Arms Reduction

The International Committee of the Red Cross has played a key role in the effort to ban anti-personnel landmines. This book provides an overview of the work of the ICRC concerning landmines from 1955 through 1999. It contains International Committee of the Red Cross position papers, working papers, and speeches made by its representatives to the international meetings convened to address the mines issue, including the 1995SH96 Review Conference of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and the diplomatic meeting that adopted the Ottawa treaty banning anti-personnel mines.

The nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union are larger, better equipped, and deadlier than at any other time in history. This incisive book contends that the superpowers, while exhibiting enormous ingenuity in the area of arms development, have shown only a minimal interest toward the containment of arms. This is a carefully documented evaluation of how both superpowers, and of their failure to contain the nuclear arms race despite their involvement in the process for over a quarter of a century. Only the superpowers can reduce the proliferation of nuclear arms and in the process lessen likelihood of nuclear war through accident, miscalculation or crisis escalation.

When the Cold War ended, the world let out a collective sigh of relief as the fear of nuclear confrontation between superpowers appeared to vanish overnight. As we approach the new millennium, however, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to ever more belligerent countries and factions raises alarming new concerns about the threat of nuclear war. In Return to Armageddon, Ronald Powaski assesses the dangers that beset us as we enter an increasingly unstable political world. With the START I and II treaties, completed by George Bush in 1991 and 1993 respectively, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, it seemed as if the nuclear clock had been successfully turned back to a safer hour. But Powaski shows that there is much less reason for optimism than we may like to think. Continued U.S.-Russian cooperation can no longer be assured. To make matters worse, Russia has not ratified the START II Treaty and the U.S. Senate has failed to approve the CTBT. Perhaps even more ominously, the effort to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nonweapon states is threatened by nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan. The nuclear club is growing and its most recent members are increasingly hostile. Indeed, it is becoming ever more difficult to keep track of the expertise and material needed to build nuclear weapons, which almost certainly will find their way into terrorist hands. Accessible, authoritative, and provocative, Return to Armageddon provides both a comprehensive account of the arms control process and a startling reappraisal of the nuclear threat that refuses to go away.

Assuming a movement towards detente, East-West Arms Control assesses the role and relevance of arms control in an era of rapidly eroding bipolarity and East-West confrontation. It takes a sober look at the significance of what has been achieved so far, where the arms control process is currently heading and what prospects and challenges the Western Alliance will face.

Vogele provides a contemporary history of the nuclear arms control negotiations of the 1980s, tracing these negotiations from their initiation at the beginning of the decade through the agreements that were reached by the end. Two chapters provide background on arms control efforts from the mid-1950s through 1980. The work is an analytical history of nuclear arms control bargaining processes, and an evaluation of the utility of alternative negotiation strategies for producing agreement. Thus, the history of these negotiations offers lessons for the continuing pursuit of arms control and other cooperative security arrangement in the post-Cold War international order.

This War College text incorporates the work of practitioners, academics, and members of the U.S. negotiating team to present a concise analysis of arms reduction efforts. Its first five chapters provide a thorough understanding of conventional arms control history. Successive chapters address: the role of partial disarmament; CFE proposals, data, and military implications of a successful agreement; U.S. Interagency Group process; High Level Task Force; and updates on both Vienna negotiations. This hard-headed book designed for policy makers is a valuable resource for courses in foreign policy, negotiation, political theory, and public policy.

Cimbala and Scouras examine the issues related to the control of nuclear weapons in the early 21st century. These issues are both technical and policy oriented; science and values are commingled. This means that arguments about nuclear strategy, arms control, and proliferation are apt to be contentious and confusing. The authors seek to provide a clear path that will lead policymakers and researchers to a fuller, more accurate understanding of the issues involved.

Rueckert provides the first comprehensive treatment of the on-site inspection regimes included in modern arms control agreements. He looks at the core concepts of the on-site inspection approach and blends analysis of treaty provisions with a discussion of how they work in practice. The in-depth discussion covers all aspects of on-site inspection: its evolution, how various types of inspection and monitoring work, and how inspection regimes are implemented. Rueckert concludes with a discussion of the costs and benefits.

In October 1987 on the eve of the Washington summit, the Committee on Atlantic Studies, a group of European and North American scholars established in 1964 to promote transatlantic dialogue, met in Toronto to discuss the implications of the new arms control for European security. This book is the fruit of that meeting. Incorporating subsequent developments, up to Gorbachev's December 1988 speech to the U.N., it provides a timely assessment of arms control issues from a variety of European and North American perspectives.