TRADITIONALLY there have been two objectives that arms control has sought to achieve through diplomacy. The first is to break the security dilemma invariably created when a particular state, to enhance its own security, adopts measures which are perceived as destabilizing by its adversary. The second is damage limitation. Laws of war have conventionally been based on two principles – proportionality and discrimination. These imply that use of force should not be excessive or unlimited, weapons should discriminate between combatants and non-combatants and finally, even combatants should be spared unnecessary suffering.

Arms control agreements pertain to restrictions on development, production, stockpiling, proliferation and use of weapon systems aimed at achieving either of the above mentioned objectives. Normally binding on the states that voluntarily accept the restraints, there have been instances where the restraints have also been imposed on a non-party by the international community. Verification has thus increasingly become more important, especially in multilaterally negotiated arms control treaties.

One of the earliest examples of arms control was the decision in 1139 by the Second Council of the Lateran to prohibit the use of the crossbow against Christians; its use against non-Christians was permitted though! International humanitarian law began to develop in a more structured manner with the establishment of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863, which was motivated by the objective of providing better care to the soldiers wounded on the battlefield. Advances in developments relating to firearms, mechanization of warfare on account of the industrial revolution and developments in chemistry and metallurgy were making warfare increasingly destructive. Two major conferences known as the Hague Conferences were convened in 1899 and 1907 with significant results in terms of concluding conventions relating to conduct of war, settlement of disputes and the setting up of a Permanent Court of Arbitration. However, the third Hague Conference, though scheduled, was never convened as the clouds of World War I had gathered.

The arms control measures negotiated during the two Hague Conferences were not robust enough and fell by the wayside. This provided valuable lessons to those leaders who did the groundwork for setting up the League of Nations in 1920. The objective this time was to ensure peace through collective security, disarmament and settlement of disputes through arbitration and negotiation.

 

Though it officially lasted for 26 years when it was succeeded by the United Nations in 1945, by the early 1930s, major powers like Germany, Japan, Spain and Italy were already withdrawing from the League, highlighting its ineffectiveness in dealing with growing tensions between major powers. The only arms control treaty negotiated during this period, which stood the test of time to a fairly substantial degree, was the 1925 Geneva Protocol that prohibited the use of poisonous gases and bacteriological means of warfare. Chemical weapons (chlorine and mustard gases) had been used during World War I with horrendous results but little military advantage which provided the impetus to the negotiations.

Despite the fact that many countries joined the protocol, with the proviso that they retained the right of retaliation if attacked and thus maintained an active stockpile, the norm established by the Geneva Protocol held during World War II. In subsequent years, there were isolated incidents of use of chemical weapons but with the more comprehensive Biological Weapons Convention in 1972 and the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993, this norm has today assumed the character of international law. Even though Syria was not a party to the CWC, yet the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict last year energized the international community to force the Syrian government to accede to the CWC.

 

Two factors contributed to the growing importance of arms control and disarmament in the post-World War II global order. One was the advent of nuclear weapons and the second was the Cold War which quickly led to the creation of a bipolar order. With the US and the USSR embarking on a reckless nuclear arms race, which led them to acquire more than 35000 nuclear weapons each, more often than not maintained on hair trigger alert, the international community had regularly to remind the two super powers about their moral obligations and not blow up the world in their ideological rivalry.

However, despite this rivalry that characterized the Cold War, the objectives of the two countries sometimes converged, leading to several bilateral and multilateral arms control and disarmament agreements. In fact, many commentators now describe the Cold War as a period of ‘stability’ compared to present times though perhaps ‘predictability’ would be a more apt description.

Bilateral arms control measures concluded by the US and the USSR included setting up of vital communication links like hotlines between the leaders, backed by links between the nuclear authorities, and a series of agreements dealing with nuclear weapon systems and also one with Anti-Ballistic Missile systems. SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties) and SORT (Strategic Offensive Weapons Reduction Treaty) concluded restraints on strategic nuclear weapon systems, both in terms of numbers of warheads and delivery systems. Importantly, these reductions were made without impacting the nuclear doctrines of the two states. Verification was based on ‘national technical means’ though some degree of transparency was also provided, together with mechanisms to resolve differences.

 

A notable agreement was the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Agreement (INF Treaty) which obliged the US and the USSR to eliminate all missiles within the ranges of 500-5500 kms. The US had inducted these missiles (Pershing II and Cruise missiles primarily) in Europe in order to reassure their West European allies about ‘extended deterrence’ (US readiness to use its nuclear weapons for defence of West Europe) and the USSR had responded by forward basing of its SS-20s. As the political environment changed during the 1980s, the West Europeans began to believe that the forward deployed nuclear weapons would only guarantee a nuclear wasted Europe, and thus supported the withdrawal of these forward deployed nuclear forces leading to the INF Treaty.

A significant bilateral agreement was the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty concluded in 1972 to ensure mutual vulnerability, the logic being that mutual vulnerability would ensure successful deterrence. During the 1980s, the ABM Treaty came under strain on account of the US developing the Strategic Defence Initiative and finally, in 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty rendering it null and void. The tale of the ABM treaty is instructive in encapsulating the inherent tensions between arms control as a means of ensuring stability by constraining technology and getting overtaken when political circumstances render the constraint disadvantageous in the perception of one of the parties.

 

On the other hand, the multilaterally negotiated arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament treaties during the same period proved to be more robust and lasting. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which sought to legitimize the possession of nuclear weapons in the hands of five states (US, USSR, UK, France and China) on the assurance that nuclear disarmament would follow, was originally negotiated for 25 years but later extended indefinitely. The prohibitions on use of biological and chemical weapons enshrined in the 1925 Geneva Protocol were immeasurably strengthened by comprehensive disarmament agreements (BWC and CWC in 1972 and 1993 respectively) which extended the prohibitions to cover development, production and stockpiling of these weapons and provided for the destruction of existing stockpiles.

Arms control related developments also continued in the field of international humanitarian law and conventional weapons with the objective of mitigating unnecessary suffering. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 provided protection to the wounded and sick during war on land or at sea and created rules for treatment of prisoners of war and treatment of civilians in occupied territories. The 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) is intended as an umbrella convention to provide for numerous protocols to restrict the use of those conventional weapons that may be deemed excessively injurious or have indiscriminate effects. To date, five protocols have been concluded relating to explosives that should not contain non-detectable fragments, restrictions on use of land mines and booby traps, incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons, and dealing with explosive remnants of war.

Humanitarian initiatives taken by a group of like-minded states have sometimes been successful in enlarging the scope of certain agreements though with certain limitations. Two examples are the 1997 Ottawa Convention to ban anti-personnel land-mines and the 2008 Cluster Munitions Convention. In 1996, the CCW had strengthened its Protocol II dealing with landmines to bolster the provisions regarding detectability etc pertaining to landmines. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) had been set up in 1991 as a coalition of NGOs and unhappy with the 1996 outcome, worked with a group of committed countries leading to the Ottawa Convention. A similar initiative led to the 2008 Cluster Munitions Convention which too had the major military powers outside it.

 

In the post-Cold War period, however, arms control has been unable to register significant progress. The key reason is that the central organizing principle that acted as a catalyst for arms control no longer holds. Bipolarity was the dominating theme during the Cold War with USA and USSR as the two super powers. Notwithstanding the differences between them, it created a notion of parity which was certainly true in so far as the nuclear equation was concerned. Therefore, the two super powers had a shared interest in ensuring stability, both in terms of managing a crisis and in not allowing either side to gain a significant technological lead in the arms race. Bilateral arms control measures (SALT, START, ABM Treaty etc) are reflective of this persuasion. Where the two super powers perceived a common threat, they were also able to work together to address it; the NPT was a response to shared concerns about the risks of nuclear proliferation.

The notion of bipolarity has disappeared with the US enjoying a clear technological lead over its potential rivals. Russia is seeking to reassert itself, especially in its ‘near abroad’, but in financial and technological terms it now lags behind the US. China has emerged as the second largest economy and increasingly sees itself as a super power, at least in Asia, and wants the US to acknowledge it even as it seeks to establish a new pattern for relations among major powers. However, based on several other parameters, China remains a developing country and has a long way to go before it can match the US in terms of technology, innovation and military capabilities for power projection.

 

Without the notion of parity, the US sees little interest in arms control which would diminish its lead; similarly, other rising powers see the US as a declining power and are unwilling to see the present imbalance frozen through arms control agreements. Bipolarity led to the notion of balance of power and arms control helped manage the competition. In today’s world consisting of major powers, managing competition has become more difficult. Second, it is difficult to define common threats because today’s major powers are at different levels of development in terms of new technologies. This would require that instead of seeking balance of power, the major powers need to work together on arms control in order to establish a cooperative security order. This has not worked because relations among major powers today are marked by a growing degree of mistrust.

During such a period, even existing arms control agreements could be in jeopardy. In 2003, the US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty. Recently, Russia announced that it was quitting the bilateral understanding with the US on disposition of surplus fissile material. The absence of an organizing principle has thus made it difficult to pursue arms control, either bilaterally or in a multilateral form.

 

A second challenge is posed by the nature of new technologies that are today finding application in weapon systems, both offensive and defensive. Cyberspace has emerged as the new domain of contention. Driven by two key technologies, computers and the Internet, it has given rise to new capabilities that impact a range of existing weapon systems. In addition, with developments in artificial intelligence, robotics and lethal autonomous weapons are likely to emerge in the coming decades.

During the Cold War, the technologies subjected to arms control were developed as military technologies. The two significant technologies that emerged during this period – nuclear and space – developed as military programmes and certain arms control measures were concluded before these technologies found wider application in the civilian sector. In fact, a comprehensive body of nuclear arms control developed during the 1960s and 1970s, including systems of export controls even as civilian applications grew.

In the area of outer space, some achievements were made during the same decades but the announcement of the Strategic Defence Initiative in 1983 by the US made further progress difficult. Though Codes of Conduct have been developed subsequently, the challenge of creating a robust arms control regime to ensure that outer space is preserved as a non-militarized global commons remains.

The technologies finding military applications today were developed for civilian use in the first instance and as such, enjoy widespread application in non-military fields. Super computing, data analytics, robotics, cyber space technologies and artificial intelligence are all examples of technologies that have widespread use in non-military spheres of life. This makes it difficult to constrain their military use through arms control negotiations.

 

Traditionally, arms control negotiations are the preserve of sovereign states but in a globalized world when these technologies have increasing civilian applications, technology ownership is not with the government but in the private sector. In the cyber domain, this has led to the concept of multi-stakeholder negotiations but this model has yet to deliver a concrete outcome. Some norm building has been attempted but since violation of norms is difficult to attribute, compliance with norms is non-enforceable.

In areas of robotics and use of drones, both in surveillance and combat roles, the US remains significantly ahead of any potential challengers, and given its advantageous position in the cyber domain it is reluctant to bring these areas into the domain of arms control. At most, it would be willing to subject these technologies to export controls and there have been some moves in this direction.

The nature of conflict and warfare has also changed. The emergence of non-state actors with growing military capability has introduced a new element into conflict – in reality, each non-state actor has a benefactor state, though at an arms length, to allow for deniability. The distributed denial of service attacks on a large number of Estonian websites in 2007 and the use of Stuxnet against Iran’s nuclear enrichment centrifuges in 2009 have been widely analysed but attribution remains difficult. The ‘colour revolutions’ in some of the states bordering Russia (Rose revolution in Georgia in 2003, Orange revolution in Ukraine in 2004 and Tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2005) have been described by Russia as a new kind of warfare.

A new development has been the use of hybrid warfare which combines a limited amount of conventional warfare, together with irregular warfare often using proxies like non-state actors together with cyber warfare and psy-ops. The objective normally is not taking over territory but regime change, which is effected even before definitive attribution is attempted. This changing nature of warfare has further taken the focus away from arms control as a stabilizing mechanism.

Another problem which will come up even as the international community seeks to engage in a new multilateral arms control negotiation (say on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty which has been on the agenda of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva for nearly two decades) relates to the role of emerging powers. The UN Security Council enjoys a special position in matters relating to peace and security and non-compliance issues are traditionally referred to the UNSC as has been seen in recent years with regard to Iran or North Korea. Though the permanent membership of the Security Council may have reflected the geopolitical balance of power in 1945, it certainly does not do so today. In future, this will have a bearing on non-compliance issues.

 

Given these challenges, what will it take to revive arms control as an instrument for providing greater stability? There are two fundamental shifts that need to be recognized and reflected in any new arms control negotiations. The number of sovereign states today is much larger than during the Cold War and, therefore, the new multilateral arms control agenda needs to reflect the interests of this larger group. Second, the concept of multi-stakeholders being involved in negotiations will need to be introduced, even though it runs contrary to the earlier experience when such negotiations were the exclusive preserve of representatives of sovereign states.

Limited negotiations between major powers will need to focus on measures that reduce the risk of war between them. This is not easy in a period of growing mistrust and the changing nature of conflict. This requires a higher level of statesmanship than has been evident in recent times. It is clear that no negotiation among major powers can take place without the US but the US is reluctant to engage in such exercises at the moment for reasons that have been elaborated earlier. Therefore, other major powers need to accept that there will be a price to pay for US engagement in terms of adjustment and accommodation. In such a forum, a key objective will be to reduce the likelihood of a conflict and keeping intact the arms control structure that has been created would be a secondary advantage.

The nuclear issue remains a shared concern but negotiations on reducing numbers in respective arsenals are no longer possible when parity has been overtaken by asymmetry. It may initially be easier to address doctrinal asymmetries based on a shared concern about nuclear use, accidental or deliberate. For this, a new forum will be necessary which acknowledges the shortcomings of the current nuclear non-proliferation architecture. The objective of this exercise will be to move towards a global no-first-use agreement which can subsequently strengthen the non-use norm. This norm has held for the last seventy years but whether it can hold for another seventy is doubtful, unless buttressed by political agreements.