The Bargaining Chip and SALT

Abstract

The bargaining chip, like the domino theory of the 1950S and 196os, has become of the most voguish ideas the field of weapons development. Yet the concept is perhaps as old as arms competition itself-certainly as old as nuclear arms competition. Decisions to build major weapons systems have frequently been justified by their promise of some future diplomatic advantage. In April 1945 James Byrnes purportedly told President Truman that the atomic bomb would put the United States in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war.' While there is little evidence the United States actually put forward the atomic bomb as a bargaining chip-offering to exchange its secrets for Soviet political concessions-Truman and Secretary of War Stimson did at least consider offering the Soviet Union partnership an international control commission exchange for settlement of the Polish, Rumanian, Yugoslavian, and Manchurian problems.2 The idea came to naught. Atomic weapons continued to be stockpiled and their promised postwar political advantage awaited fulfillment. An early study of arms control and disarmament negotiations the late 1940S and 1950S concluded that the talks had become one form of the arms race itself, the aim of each nation being an increase its relative power position.3