ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT*

ISSUE DEFINITION

In the post-war era, discussions of the prospects for a continued peace, or the eventuality of war,
inevitably converged on the arms race. As most believed the arms race to be inherently dangerous and
ultimately destabilizing, the West found itself confronted with something of a paradox. On the one hand,
it believed that strength deterred aggression; on the other, it seemed equally convinced that the arms
race itself might be a cause of war. Underlying much of the discussion on arms control, we find the
widely accepted orthodoxy that arms races are by nature a kind of "action-reaction" phenomenon.
Opposing states’ responses to each other’s buildups and attempts to reap advantage lead to
destabilization and heightened tension. If war should come, it is argued, it will do so accidentally, in a
climate of intensifying suspicion and as the result of critical misperceptions during a crisis. Controlling
the arms race is, then, deemed a necessary element in the promotion of international stability. Critics
argue, however, that in fact arms control does little to contain the arms race - it simply codifies it.

The international arms control structure that developed during the postwar period can best be
understood as three layers: first in terms of interest and importance were the bilateral (usually nuclear)
negotiations between the superpowers; second were alliance-based negotiations, mainly on
conventional armed forces in Europe; and third were broader multilateral negotiations centred on the
United Nations. The post-Cold War period has seen a change in the agenda of arms control. While Cold
War treaties must be adapted to new realities, attention has focused mainly on multilateral attempts to
halt the further proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction and the
means of their delivery.

BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS

A. Historical Background

The problem of arms control and disarmament is not peculiar to the modern era. People have been
concerned about war and its destructive potential for centuries. The Old Testament prophets hoped for
the day when swords would be beaten into ploughshares. Pope Innocent II, in 1139, called an
international conference to discuss the possible means of controlling what then was considered an
awesome new weapon - the crossbow. Today, the death of millions would require only 30 minutes: the
flight time for an intercontinental ballistic missile between the United States and Russia. It is the
relatively short period of time in which death and destruction can be wrought that distinguishes the
nuclear era from those that preceded it.

One should note that the terms "arms control" and "disarmament," though often used as synonyms, are
not so in fact. "Disarmament" refers to the elimination of weapons systems, a far more comprehensive
goal than "arms control," which seeks to reduce the risk of war, its destructiveness should it occur, and
the cost of military defence through agreements between states to regulate the development,
production and deployment of weapons systems and military forces.

Wars conducted prior to the twentieth century were, by and large, limited in both their scope and
methods, notable exceptions being the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War. During this period,
statesmen favoured limited warfare to preserve the existing international order. Casualties were counted
in the thousands rather than in millions and when World War I broke out, most expected a short-lived,
small conflict.

The twentieth century has witnessed four revolutions in warfare. The first was ushered in with the
improved technologies of World War I, including machine guns, tanks, submarines and poison gas.
During 1915 alone, the French suffered 1.4 million casualties while, at the battle of Verdun during 10
months in 1916, Germany lost 336,000 men. The second revolution, in World War II, along with massive
civilian casualties included major developments such as large airforces, aircraft carriers, the strategic
bombing of civilian targets, and the German pioneering of rockets in warfare. The explosion of the
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked the third revolution; a quantitative and qualitative
change from those that had preceded it.

The final revolution in twentieth-century warfare came with the development of the inter-continental
ballistic missile (ICBM). Prior to the development of ICBMs, the geographic location of the United States
had shielded it from attack, afterwards it was vulnerable to attack as never before in its history. The
technological developments of the Second World War and after, democratized death by making all
equally subject to the ravages of war.

The inter-war period was also witness to the Geneva Protocol (1925) on the prohibition of poison gas
and bacteriological weapons, to which Canada became a signatory on 6 May 1930. Although the United
States had introduced the protocol, the U.S. Senate did not ratify it until 10 April 1975. In 1928, the
Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed; it bound the signatories to renounce the use of aggressive war and
pursue peaceful means of resolving disputes, but made no provision for sanctions. In 1932, the League
of Nations sponsored an international disarmament conference, but by this time the great powers were
incapable of coming to a consensus on what weapons should be limited. Soon after coming to power
(1933), Adolf Hitler ordered the withdrawal of Germany from the disarmament conference and the
League of Nations and two years later, he announced that Germany would no longer abide by the
clauses of the Versailles Treaty that prohibited that country from rearming. By the late 1930s, Germany,
Italy, Japan, the United States and Great Britain had all embarked on significant military construction
programs.

Following World War II, the United States presented the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission with
a rather bold plan for the control of nuclear power. The Baruch Plan (1946) called for the cessation of the
manufacture of nuclear bombs, the disposal of existing U.S. bombs, and the creation of an international
agency that would be given all information concerning the production of nuclear energy. The proposal
was to be implemented only when both a means of verification and a system of sanctions had been
agreed upon.

The Soviet Union, however, would not be denied the development of its own nuclear capability and
rejected the American proposal. With the failure of the Baruch Plan, any internationalist solution to the
arms race was out of the question and any significant agreement on arms control would henceforth have
to be sought within the recognized bipolar pattern of U.S.-Soviet rivalry. If the history of arms control has
taught us anything, it is that arms control is a reflection of overall political relations rather than a cause
of international peace.

B. Multilateral Arms Control and Disarmament

i. Nuclear Non-Proliferation

The centrepiece of multilateral arms control is undoubtedly the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT), drafted by the CD’s predecessor, the 18-nation Committee on Disarmament.
The goal of this Treaty and the regime it created is prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Over the years, a number of developing states have begun to view the NPT as a discriminatory means of
denying nuclear capability to developing states while preserving that of developed states. Four
preparatory conferences were held in preparation for the NPT Review and Extension Conference in April
1995, at which the length of the NPT extension (to be either indefinite or fixed-term) had to be decided.
Despite long-standing disputes, in May 1995 the Conference agreed without a vote to extend the NPT
unconditionally and indefinitely; it also called for the completion of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty no
later than 1996, provided for more enhanced regular NPT Review Conferences, and adopted a Statement
of Principles to re-dedicate those states party to the Treaty’s non-proliferation and disarmament goals.

The decisions of France, South Africa and China to adhere to the NPT in recent years strengthened the
Treaty somewhat, but North Korea’s March 1993 threat to withdraw from it was a more sobering
development. North Korea suspended its withdrawal announcement in June 1993, but continued to
refuse to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) permission to inspect two sites suspected
of being undeclared nuclear facilities in North Korea. Following a series of discussions between the
United States and North Korea and a visit to the latter by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, an
agreement was reached on 13 August 1994. Under the terms of this agreement, North Korea agreed to
freeze its nuclear program and abide by the provisions of the NPT in exchange for further discussions
with the U.S. over diplomatic recognition, a U.S. pledge never to use nuclear weapons on North Korea,
and a plan to provide North Korea with a nuclear reactor less suitable for the construction of nuclear
weapons. A final "Agreed Framework" was signed on 21 October 1994, but the issue remains to be
resolved.

In May 1998, India tested some five nuclear weapons; Pakistan followed with its own tests several weeks
later. Since India and Pakistan were two of only four states (the others are Israel and Cuba) that have not
signed the NPT, their actions technically did not violate the Treaty. Many feel international reaction to
these tests was too muted, however. The very fact that these states chose to carry them out represents a
dangerous signal as the international community prepares for the next NPT Review Conference, in the
year 2000.

In January 1994, the CD gave its Ad Hoc Committee on a Nuclear Test Ban a general mandate to
negotiate a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This treaty would extend to underground
tests the prohibition on testing in the atmosphere that had been established by the Partial Test Ban
Treaty (PTBT) of 1963. While an informal moratorium on nuclear testing had been observed by most
states with nuclear weapons since late 1992, China had continued to test, and France had interrupted its
moratorium long enough to carry out a series of tests in the South Pacific in 1995-96. The 1995 Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty Extension Conference had called for the conclusion of a CTBT no later than
1996; when China and France announced that they would sign such a treaty, it was expected that
completion of a CTBT would be relatively easy. Despite strenuous negotiations and the acceptance of a
draft treaty by the five nuclear-weapon states, India refused to accept the completed draft treaty
because it did not contain a fixed timetable for complete disarmament by those states.
In an unprecedented move, Australia and others introduced the Treaty for signature at the United
Nations without India’s agreement; over 80 countries signed it in the first several days. By December
1998, over 150 states had signed the treaty and 27 – including Canada – had ratified it. The Treaty
cannot enter into force until it is signed by 44 named countries with nuclear power reactors, including
India and Pakistan. Diplomatic pressure on these states has continued, but by late 1998 the international
community was also considering convening a Conference, as provided for in Article XIV(2) of the Treaty,
"... to facilitate the early entry into force of this Treaty" nonetheless.

In 1993, the General Assembly adopted by consensus a resolution aimed at negotiating a cutoff on the
production of fissionable material used in nuclear weapons. At the May 1995 NPT Review Conference,
the five nuclear-weapon states committed themselves to the "early conclusion" of such negotiations. In
August 1998 the CD finally agreed to begin talks on banning the production of fissile material for nuclear
weapons purposes.

An issue that has received more attention in recent years is the abolition of nuclear weapons. Following
the commitments made during the NPT extension in 1995, 1996 saw an Advisory Opinion by the
International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons; the Report of the
Australian-sponsored Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons; and a public
statement in favour of abolition by a number of prominent retired military officers. In the fall of 1996 the
Minister of Foreign Affairs asked the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and
International Trade to look at Canada’s policies in this area in light of these and other developments. The
Committee’s work was delayed by the general election of 1997, but between February and June 1998 it
held over a dozen public hearings and received over 200 written submissions on this issue. Its report,
Canada and the Nuclear Challenge: Reducing the Political Value of Nuclear Weapons for the Twenty-first
Century, was tabled in December 1998.

ii. Chemical and Biological Weapons

Agreement on a Chemical Weapons Convention was difficult because of a lack of agreement on

verification procedures. The 1990 U.S.-Soviet bilateral agreements on information sharing and stockpile
destruction helped the multilateral process, and, in June 1992, the CD produced a draft treaty to prohibit
the development, production and stockpiling of chemical weapons. Verification would be carried out by
an International Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons based in Holland. The long-
sought Chemical Weapons Convention was signed in January 1993, and was expected to come into effect
in 1995, 180 days after 65 nations had ratified it. Despite opposition, the U.S. officially ratified the
Convention four days before its entry into force in April 1997. Russia followed later that year.
A Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention negotiated in the early 1970s entered into force in 1975;
however, its lack of verification procedures has left it ineffective. Concern about biological weapons has
increased in recent years in view of revelations about their development in the Soviet Union and Iraq,
yet negotiations to strengthen the Convention have proceeded slowly.

iii. Conventional Arms

Apart from alliance negotiations, the issue of controlling conventional arms sales or transfer has been
addressed several times in the past decades. In the 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union held
four rounds of Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) talks to agree on ways to limit the growing conventional
arms trade. Despite early progress, these talks bogged down in 1978. Throughout the 1980s, the
international arms trade flourished due to demand driven by conflicts such as the Iran-Iraq war. The
value of the arms trade began to taper off in the late 1980s as a result of increasing Third World debt
levels and the end of the Iran-Iraq war. The end of the Cold War accelerated this trend. The total value of
international arms deliveries fell from an estimated $82 billion (U.S.) in 1987 to $27 billion in 1994; 1995
saw an increase to $32 billion, however, suggesting that the decline may have reached bottom.

Attempts to restrain the conventional arms trade in recent years have focused on the idea of an
international arms transfer register, which would catalogue the trade in conventional arms between
states. In 1988, a Colombian initiative co-sponsored by Canada was accepted by the General Assembly.
Under this initiative, states were to: (1) submit their views and proposals on international arms transfers
to the 1989 General Assembly session; and (2) carry out a subsequent expert study on ways and means
of controlling the conventional arms trade. This study, in which Canada participated, was completed by
August 1991, and in December the United Nations established an international arms transfer register.
Some 90 states have consistently submitted data to the register (93 in 1997), although this is only
roughly half of the UN’s membership. In 1991, Canada proposed a World Summit on the Instruments of
War and Weapons of Mass Destruction, designed largely to curb the conventional arms trade. While the
proposal received wide support in Canada, the reaction of the United States and other major powers
was decidedly lukewarm.

In July 1996, 33 countries, including Canada, formally approved the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export
Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods. On one level, the Wassenaar Arrangement was
simply an updating of the COCOM (Co-Ordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls)
arrangement through which the West had prevented the export to East bloc nations of strategic goods
and military technology. At the same time, the Arrangement also goes some way toward addressing the
issue of conventional arms transfers that led the five permanent Security Council members (P-5) to
engage in three rounds of talks after the Gulf War. Under the new arrangement, the states party to it will
meet on a regular basis and exchange information that will lead to a common understanding of any risks
associated with the sale of arms and dual-use technologies to regions, and will also exchange
information on completed arms deliveries every six months.

In recent years, another conventional arms issue, anti-personnel landmines, has assumed greater
prominence. According to a 1994 U.S. State Department estimate, 110 million of these mines have been
laid in 64 countries, with some 500 casualties being reported each week. The United Nations estimated
that another 2-2.5 million mines were laid in 1995, while only 100,000 were cleared. Protocol II of the
1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) regulates the use of anti-personnel landmines
but applies only to their use in international, not the more frequent internal, conflicts. The United
Nations General Assembly passed a unanimous resolution on the issue in December 1994, and in May
1996 negotiators at the first review conference for the CCW approved a revised landmine protocol
(Protocol II) which places new limits on the use, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines.

In January 1996, Canada announced a comprehensive unilateral moratorium on the production, export
and operational use of landmines. Frustrated with the lack of progress made on the issue, Canada and a
small "core group" of states began to explore alternative ways to achieve a global ban on anti-personnel
landmines. In October 1996 Canada launched the "Ottawa Process," to complete a legally binding treaty
to destroy stockpiles and prohibit the use, production and transfer of these mines by December 1997.
The Ottawa Process continued to gain momentum through 1997: more than 75% of the UN General
Assembly participated in the Brussels Conference in June 1997, and 106 countries supported the
initiative by August. The United States had long opposed the Ottawa Process, preferring instead to
negotiate a ban through the Conference on Disarmament. In August 1997, President Clinton announced
that the United States would support the Ottawa Process, although it still hoped to negotiate exemptions
which critics argued would weaken the final treaty.

In December 1997, 122 states signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling,
Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, known as the Ottawa
Convention. Following the fortieth ratification — by Burkina Faso in September 1998 — the Convention
will enter into force on 1 March 1999, and become binding international law on those who have ratified
it; some 64 states had done so by October 1998.

2. Alliance Negotiations
In the postwar years, conventional arms control efforts focused mainly on attempts to defuse the
alliance buildups in Europe. Canada participated in the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR)
talks from their beginning in 1973 until their end in 1989. The talks, which involved nations from NATO
and the Warsaw Treaty Organization, resulted in little substantive progress over the years. The issues on
which NATO focused included the pursuit of parity in military power, effective methods of verification,
and the need for collective action on reductions and limitations.

a. Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE)

The follow-up to the MBFR were the negotiations on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Talks, which
began in Vienna in March, 1989. While CFE was composed of the same participants as MBFR and
considered the same issues, progress was swift. Unilateral Soviet force reductions announced at the
United Nations in December 1988 presented a challenge to NATO, which had originally intended to focus
only on reductions in tanks, heavy artillery and troop carriers. The effect of these unilateral moves was to
rule out the massive conventional surprise attack from the East which had long preoccupied NATO
planners.

At the NATO summit in May 1989, President Bush presented proposals which acknowledged that troops
and aircraft would be included in negotiations, and envisaged completion of an agreement in six months
to a year. Critics argued that by focusing on bloc-to-bloc negotiations at a time when the East European
members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) were unilaterally demanding the withdrawal of
Soviet forces from their soil, NATO was constraining itself unnecessarily. In fact, any mechanism which
regulated the builddown of forces in Europe was more valuable than unilateral chaos, and, accordingly,
CFE was pursued. As the political situation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe continued to shift, the
USSR seemed hesitant to complete the CFE agreement, since the WTO hardly constituted a credible bloc.

The CFE treaty was finally signed in Paris on 19 November 1990, after less than two years of negotiation.
The treaty mandated the reduction to equal levels of NATO and WTO forces from the Atlantic to the
Urals across five categories of weapons: armoured combat vehicles, artillery, combat aircraft, combat
helicopters and tanks. Since the WTO nations possessed numerical superiority in most of these
categories, they were required to make the largest cuts. Provisions were also made in the treaty for an
advanced verification regime, which included intrusive on-site verification and data exchanges.

b. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

With the beginning of the period of detente, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE) began in the early 1970s. While its negotiations included traditional security issues, the states
involved also agreed to discuss human rights and economic issues, the so-called "three baskets." In
retrospect, it was these broader discussions which helped prepare the way for the renewal of the East-
West relationship in recent years. As the most advanced of the multilateral European security
frameworks, the CSCE was seen by many as the most likely forum for future security discussions.

Following the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the work of the CSCE was carried on in follow-up conferences in
Belgrade, Madrid and Vienna. At the Madrid meeting in 1984, it was decided to establish the Conference
on Cooperation and Security Building Measures in Europe (CCSBMDE), known more generally as the CDE.
Confidence-building measures are a tool to reduce distrust between nations by sharing military and
other information. Building on the limited CBMs agreed to in the CSCE, the parties agreed to five major
Confidence and Security building measures, which were collectively known as the Stockholm Document.
These obligatory measures included prior notification of large military exercises, provisions for
observation, constraining, compliance and verification and provision of an annual calendar of exercises.

The introduction of annual calendars was a completely new idea in confidence-building measures,
requiring, by 15 November each year, an exchange of annual calendars forecasting notifiable military
activities for the following year. Subsequent more detailed notification 42 days in advance was designed
to confirm their routine nature and the calendar forecast.

With respect to compliance and verification, provision was made for on-site inspection with no right of
refusal. It was now possible to have on-site inspection carried out on the ground, from the air, or both if
a state believed that the provisions of agreed CSBMs were not being complied with. The acceptance of
on-site inspection was considered a significant breakthrough, signifying the possibility of advancing
openness in military affairs. In June 1989, Canada mounted its first challenge inspection under the
provisions of the Stockholm agreement. Four Canadian Forces inspectors conducted a 48-hour
inspection of a Czechoslovakian military activity and reported on it to all signatories of the Stockholm
agreement.

At the Vienna follow-up meeting in 1989, it was decided to establish another forum for discussing
CSBMs, the Negotiations on Confidence and Security Building Measures. Two seminars on military
doctrine held in 1990 and 1991 helped the negotiations, which resulted in the Vienna Document of
1990. In March 1992, the CSCE adopted the Vienna Document 1992, which integrated both the 1986
Stockholm Document and the 1990 Vienna Document, and introduced a new "qualitative" dimension to
arms control.

In an attempt to determine the next steps for arms control in Europe, the CSCE decided to convene a
Forum for Security Cooperation (FSC) to discuss and negotiate new arms control, confidence-building
and other measures. The FSC opened in Vienna in September 1992. In order to emphasize its more
permanent post-Cold War role, in December 1994 the CSCE changed its name to the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

In recent years, the OSCE has been particularly active in election monitoring and broader verification
missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere. Arms control remains important, however, and, following a
decision of the December 1996 Lisbon Summit, OSCE states are currently engaged in an exercise to
further develop a Framework for Arms Control for the OSCE Region; existing systems of limitations,
verification and information exchange would be harmonized by interlocking existing instruments and
enhancing the CFE treaty.

C. Open Skies

In September 1989, agreement was reached to hold a Canadian-sponsored conference in Ottawa to

discuss the U.S. "Open Skies" initiative. Originally proposed by President Eisenhower in the 1950s, the
plan to build confidence and increase cooperation between East and West by allowing short-notice
military overflights of other nations was revived in 1989 by President Bush. As a result of Canadian
lobbying and encouragement, the first high-level Open Skies meeting took place in Ottawa in mid-
February 1990. (As a prelude to the conference, a Canadian military aircraft chose its own flight plan
over Czechoslovakia and Hungary in early January 1990 to demonstrate the feasibility of the plan.)
Agreement on Open Skies proved more difficult than had been expected, however, and negotiations
continued. In May 1992, the Open Skies Treaty was finally signed in Helsinki. The treaty permits short-
notice overflights of any signatory state’s territory by the unarmed surveillance aircraft of another
signatory state. It represented the first time a confidence-building agreement had been applied to
territory in North America and eastern Russia, as well as Europe. The Open Skies Treaty will enter into
force after a total of 20 states, including Russia, Ukraine and others with high active quotas have
deposited their Instruments of Ratification.

D. Bilateral (Superpower) Arms Control and Disarmament

 1. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

The SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the Interim Agreement
on Strategic Offensive Arms were signed by Soviet General-Secretary Brezhnev and U.S. President Nixon
on 26 May 1972. The SALT negotiations had begun in 1969; because the parties could not reach a final
agreement on strategic offensive arms limits, they agreed to make the ABM treaty separate and of
unlimited duration while signing an interim agreement on offensive arms limitations.

The ABM Treaty prohibits either side from deploying a nationwide Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) and
originally limited each to two ABM deployment areas, though this was amended to one area on 3 July
1974. The Treaty also puts restraints on radars and interceptor missiles and prohibits the development,
testing or deployment of sea, air, space or mobile land-based ABM systems and their components. A
Standing Consultative Committee to deal with questions of Treaty interpretation and compliance is also
provided for, as are extensive verification measures. In 1975, the U.S. dismantled its BMD system in
Grand Forks, North Dakota, though the Soviet Union maintained its BMD deployment around Moscow.

In March 1983, President Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). According to the
Americans, SDI was a necessary response to Soviet BMD development. The U.S. showed particular
concern about the construction of a phased array radar near Krasnoyarsk. The Treaty permits the
construction of such radars but only on the periphery of the country and only if they are oriented
outwards. The U.S. contended that the new Soviet radar did not meet these criteria, and that it might
indeed be an element of a future nationwide ABM system. The Soviets, on the other hand, claimed that
the radar was intended for space-tracking and was therefore permitted under the Treaty. In 1989, the
U.S.S.R. admitted that the radar was a violation of the Treaty, and stopped construction on it.

In the fall of 1985, the United States announced that the "legally correct" (or "broad") interpretation of
the ABM treaty did not prohibit SDI testing or deployment. In July 1993, the Clinton Administration
repudiated this interpretation of the ABM Treaty, accepting the traditional (or "narrow") interpretation
instead.

Encouraged by the success of the patriot missile defence system in the Gulf War of 1991, the Clinton
Administration pursued a number of missile defence systems designed to protect allied nations and U.S.
troops abroad from short-range missile attacks. Critics claimed that such systems would violate the ABM
treaty and threaten achievement of further long-range missile reductions, but the U.S. and Russia began
negotiating to "clarify" the ABM treaty to allow some theatre-defence systems to be tested without
formally amending the treaty.

2. Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START)

During the January 1985 meeting between then Foreign Minister Gromyko and Secretary of State Shultz
it was agreed that negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union would include three
areas of discussion: strategic nuclear arms, intermediate-range nuclear arms and defence and space
weapons. The talks themselves began on 12 March 1985, with agreed-upon objectives including the
prevention of an arms race in space, the limitation and reduction of nuclear arms, and the strengthening
of strategic stability, leading ultimately to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

These talks proved particularly important as they brought the superpowers back to the negotiating table.
While the START talks had begun in 1982, they had been suspended due to Soviet criticisms of NATO’s
Euromissile deployments. At their summit meeting in Geneva in November 1985, President Reagan and
General Secretary Gorbachev agreed to accelerate not only the bilateral negotiations on nuclear and
space arms but also the efforts to conclude a chemical weapons convention. While the summit did not
produce any tangible ACD breakthroughs, the meeting did improve the atmosphere of relations and,
perhaps more important, established a political framework for ACD discussions between the two
dominant powers.

The outline of the START agreement was agreed to during the superpower summits in Reykjavik,
Washington and Moscow. Essentially, as with the INF agreement, reductions were to be unequal, with
overall limits equal. In other words, the Soviet Union would remove more ICBMs than the U.S. but the
number remaining would be equal. Although some confusion remained about bomber weapons, it
appeared likely that these would be less strictly regulated, resulting in a U.S. advantage. Overall, START
was to result in a reduction of some 30-50% in superpower nuclear arsenals.

The completed START agreement was finally signed at the Moscow summit on 31 July 1991. Under its
provisions, the arsenals of both the United States and the Soviet Union would be reduced by roughly
30%; warheads would be reduced by about 20% and launchers by 27%. Overall, START focused on
quantitative reductions while preserving the qualitative basis of the arms race through its protection of
strategic modernization programs on both sides. In order to help verify the START agreement, some 12
types of on-site inspection and about 60 types of notification are contained in the treaty. Arms control
advocates recommended that a START II agreement focus more on arms modernization than on total
numbers.

With the sweeping changes in the international arena, however, START was only the beginning.

Later the breakup of the Soviet Union complicated the START ratification process by effectively increasing
the number of states required to approve the Treaty. START I finally entered into force in December
1994, and, by the end of 1996, all nuclear weapons had been removed from Ukraine, Belarus and
Kazakhstan. The U.S. Congress ratified START II in January 1996, but ratification in the Russian Duma has
repeatedly been stalled as legislators debated the costs and benefits of the Treaty itself, as well as the
impact of U.S. missile defence programs and NATO enlargement on Russia’s security. At their Helsinki
Summit in March 1997, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to the framework for a START III agreement
which would further reduce both sides to a level of 2,000-2,500 deployed strategic warheads each by
2007; negotiations to finalize this agreement will only begin after Russia ratifies START II.

3. Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Agreement

The first significant development to emerge from the new era in bilateral talks was the U.S.-Soviet treaty
on the elimination of medium and shorter range missiles, signed at the summit between Reagan and
Gorbachev in December 1987. The Treaty, which covers nuclear missiles with a range of 500-5,500
kilometres required the Soviet Union to destroy 1,752 such missiles and the United States to destroy
859, within a period of three years. On 12 May 1991, the last missiles covered by the INF agreement
were destroyed.

4. Short Range Nuclear Weapons

With the revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe, a split emerged in the NATO alliance, primarily
between West Germany and the United States, over whether or not to begin negotiations with the
Soviets on reducing short-range nuclear weapons in Europe. West Germany, where most of the U.S.
Lance missile launchers were located, wanted the U.S. to begin early negotiations. The Bush
administration, on the other hand, was intent upon upgrading U.S. defences in Europe by replacing the
75-mile-range Lance with new missiles that could be fired almost four times as far. The U.S. position was
backed by Britain, the Netherlands and Turkey, while the West Germans were supported by Italy, Greece
and most of the other continental European nations. Other countries, including Canada and Norway,
tried to negotiate a compromise.
The U.S. had been maintaining its position for fear that hasty negotiations might open the door for the
"denuclearization" of Europe. Such a prospect, it was argued, would make Europe "safe" for a
conventional war in which NATO would be hard pressed to meet the Warsaw Pact’s superiority in troops
and weaponry.

The Germans, who would suffer most from the consequences of a nuclear "tactical exchange," believed
the time was opportune for both sides to remove these missiles.

In May 1989, at the NATO summit in Brussels, a compromise solution was reached: negotiations on
"partial reduction" of short-range nuclear forces would take place after an agreement on conventional
forces had been reached. Increasing military and political changes in Eastern Europe and German
reunification led even the strongest supporters of short range nuclear weapons to rethink their
positions. As one West German official put it in the fall of 1989, "What do we need missiles for - to bomb
Lech Walesa?"

Alarmed by the prospect of Soviet nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands as the Union
disintegrated, on 27 September 1991 U.S. President George Bush announced a dramatic series of
unilateral nuclear reductions affecting some 2,500 nuclear weapons and challenged the Soviet Union to
respond in kind. Among the Bush initiatives were: the elimination of all ground-launched tactical nuclear
weapons worldwide; the removal of all naval tactical nuclear weapons from surface ships and
submarines and their placement in "central storage areas" in the United States; the downgrading of alert
status of B-1B and B-52 strategic bombers at 13 air bases; the removal from alert status of ballistic
missiles scheduled for elimination under START, and a pledge to speed their elimination after the treaty
entered into force.

On 5 October, President Mikhail Gorbachev responded to Bush’s moves by effectively matching the U.S.
cuts (with some 8,000 weapons) and offering more. Apart from the tactical weapons reductions and the
downgrading of alert status, Gorbachev announced a reduction of 1,000 more strategic weapons than
were mandated under START; the creation of a single armed service to control all strategic offensive and
defensive nuclear weapons; the suspension of Soviet nuclear testing for a year, with a call for a
comprehensive test ban; and a proposal for an agreement to cease production of fissionable materials
for weapons.
Although President Bush had reaffirmed that NATO would maintain "an effective air-delivered nuclear
capacity in Europe," NATO quickly agreed to reduce the number of its nuclear bombs in Europe by 50%.

With these reductions, the threat of the deliberate military use of nuclear weapons in Europe effectively
disappeared; in the optimistic words of American nuclear expert William Arkin, these moves marked the
beginning of real nuclear arms reductions, and effectively served notice that nuclear weapons were
"headed for the trash."

CHRONOLOGY OF TREATIES.

1946 - UN General Assembly passed its first resolution, on disarmament and security.

1963 - Partial Test Ban Treaty banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere.

1968 - Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) negotiated.

1972 - Biological Weapons Convention negotiated.

1972 - SALT I Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.

1972 - SALT I strategic arms agreement negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union.

1975 - Helsinki Accords signed, creating the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).

1979 - SALT II strategic arms agreement negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Agreement was never ratified, but both sides adhered to it informally.
December 1979 - NATO adopted the "dual track approach," allowing deployment of U.S. Cruise and
Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe, while at the same time pursuing negotiations with the Soviet
Union to limit medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe.

December 1987 - Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) accord reached between the United States
and the Soviet Union on the elimination of medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe.

November 1990 - CFE Treaty signed.

July 1991 - START I Treaty signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.

December 1992 - START II Treaty signed by the United States and Russia.

January 1993 - Chemical Weapons Convention signed.

May 1995 - NPT extended indefinitely and unconditionally.

September 1996 - Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) introduced for signature at the United Nations
after India had blocked its adoption in the Conference on Disarmament.

March 1997 - Agreement reached on a framework START III Treaty.

December 1997 - Ottawa Convention signed.