Constraining Technological Weapons Innovation in the Post-Cold War Environment (1992)

Abstract

In the period following the fading away of Cold War military competition, the United States seems likely to be the main source of technological innovation in weapons. (The abstract was first published in: Hans Gunter Brauch (Ed.): Controlling Military Research, Development and Exports of Dual Use Technologies as a Problem of Disarmament and Arms Control Policy in the 1990s—The Results of the Seventh AFES-PRESS Conference, Abstracts and Discussions, AFES-PRESS Report No. 45 (Mosbach: AFES-PRESS, 1992): 162. Permission was granted by AFES-PRESS on 6 March 2014). Despite continuing downward pressures, it will probably have the largest defense budget and the largest research budget. It is neither feasible nor desirable to abolish innovation in the abstract. It is feasible to slow or suspend the process as it concerns specific weapons to be introduced in specific contexts. In the post-Cold War period, cooperation among the member states of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the United States and the Soviet Union or its successor states, will provide a positive motive for caution in innovation, the desire to avoid developments which could undermine or imperil that cooperation. This consideration, plus the absence of a major challenger, may prove as powerful a motive for caution in innovation as the consideration, seen at its most effective in the US- Soviet agreement to limit defenses against ballistic missiles, that introduction of new weapons could upset the East–West force balance and trigger a new round of competitive force improvements. It is argued in this chapter that, as evidenced by the low effectiveness of the assessments of the potential impact of new weapons systems prepared by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the United States, it is difficult for governments to abstain from innovation if their decisions remain wholly unilateral. Even so, it is suggested that impact statements would gain more weight on the decision-making process in the United States if they were prepared by the Office of Technology Assessment on behalf of the Congress. The Congress, by its political composition and traditional role in counterbalancing the Executive Branch, is likely to be more skeptical about the desirability of specific weapons innovations than the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, which now prepares these assessments. The Agency is a part of the Executive Branch of the United States government. The possibility that destabilizing innovations could be slowed or stopped would increase if the decision-making process became less unilateral, and if there were authorized channels for conveying and discussing the views and objections of outside governments to the innovating government. With that in mind, it is suggested first, that a consultative process to discuss innovations be established among the five nuclear powers and, second, that two CSBMs contained in the Vienna document of the CSCE, in their present form providing for preannouncement of deployment of certain new weapons systems and for discussion of defense budgets, be expanded to become more effective vehicles for discussion of military innovation among CSCE members. Discussion, ‘jawing’ as Churchill called it, will not stop technological innovation -nothing can do so in the absolute sense- but discussion can slow innovation down.