Preferred Courses of Action for Security as Nuclear Arms Control Changes in the 2020s

Tibor Tóth

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-42913-3_4

Abstract

Highlights

Before we embark upon projecting preferred courses of action for security into the 2020s as it is prescribed by the title of this contribution it might be timely to undertake a travel back into the recent past and recall how each of us had perceived ten years ago the prospects of strengthening international security for the 2010s
As the Executive Secretary at that time of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s Preparatory Commission, I anticipated a series of concrete steps strengthening international security in the years and decade to come
My expectations and the expectations of many other practitioners of nuclear arms control were fueled by the upsurge of interest in nuclear arms control and disarmament as witnessed among others by the 2007 proposals of the ‘Four Horsemen of the Nuclear Apocalypse’, the 2009 Prague speech of president Obama and an emerging nuclear abolition movement

Summary

Introduction

Before we embark upon projecting preferred courses of action for security into the 2020s as it is prescribed by the title of this contribution it might be timely to undertake a travel back into the recent past and recall how each of us had perceived ten years ago the prospects of strengthening international security for the 2010s. Notwithstanding the well-founded expectations a decade ago, the 2010s have not gone down into history as a period of bringing about the necessary number of cooperative security measures embodied in arms control, disarmament and other soft diplomacy tools versus the flare up of competitive security, that is military competition and coercive measures fueled by geopolitical drivers.

Results

Conclusion