Scientists and practitioners such as John Steinbruner, Jonathan Dean and Stuart Croft have worked intensively on theoretical support for arms control. Arms control is supposed to break the security dilemma. It aims at mutual security between partners and overall stability (whether in a crisis situation, a grand strategy or stability to end an arms race). In addition to stability, arms control goes hand in hand with cost reduction and damage limitation. It differs from disarmament in that the maintenance of stability could allow for mutually controlled armament and cannot maintain peace without weapons. Nevertheless, arms control is in principle a defensive strategy, because transparency, equality and stability are not part of an offensive strategy. The second school sees arms control as a path to strategic stability. This means reducing incentives for States to engage in an arms race in peacetime and eliminating the temptation to strike first in a crisis. Arms control agreements, which make it difficult for anyone to plausibly « win » a nuclear war, serve both purposes. Stability is achieved when States agree to build and use only weapons that guarantee retaliation instead of promising victory.
The public justification for the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972) emphasized this logic. The reason for the ban on missile defense was to destroy all fantasies that superpowers could win a nuclear swap in a meaningful sense. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987 and ratified in 1988, resulting in an agreement to destroy all missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. [19] Treaties aimed at demonstrably limiting nuclear forces improve the security of Russia and the United States in two ways. First, they can help avoid costly accumulations that would exacerbate geopolitical tensions. For Moscow and Washington, inferiority in strategic weapons is unacceptable.1 However, striving to obtain sufficient capabilities to avoid inferiority (not to mention those necessary to achieve superiority) carries the risk of triggering an arms race. Arms control agreements prevent this by clearly facilitating parity at a lower level than would otherwise have been the case. And resource savings go beyond weapons that are not built. The additional intelligence-gathering efforts needed to monitor a potential adversary`s nuclear forces with a high level of trust without cooperative verification agreements would be far more costly than data sharing and inspections. Other technological developments – nuclear-powered cruise missiles, ALBM, airborne supercharged missiles (ALBGM) and SLGBM – are also relevant for a follow-up contract. These capabilities have or could have a strategic scope, but have never been limited by an arms control agreement.
Prohibitions or restrictions on transactions could be useful in managing the associated risks. In 1998, the United Nations established the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA). Its objective is to promote nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, as well as the strengthening of disarmament regimes with regard to other weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons. It also encourages disarmament efforts in the field of conventional weapons, in particular landmines and small arms and light weapons, which are often the weapons of choice in contemporary conflicts. [Citation needed] New types of strategic offensive weapons. Article V of New START aims to manage technological change by creating a process for the parties to recognize the emergence of a « new type of offensive strategic arm. » However, the effectiveness of this provision is limited. New START sets three distinct limits: 700 ICBMs deployed, SLBMs and heavy bombers; 800 deployed and undeployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and heavy bombers; and 1,500 deployed strategic warheads (each heavy bomber used is counted as such a warhead). All strategic nuclear weapons of the United States and the vast majority of Russia are captured through these borders (Russia`s nuclear SLCMs are the only exception).
However, to reflect technological developments since the New START negotiations, a follow-up treaty should manage a wider range of strategic offensive weapons – power-shift missiles, airborne ballistic missiles (ALBM), NT and nuclear-powered cruise missiles – in various ways, and encourage Russia to further reduce its dependence on vulnerable ICBMs based on silos loaded with a large number of warheads. Arms control refers to international restrictions on the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation and use of small arms and light weapons, conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. [1] Arms control is generally exercised through the use of diplomacy, which aims to impose such restrictions on consenting participants through international treaties and agreements, although it may also include efforts by a nation or group of nations to impose restrictions on a non-consenting country. .