Changes in International Arms Control and China’s Role

The international arms control regime has arrived at a crossroads as the United States pulls out of a number of international treaties and launches a new round of defense and military buildup in pursuit of absolute strategic and technological superiority. Under the Trump administration’s “America First” doctrine, Washington is leading the global arms control cause astray. The article traces the international arms control regime’s liberal institutionalist roots and situates the positions of the world’s largest nuclear powers in it. It analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the regime and put forward a number of policy measures to improve it. It argues that the officially recognized nuclear powers, especially the United States and Russia, should assume the lion’s share of maintaining global strategic stability. The author highlights the most urgent challenges in the current arms control regime and outlines China’s role and responsibilities as a rising military power in the evolution of the arms control cause.

Arctic SAR and the “security dilemma”

This article explains how search and rescue (SAR) equipment and personnel can strengthen Canada’s Arctic security without contributing to a classic “security dilemma”—whereby a perceived military buildup by one state leads to a responsive buildup by another state, and so on into an arms race. This is because Arctic SAR involves dual-use assets that can fulfill most existing and reasonably foreseeable Arctic security roles as a secondary mission. Avoiding a security dilemma is key with regards to Canada–Russia relations. In the Arctic arena, Russia sees itself surrounded by North Atlantic Treaty Organization states during a period of considerable tension with those same states elsewhere in the world. Although most of the responsibility for that tension lies with Russia, it is still in Canada’s interest to avoid feeding Russia’s Arctic uncertainties and insecurities, since regional military buildups can cause instability and even conflict.

Reagan’s Military Buildup

Did President Reagan launch a military buildup so as toforce the USSR to collapse, as triumphalists claim?In this view Reagan sought to entice Moscow into an arms race that it could not afford, thus forcing it into bankruptcy. This argument rests on two assumptions. The first is that Reagan officials believed the Soviet Union to be so fragile that it could be nudged to collapse. The second is that the administration intended to force the USSR to implode. This chapter finds both assumptions wanting. Although the president believed the USSR was unsustainable in the long run, virtually all of his advisers disagreed. They viewed Moscow as a formidable adversary that would continue to challenge the West for the foreseeable future. Moreover, high-ranking officials in the Reagan administration have rejected the claim that they sought to force the USSR to collapse.The objective was to pressure the Soviets to agree to arms reduction. President Reagan sought to eliminate nuclear weapons, and officials mistakenly believed that Moscow would not agree to reduce its arsenal until confronted with a strong and menacing adversary. Paradoxically, the buildup was intended to lead to arms reductions.This policy was called “peace through strength.”

Moscow Calls Off the Arms Race

Told from the Kremlin’s perspective, this chapter debunks the myth that Reagan’s military buildup—and SDI in particular—compelled the Soviets to agree to arms reductions and then to collapse. In reality, the US buildup had a negligible effect on the USSR. By the 1980s Soviet reformers believed nuclear arsenals were of little value: they were costly, could not be used, and incited fear in the West, which prompted the United States to increase its arsenal. The USSR would be more secure, they reasoned, if arsenals were greatly reduced, if not eliminated. Moreover, although some Soviet scientists were initially worried about SDI, this concern dissipated as scientists determined Reagan’s plan was not feasible. In short, for a variety of strategic, financial, and ethical reasons Moscow sought to end the arms race. It therefore did not build its own SDI-style system, nor did it match increases in US defense expenditures, as triumphalistsassume. The Reagan administration’s policies did not compel the Soviet Union to disarm and then collapse.