Commentary: Coming Constraints in Arms Control Agreements—Approaching the Limits of Feasible Regulation

Abstract

For the forty years that have passed since the United States submitted the Baruch Plan to the United Nations, arms control has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy. Unfortunately, the debate within the United States on arms control has usually tended to be at least as ideological as it has been substantive. Proponents of arms control tend to cite the tremendous destructive power of nuclear weapons, and thus argue that arms control is invariably good. Opponents of arms control tend to assert that the Soviet Union cannot be trusted and must be restrained, and argue that arms control is usually bad. This orientation is unfortunate, because such arguments overlook some of the most important questions concerning arms control. Limitations on the development and deployment of weapons are essentially a form of regulation-admittedly, a complicated form because two or more sovereign states are the subjects of the regulation-but a form of regulation nevertheless. And, like other