Description
The major states and their respective allies are today engaged in intense arms competition. Taiwan and the war in Ukraine loom large in the geopolitical imagination, and the conclusion drawn by many foreign policy establishments is that it is prudent to buy more weapons. The question which we will attempt to engage with in this article is this: when can we expect, if ever, that these foreign policy establishments will recognise their common interest in limiting the present arms competition? To try to answer this question, we will engage in two broad historical case studies. The first of these will analyse the political process from the onset of naval arms competition in the late 1890s and leading up to the Washington naval treaty in 1922. The second case study will focus on nuclear arms control, from the onset of competition in this weapons category towards the end of the WWII and up to the first SALT agreement in 1972. The analytical goal is to identify 1) the point at which foreign policy establishments coalesced around the notion that arms control was desirable and should be pursued as a serious proposition; and 2) the time lag between this point and the actual signing of an arms control agreement.
