive account, see Bechhoefer, Bernhard G., Postwar Negotiations for Arms Control (Washington, DG: Brookings, 1961)Google Scholar.

2 The classic account of these negotiations is Noel-Baker, Philip, The Arms Race: A Pro-gramme for World Disarmament (New York: Oceana, 1958), 12–30Google Scholar. The Soviet proposal is reprinted in Documents on Disarmament, 1945–1959, vol. 1, 1945–1956 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), 456–67Google Scholar, and is discussed in a declassified official “Progress Report, Proposed Policy of the United States on the Question of Disarmament,” vol. 1, May 26, 1955, Special Staff Study for the President, NSC Action No. 1328, by Harold E. Stassen, document located in papers of the Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, NSC Series, Policy Papers Subseries, Box 2, Folder: “NSC 112/1 Disarmament (3),” Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS [hereafter cited as Eisenhower Library]. A detailed analysis of Soviet objectives is found in Bloomfield, Lincoln P., Clemens, Walter C. Jr., and Griffiths, Franklyn, Khrushchev and the Arms Race: Soviet Interest in Arms Control and Disarmament, 1954–1964 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1966)Google Scholar.

3 Noel-Baker (fn. 2), 21–22, quotes from the verbatim records of the discussions.

4 “Statement by the Deputy United States Representative on the Disarmament Subcommittee (Wadsworth), May 18, 1955,” in Documents on Disarmament (fn. 2), 1:474.

5 Noel-Baker (fn. 2), 23. See also Rostow, Walt W., Open Styes: Eisenhower's Proposal of July 21, 1955 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

6 Noel-Baker (fn. 2).

7 Axelrod, , The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 181Google Scholar. Using different assumptions and methods, Steven J. Brams also proposes a Tit-for-Tat strategy for arms control; see Superpower Games: Applying Game Theory to Superpower Conflict (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985)Google Scholar, chap. 3.

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12 Downs et al. (fn. 10).

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15 Important exceptions include Larson's work (fn. 9), and Bunn, George and Payne, Rodger A., “Tit-for-Tat and the Negotiation of Nuclear Arms Control,” Arms Control 9 (December 1988), 207–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Axelrod (fn. 7) included a historical discussion of the “live-and-let-live” system of trench warfare during World War I. Tit-for-Tat, GRIT, and other strategies are mentioned, but not systematically compared, in some of the historical case studies in George, Alexander L., Farley, Philip J., and Dallin, Alexander, eds., U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, Lessons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar. World Politics 38 (October 1985)Google Scholar, a special issue on cooperation, includes historical case studies but no discussion of GRIT.

16 Larson (fn. 9), 58.

17 Rostow (fn. 5), 20.

18 Ibid., xi.

19 Shevchenko, Arkady N., Breaking with Moscow (New York: Knopf, 1985), 78Google Scholar. The veracity of Shevchenko's book has been called into question with regard to the circumstances of his defection, the extent of his personal relations with top Soviet officials, and his value to American intelligence. He has not, however, been challenged on the details of his early years in the Foreign Ministry. See Edward Jay Epstein, “The Spy Who Came In to Be Sold,” New Republic, July 15 and 22, 1985, 35–42.

20 Shevchenko, personal communication, September 23, 1987.

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23 Vladislav Zubok, “SSSR-SShA: put' k peregovoram po razoruzheniiu v iadernyi vek (1953–1955 gg)” [USSR-USA: The road to negotiations on disarmament in the nuclear age (1953–1955)] (Paper presented at a conference at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, October 1988).

24 Evangelista, Matthew, Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988)Google Scholar, chap. 5.

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27 Grieco, Joseph M., “Realist Theory and the Problem of International Cooperation: Analysis with an Amended Prisoner's Dilemma Model,.” Journal of Politics 50 (August 1988), 600–624CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 602; emphasis in original. See also Grieco (fn. 14), and Waltz (fn. 14).

28 Paradoxically, Soviet proponents of negotiated agreements with the U.S. are often obliged in confronting their domestic critics to argue that relative Soviet strength allows for pursuit of arms control rather than that weakness demands it. Some Western analysts have accepted these arguments and assumed that the Soviets were confident of their strength at a time when in fact the nuclear balance heavily favored the U.S. and its allies. See Dinerstein, Herbert S., War and the Soviet Union: Nuclear Weapons and the Revolution in Soviet Military and Political Thinking, rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1962)Google Scholar. Soviet moderates were also reluctant to evoke a foreign threat for fear of damaging their program of domestic de-Stalinization. Stalin had used the specter of external enemies to justify internal repression. See Zubok (fn. 23).

29 “Rech’ tovarishcha G. K. Zhukova” [Speech of Comrade G. K. Zhukov], Krasnaia zvezda, February 21, 1955.

30 Some systems had already been secretly deployed in Britain and with naval forces in the Mediterranean in the spring of 1952, but public attention was not drawn to these developments until the following year. See the discussion in Evangelista (fn. 24), 152, 225.

31 Evangelista, Matthew, “The Evolution of the Soviet Tactical Air Forces,” Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual 7 (1982–1983), 451–79Google Scholar; Gareev, M. A., Takticheskie ucheniia i manevry [Tactical exercises and maneuvers] (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1977), 171–72Google Scholar, 189–90; and Lavrinenkov, Vladimir, Bez voiny [Without war] (Kiev: Politizdat Ukrainy, 1982), 203Google Scholar.

32 Evangelista (fn. 24), chap. 5.

33 Soviet figures given by Khrushchev in a speech, reprinted in Pravda, January 15, 1960, are generally accepted by Western analysts. See the extensive discussion in Wolfe, Thomas W., Soviet Power and Europe, 1945–1970 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970), 162–66Google Scholar.

34 Rostow (fn. 5), 20.

35 Ridgway's remarks come from a speech delivered on September 9, 1954, quoted in Memorandum for Admiral Radford, Subject: Differing Philosophies, Generals Ridgway and Gruenther, September 11, 1954, p. 3, CJCS 092.2 North Atlantic Treaty, Modern Military Branch, National Archives. I am grateful to Charles Naef for calling this document to my attention. Ridgway expressed similar views in Congressional testimony, in an undated document, “Notes for Questions or Comment,” Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 3, Folder: “Army—Testimony [by Gen. Ridgway] re Strength,” Eisenhower Library. See also his autobiography, Ridgway, Matthew, Soldier (New York: Harper, 1956)Google Scholar. For similar views from other army officers, see Taylor, Maxwell, The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper, 1959)Google Scholar, and Gavin, James, War and Peace in the Space Age (New York: Harper, 1958), 139Google Scholar, 151, 229.

36 Krasil'nikov, S., Marksizm-Leninizm o voine i armii [Marxism-Leninism on war and the army] (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1956), 148Google Scholar, 150–51.

37 See the discussion in Garthoff, Raymond L., Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age (New York: Praeger, 1958), 124–25Google Scholar.

38 See Marshal Rodion Malinovskii's report in Krasnaia zvezda, January 20, 1960; for an extensive discussion, see Tiedtke, Jutta, Abrüstung in der Sowjetunion: Wirtschaftliche Bedingungen und soziale Folgen der Truppenreduzierung von 1960 [Disarmament in the Soviet Union: Economic conditions and social consequences of the troop reduction of 1960] (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1985), 157–79Google Scholar.

39 Gallagher, Matthew, “Military Manpower: A Case Study,” Problems of Communism 13 (May—June 1964), 53–62Google Scholar; Wolfe, Thomas W., Soviet Strategy at the Crossroads (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), 238–42Google Scholar; Tiedtke (fn. 38), 54–62; Ritvo, Herbert, “Internal Divisions on Disarmament in the USSR,” in Melman, Seymour, ed., Disarmament: Its Politics and Economics (Boston, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1962), 212–37Google Scholar.

40 Lavrinenkov (fn. 31), 225.

41 Holloway (fn. 25), 39–43; Gallagher (fn. 39); Wolfe (fn. 33), passim.

42 Phillips, R. Hyland and Sands, Jeffrey I., “Reasonable Sufficiency and Soviet Conventional Defense: A Research Note,” International Security 13 (Fall 1988), 164–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Vitaly Zhurkin, Sergei Karaganov, and Andrei Kortunov, “Reasonable Sufficiency; or, How to Break the Vicious Circle,” New Times, October 12, 1987, 14.

44 (General of the Army) Ivan Tret'iak, “Reliable Defense First and Foremost,” Moscow News, February 21, 1988.

45 Bloomfield et al. (fn. 2), esp. 85–86.

46 Khrushchev transcript (fn. 26), 403–4.

47 Ibid., 403.

48 “Statement by the Deputy United States Representative on the Disarmament Subcommittee (Wadsworth), May 18, 1955,” in Documents on Disarmament (fn. 2), 1:474.

49 “Soviet Proposal Introduced in the Disarmament Subcommittee: Reduction of Armaments, the Prohibition of Atomic Weapons, and the Elimination of the Threat of a New War, May 10, 1955,” Ibid. 1:456–67.

50 National Security Council Progress Report on the implementation of “Formulation of a United States Position with Respect to the Regulation, Limitation, and Balanced Reduction of Armed Forces and Armaments” (NSC 112), January 19, 1953, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, NSC Series, Policy Paper Subseries, Folder: “NSC 112/1 Disarmament (6),” Eisenhower Library, p. 2.

51 Bundy (fn. 1), 290.

52 Memorandum, Irwin to Norbert, March 11, 1952, Subject: Proposed Cohen Disarmament Statement, Box 34, Folder 388.3, “Disarmament Proposal,” Records of the Psychological Strategy Board, Papers of Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO. For the previous history of U.S. proposals at the UN, see Memorandum: Disarmament Negotiations, October 24, 1956, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, OCB Series, Subject Subseries, Box 4, File: “Missile Program (2),” Eisenhower Library.

53 “Armaments and American Policy,” Report of a Panel of Consultants on Disarmament of the Department of State, January 1953, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, NSC Series, Policy Paper Subseries, Box 2, Folder: “NSC 112/1, Disarmament (6),” Eisenhower Library, esp. p. 1–2. The panel consisted of Vannevar Bush, John S. Dickey, Allen W. Dulles, Joseph E. Johnson, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

54 Ibid., 1–4.

55 Ibid., 13.

56 Memorandum: Disarmament Negotiations, October 24, 1956 (fn. 52).

57 The proposals are reprinted in Documents on Disarmament (fn. 2), vol. 1.

58 “U.S. Policy on Control of Armaments: Agreements and Differences between the Positions Asserted by State and Defense Working Group Members on Principal Issues,” with cover memorandum, December 10, 1954, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, NSC Series, Policy Paper Subseries, Box 2 Folder: “NSC 112/1 Disarmament (5),” Eisenhower Library, p. 3.

59 T. B. Koons, “The Disarmament Problem and U.S. Policy before the NSC,” April 22, 1955, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Special Assistant Series, Subject Subseries, Box 4, Folder: “Disarmament—General (1955–56) (3),” Eisenhower Library. The report includes an “annex” that puts forward the views of the AEC and the State and Defense departments, as well as a chronology of U.S. policy decisions on disarmament from 1953 to 1955.

60 Ibid., 2.

61 Ibid., 3–4, and Annex A.

62 Progress Report, “Proposed Policy of the United States on the Question of Disarmament” (fn. 2), 17–20.

63 Ibid., 29.

64 Memorandum, July 1, 1955, Subject: Discussion at the 253rd Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, June 30, 1955, Eisenhower Papers, 1953–1961, Ann Whitman File, p. 10, Eisenhower Library.

65 Memorandum for Secretary of Defense from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, June 16, 1955, Subject: Progress Report on the Control of Armaments Made to the President and the National Security Council by the Special Assistant to the President on May 26, 1955, Office of the Staff Secretary: Records, 1952–1961, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 11, Folder: “Disarmament [vol. I] (5),” p. 6, Eisenhower Library.

66 Memorandum for the President from the Secretary of Defense, June 28, 1955, Subject: Progress Report on the Control of Armaments by the Special Assistant to the President on Disarmament, vols. I, II, and III, May 26, 1955, and vol. IV, June 23, 1955, Office of the Staff Secretary: Records, 1952–1961, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 11, Folder: “Disarmament [vol. I] (5),” pp. 1–2, 5, Eisenhower Library. Reagan administration officials in 1982 refused to declassify much of Wilson's memorandum, including the passages quoted above. It was finally released in full in July 1989 in response to my request under the mandatory classification review provisions of Executive Order 12356.

67 Ibid., 5–6.

68 For some reason the rest of Eisenhower's comment has been exempted from declassification. Memorandum, July 1, 1955 (fn. 64), 9.

70 Memorandum for the President, July 28, 1955 (fn. 66), 6.

71 Memorandum, May 20, 1955, Subject: Discussion at the 249th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, May 19, 1955, Eisenhower Papers, 1953–1961, Ann Whitman File, p. 10, Eisenhower Library.

72 Memorandum July 1, 1955 (fn. 64), 10.

73 Ibid., 13.

74 Quoted in Bundy (fn. 1), 298.

75 Transcript of Oral History interview with Vernon Walters, conducted by John Wick-ham, April 31, 1970, Eisenhower Library, p. 42. See also the remarks of the deputy U.S. representative to the UN, Wadsworth, James J., The Price of Peace (New York: Praeger, 1962)Google Scholar, xii.

76 The proposal is reprinted in Documents on Disarmament (fn. 2), 1:721–29; and discussed in Bloomfield et al. (fn. 2), 29–30.

77 Khrushchev transcript, 405–6.

78 Ibid., 405.

79 Ibid., 405–6.

80 See, e.g., Bechhoefer (fn. 1), esp. chap. 13; Bloomfield et al. (fn. 2), esp. 82–84.

81 Letter from Harold E. Stassen to John Foster Dulles, August 5, 1955, Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Special Assistant Series, Subject Subseries, Box 4, Folder: “Disarmament—General (1955–1956) (3),” Eisenhower Library.

82 Larson (fn. 9), 58.

83 Bundy (fn. 1), 301.

84 Holsti, Ole R., “Cognitive Dynamics and Images of the Enemy: Dulles and Russia,” in Finlay, David J., Holsti, Ole R., and Fagen, Richard R., Enemies in Politics (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967), 25–96Google Scholar; Larson (fn. 9).

85 See, for example, the background press statement prepared by the President's Special Committee on Disarmament Problems, Joseph S. Toner, Executive Secretary, in response to the Soviet announcement of a second series of reductions, May 14, 1956, in Office of the Staff Secretary, Subject Series, Alphabetical Subseries, Box 11, Folder: “Disarmament [vol. I] (6) [May—June 1956],” Eisenhower Library.

86 Memorandum, May 20, 1955 (fn. 71), 7–9.

87 Memorandum for Secretary of Defense from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, June 16, 1955 (fn. 65), 3.

88 Bill Keller, “Gorbachev Vows Major Military Cutback and a ‘Clearly Defensive’ Stand in Europe,” New York Times, December 8, 1988; R. Jeffrey Smith and George C. Wilson, “Decision Welcomed in U.S.,” Washington Post, December 8, 1988.

89 Thomas L. Friedman, “Gorbachev Hands a Surprised Baker an Arms Proposal,” New York Times, May 12, 1989.

90 Ibid.

91 Maureen Dowd, “Bush Voices Hope on Sovet Change, but with Caution,” New York Times, May 13, 1989.

92 Memorandum, July 1, 1955 (fn. 64), 11.

93 The U.S. Navy, in particular, has resisted intrusive verification to distinguish nuclear from conventional cruise missiles.

94 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Gorbachev's Force Reductions and the Restructuring of Soviet Forces. Hearings before the Defense Policy Panel, May 10 and 14, 1989.

95 For details of the proposals, see Chalmers Hardenbergh, ed., The Arms Control Reporter (Brookline, MA: Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, monthly compendium), supplements for 1989 and 1990.

96 Downs, George W. and Rocke, David M., “Tacit Bargaining and Arms Control,” World Politics 39 (April 1987), 297–325CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 301.

97 Downs et al. (fn. 10), 122–23.

98 Larson (fn. 9), 36–39; Downs et al. (fn. 10), 136–37.

99 Downs and Rocke (fn. 96), 305.

100 Memorandum, May 20, 1955 (fn. 71), 7–9.

101 Holsti (fn. 84), esp. 66–69.

102 For example, contrast Dulles's views with those of the Defense Department in Memorandum of July 1, 1955 (fn. 64), 5–7, and Annex A of memorandum from T. B. Koons, April 22, 1955 (fn. 59).

103 Divine, Robert A., Blowing on the Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954–1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

104 Seaborg, Glenn T., with Loeb, Benjamin S., Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981)Google Scholar, esp. 228–29.

105 For an insightful analysis of the domestic determinants of Soviet policy, see Snyder, Jack, “The Gorbachev Revolution: A Waning of Soviet Expansionism?” International Security 12 (Winter 1987–1988), 93–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

106 Putnam, Robert D., “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), 427–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert Axelrod, “The Gamma Paradigm for Studying the Domestic Influence on Foreign Policy” (Paper presented at the 1987 Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, DC). For an interesting study of Soviet policy that draws on game theory, see Jonsson, Christer, Soviet Bargaining Behavior: The Nuclear Test Ban Case (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

107 As recommended, e.g., by Snidal, Duncan, “The Game Theory of International Politics,” World Politics 38 (October 1985), 25–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 26–27.

108 For a review of theories relevant to security cooperation and a preliminary empirical assessment, see Matthew Evangelista, “Sources of Moderation in Soviet Security Policy,” in Philip Tetlock et al., Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).