Whatever Happened to Arms Control?

Abstract

Cooperative Threat Reduction, Missile Defense, and the Nuclear Future. By Michael Krepon. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 304 pp., $59.95 (ISBN: 0-312-29556-1). Russian–US arms control, the strategic nuclear balance between Russia and the United States and, to a lesser extent, US deployment of theater and national missile defenses have in recent years dropped off the list of important issues for international diplomacy. This shift has not occurred because those who champion arms control are misguided, or because nuclear weapons are no longer unimaginably destructive. Nor does it reflect a judgment that arms control failed during the Cold War, or that missile defenses produce only positive results. Instead, this change in focus reflects the facts that the Cold War has been over for more than a decade and that the security threats and agendas that once dominated foreign and defense policy have been replaced by the war on terrorism, the need to deal with the general spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and a growing realization that Islam is being used by the kleptocracies of the Middle East to hide totalitarianism, poverty, and hate. Under these circumstances, it is not clear how arms control with Russia, a junior member of NATO through its participation in the Partnership for Peace Program, would have much impact on anyone's security. In Cooperative Threat Reduction, Missile Defense, and the Nuclear Future (a veritable tour of the global nuclear landscape), Michael Krepon addresses the changing strategic and political developments that have …