Arms Control

History of Arms Control

Historically, one of the first such efforts was the 1899 Hague Convention, which tried but failed to limit armaments to a great degree, while other subsequent Hague conferences addressed issues of arbitration and principles and treaties of warfare. For instance, early Hague conventions approved prohibitions on the use of asphyxiating gases and the use of expanding bullets (dumdums) and discharges of projectiles or explosives from balloons. However, reflecting a perennial problem with such treaties where compliance is seldom achieved, none of these agreements was observed during World War I. One significant effort following World War I from 1921 to 1922 was the Washington Conference, which aimed to reach disarmament, arms limitation, and arms control agreements designed to halt the global naval arms race. In 1930, the London Naval Conference tried to formalize earlier agreements; however, Italy and France refused to agree to an extension of the treaty and Japan withdrew in 1935. The 1925 Geneva Protocol, which now has some 130 parties, prohibited the use of asphyxiating and poisonous gases and bacteriological weapons in international conflicts, though it did not apply to internal or civil wars. Ironically, many countries retained the right to use such weapons in a retaliatory strike, and some attempted to limit first-strike prohibitions altogether.

By comparison, the major arms control treaties that obligated the United States and the Soviet Union to balanced nuclear reductions included the following:

• START I (1991): The United States, Russia, and the former Soviet republics agree to limit major nuclear weaponry. The agreement became effective in 1994, to be implemented by December 2001. The major limitations include the following:
  • 1,600 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers for each side
  • 6,000 warheads, of which no more than 4,900 may be on ICBMs and SLBMs
• START II (1993): The United States, Russia, and the former Soviet republics enter into an agreement to further limit nuclear weapons. Basically, the warhead limit was reduced to 3,500, of which no more than 1,750 could be SLBMs. The U.S. Senate ratified this agreement in January 1996, but Russia has made ratification contingent on U.S. acceptance of subsequently negotiated agreements that extended the deadline and that made the Soviet republics parties to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Ratification was further delayed because of the U.S. intention to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. In May 2002, Russia and the United States negotiated a new treaty that, like START II, reduces nuclear arsenals by about two-thirds. This new treaty must now be ratified by Congress and the Russian Duma.
[Page 17]
• ABM Treaty (1972): The United States and the Soviet Union agree not to develop extensive missile defense systems. The United States has maintained that testing and development of ABM systems is within the scope of this agreement. In 2002, the George W. Bush administration formally announced that the United States would be withdrawing from this treaty.

Along with these bilateral treaties there were several multilateral treaties that obligated at least 35 nations, and sometimes many more, to reductions in their respective armaments while also pledging to stem and control the further distribution and proliferation of certain weapons systems. They include the

...