Nuclear Arms Control Treaties

Nuclear Arms Control Treaties. Efforts to control nuclear weapons began in the first session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946, when U.S. delegate Bernard Baruch and Soviet delegate Andrei Gromyko put forward high‐profile plans.The Baruch Plan sought international verification prior to international control, while the Gromyko Plan called for nuclear disarmament before agreement on verification procedures. The Cold War's onset produced an impasse, and in 1949 the Soviet Union tested its atomic bomb.

The first nuclear‐weapons control agreement, the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain in 1963, reflected pervasive public fears of radioactive fallout from nuclear testing. It prohibited nuclear testing in the atmosphere, the oceans, and outer space, but permitted continued underground testing.

The Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT), put forward in 1968 by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, went into effect in 1970. Nonnuclear states that signed this treaty pledged not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. The nuclear‐weapons states, for their part, promised not to assist other nations with nuclear‐weapons development and, under Article VI, to “pursue negotiations in good faith” on timely measures to end the nuclear arms race and achieve nuclear disarmament. The treaty supported nuclear‐energy projects for peaceful purposes and promised developing nations assistance with such projects. It also called for an extension conference in twenty‐five years. Other treaties prohibited nuclear weapons in specific geographic areas: the Antarctic Treaty (1959), the Outer Space Treaty (1967), the Latin American Nuclear‐Free Zone Treaty (1968), the Seabed Arms Control Treaty (1972), the South Pacific Nuclear‐Free Zone Treaty (1986), the Southeast Asia Nuclear‐Free Zone Treaty (1996), and the African Nuclear‐Free Zone Treaty (1996).

The 1972 Anti‐Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty limited U.S. and Soviet antimissile defenses to two sites: each nation's capital and one other site (the level was reduced in 1974 to one site in each nation). Based on deterrence theory, this treaty sought to prevent a defensive arms race that would in turn spur a further offensive build up. President Ronald Reagan's 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative was criticized for undermining the ABM Treaty. In 1997, reflecting post–Cold War fears of nuclear threats from nations such as North Korea and Iraq, the ABM Treaty was clarified in a joint U.S.–Russian statement to allow development of shorter‐range defensive systems.

The 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) limited for five years the superpowers' testing and deployment of nuclear‐weapons delivery systems. The next stage, SALT II, further limiting offensive nuclear weapons, was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1979, but withdrawn from Senate ratification proceedings by President Jimmy Carter after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

As the Cold War wound down, treaty negotiations continued. The 1988 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty eliminated an entire class of intermediate and short‐range nuclear weapons from Europe. The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) called for phased reductions of some 30 percent in each sides' offensive nuclear arsenal. The break up of the Soviet Union, leaving nuclear weapons in newly independent Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, delayed implementation of START I until 1994. Under START II (1993, revised 1997), the United States and Russia agreed to cut their long‐range nuclear‐weapons levels by two‐thirds and to disable and dismantle specified launching systems by 2007. The Southeast Asia Nuclear‐Free Zone Treaty (1995) and the African Nuclear‐Free Zone Treaty (1996), combined with earlier regional treaties, made the Southern Hemisphere a de facto nuclear weapons‐free zone.

At the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, the nuclear‐weapons states argued for the treaty's indefinite extension. Some non nuclear‐weapons nations, however, opposed this, since, in their view, the nuclear‐weapons states had not fulfilled their Article VI pledge of good‐faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament. The nuclear‐weapons states prevailed, and the treaty was extended indefinitely. The nonnuclear‐weapons states did, however, succeed in adding a nonbinding pledge by all signatories to work for a comprehensive nuclear test ban and a treaty banning production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and calling for “a determined pursuit by the nuclear‐weapons States” of the reduction and ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons. The NPT's continued effectiveness clearly depended upon the willingness of the nuclear‐weapons states to fulfill their treaty commitments to work seriously for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. If the non nuclear‐weapons states concluded that these promises were not being kept, and exercised their right to withdraw from the NPT, nuclear arms control would suffer a major setback.

In 1996, a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was opened for signatures, with the requirement that its implementation required ratification by all forty‐four states with a nuclear capacity. As of Spring 2000, 155 nations had ratified it, including more than half of the states with nuclear capacity. Among the nuclear‐weapons states, Great Britain, France, and Russia had ratified, while the United States, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel had not.
See also Acheson, Dean; Antinuclear Protest Movements; Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Atomic Bombing of; Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Manhattan Project; Nuclear Power; Nuclear Strategy; Post–Cold War Era; Teller, Edward.

Bibliography

Arms Control and Disarmament Agreements, 1982.
Richard Dean Burns, ed., Encyclopedia of Arms Control and Disarmament, 3 vols., 1993.
Ved Nanda and and David Krieger , Nuclear Weapons and the World Court, 1998.
Robert D. Green , Fast Track to Zero Nuclear Weapons, rev. ed., 1999.

David Krieger