numbers of warships needed no particular verification system, because heavy
naval ships were impossible to hide, and normal methods of espionage were
enough to keep track of what countries were doing. But verification for a
treaty restricting the size of nuclear warheads that can be fitted to a missile is
impossible without allowing inspection of each country’s missile sites, which is
difficult to grant both for reasons of national secrecy and as a matter of
sovereignty. The successful arms control agreements of the post-war years
have been either those that required little ‘intrusive’ verification, or where
breakthroughs in national attitudes to such modifications of national sover-
eignty have occurred. The second problem with arms control is that it involves
extremely hard bargaining. Most nations will only accept a deal which, in their
eyes, increases their national security, and often brings associated benefits.
Arms control has little to do with moral stances or international public
opinion, and everything to do with saving money without increasing vulner-
ability or giving up some technological advantage. Such deals, where two
countries are both prepared to give up a particular weapon, are rare and are
likely to succeed because neither independently had much use for the weapon
in the first place. It is not unknown for a country to announce plans to build
some weapon entirely in order to have something they do not need to
surrender in future negotiations.
The most important arms control agreements of the post-war era have been
the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks) treaties of 1972 and 1979, the
1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty of 1987, theConventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treatyof
1990 and the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) treaty of 1991. It was
the end of thecold warwhich largely brought an end to arms control
negotiations and treaties, because neitherNATOnor the Warsaw Treaty
Organization (seeWarsaw Pact), while it still existed, could actually afford
to deploy as many weapons systems as treaties allowed. Renewed interest in
ballistic missile defence on the part of the USA, however, has created the
possibility of serious international disharmony over its likely abrogation of the
ABM Treaty (seeSon of Star Wars).
Arms Races
There have been arms races several times in recent history, brought about by
military equipment becoming highly dependent on technology. Perhaps the
first important arms race was the competition between Britain and Germany at
the turn of the century to build bigger and better battleships, the ‘Dread-
noughts’. The major arms race since the Second World War has been the
competition between the USA and the Soviet Union to build up more
Arms Races