Arms Control and European Security: Some Basic Issues

Abstract

This chapter examines a set of historically defensible claims concerning the merits of formal arms control negotiations in general, and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and Mutual balanced force reductions processes in particular. Discussion of 'Arms Control and European Security' cannot be divorced because of its regional specificity from the more general 'crisis of arms control' that is near-universally acknowledged in the West today. The nature and purpose of East-West arms control processes constitute a region of inquiry the outcome of which will be fundamentally important in assessing the merit of particular arms control proposals and agreements. Largely for cultural reasons, Western democracies have, until quite recently, simply ignored the plain, inconvenient, yet obvious facts concerning Soviet strategic culture. As with most good arguments, the allegation that the existence of arms control processes has impaired rational defence planning can be taken too far.