War & Peace
Whose interests are served by arms control in the post-Cold War era?
Abstract
This question of arms control has been evolving since the end of the two blocks of the Cold War. There is nothing without the benefit of one, there is no action, treaty, convention without one who gains and others who lose. This is exactly the case with arms control as well, where the United States benefits in strengthening and keeping up its global hegemony by acting, creating conventions to be the single market and seller of weapons. The security dilemma is a key player in the destiny of weapons as complete disarmament for now has been impossible. This dilemma is always there in peace time, peace is there in democracies nowadays, and arms control relies on liberal democratic norms, it has been created by the West. This means arms control is in Westerns interest, but why particularly the U.S.’? The U.S. is the state that has always been legitimised to use its arms, its entrusted by the West and all states rely on its military justice. The U.S. wants to keep its hegemony of the 20th century by strengthening its military monopoly as that is what makes all states dependent on the U.S., but it keeps wars of the East and Africa alive. Even though, the security dilemma limits this aspiration in roots, the U.S. has maintained to limit other Western states in trading with their weapons, the U.S. is the main buyer and then the single seller to the East, where then the U.S. militia fights for ‘peace’ against those weapons it has sold in the first place. This circle keeps the West depending on the U.S in terms of arms trade and peace-keeping as well.
Global opinion on arms control has changed since the end of the Second World War, seeing what nuclear weapons are capable of, but especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as arms race does not have a purpose for the competition between the blocks (Bromley, Cooper, Holtom, 2012). Yet, nothing can come into practice without the benefit of one and loss of the rest, therefore in this essay we will discover how arms control in the post-Cold War era we are living in, is in the ultimate service of the most relevant supporter of disarmament: the nuclear power states. For this, we will look at the United States and how its support on other states’ diminishing on arms for its own interest, and how the standards set by NATO and the UN Arms Trade Treaty also serves that US interests (Chivers, 2011; Rappert, 2005; Ritchie, 2013; Schaefer, 1980).
My main argument here is not about that it is only in the interest of the US to control arms and its trade and races, of course less weapons leave less mass warfare and more peace, that is non-warfare what is a benefit for all states (Gray, 1993). Instead, my argument here is that there are many limitations in the international order by nature to control arms, but when it happens, it is exclusionary and some states’ interests benefit over others, that is the democratic West over ‘the rest’ who cannot possess the most effective mass exterminatory weapons based on their non-democratic ‘unreliable’ being categorised by the US (Ritchie, 2013).
First of all, in order to be able to see how certain institutions of arms control serve the U.S. we have to understand the drivers of the security dilemma and the public opinion on the usage of weapons. First then, the security dilemma will help us understand why disarmament cannot, only arms control can work in the current world order. States are rational actors in an international system of anarchy and self-help, where they always seek their relative gain, that is maximizing the profit with considering how well it fares compared to other states; not absolute gain where this maximizing of profit would be without taking into account how much the other states gain or lose. The international order is anarchical in nature because even though we can see functioning institutions (NATO or the UN for instance) they are constituted of states, it is not above states, therefore states continuously seek more power as they can never be sure how much other states have (Mearscheimer, 2001).
Second, for this very nature of the international anarchy, complete disarmament could never operate in history before – and will not within reasonable time – , as it would leave all states without the ability to protect in case a state decides to turn to offensive actions, and it would undermine the role of the state as it is to provide security for its citizens, it would only work when not needed (Gray, 1993). Only arms control can function as it is the limitation of all states’ arms equally, one state would never make this step alone unless others do the same, so that their vulnerability increase as well and threatening arms decline as well (Cooper, 2006). Nevertheless, states are forced by uncertainty on other states’ capabilities and motivations, so competition always stays the preferable option for all states, what makes cooperation over arms control difficult and so unlikely, (Montgomery, 2006).
Third, it is important to keep in mind that security dilemma exists only when states have to predict other states’ capabilities and possible attacks, in case there is intentional, existing material threat there is no security dilemma (Tang, 2009). We can see, in theory if there would be no weapons in the world, uncertainty and security dilemma would be removed from policymaking and an infinite peace would come. But this is only a theory.
Fourth, arms control in roots relies and is driven by liberal democratic interest, as – according to Marxist critique – arms control, based on the need for human security has been created and is driven by a specific form of state: democracy (Stavrianakis, 2010). Yet, these values discriminate non-Western states by differentiating between some states who can and the rest who cannot possess nuclear weapons, saying they and their motives for using those tools are unreliable. Not to mention that originally this order of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) should have been a short-term system but it is still in operation today, keeping up the exceptional nuclear position of those states (Ritchie, 2013, Cooper, 2006).
Even though the use of nuclear weapons became a global taboo, states only made steps towards non-usage but not disarmament of these instruments and now we can look for the answer to the ‘why’, who is interested in this arms control rather than compete disarmament (Tannenwald, 1999)?
Secondly, as we could see, arms control is based on the spread of Western norms, those have the power to constrain and constitute, therefore arms control – of the UN for instance – is in the service of the democratic nuclear possessors (Tannenwald, 1999; Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1992). Arms control then, by nature relies and promotes Western values and interest. Theoretically, this interest would be the promotion of peace, what protects economy and welfare by minimising the potential threat by reducing the number of weapons in the World. This means that states can focus on their domestic development and wellbeing as they do not have to spend on defence against potential threats on state sovereignty (Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1992). Yet in practice, this is much more complex than it is suggested. As those states who are able to produce leading weapons by investing in arms development promote disarmament, they throw their ‘old’ weapons – not so much for developing countries where these technologies are not given (Chivers, 2011). But this action has been seen as burning money, so states rather sell their wasted weapons, therefore there is instant lack of will to effectively control arms if it would mean the end of a profit (Hartung, 2008). They do so by licencing and they – in theory – thoroughly analyse the potential buyers, but in the end of the day, there is always a ‘grey market’, there is always a leak and those weapons which go into reliable hands in the first place, may get into ‘bad’ hands later. And these weapons are not commercial products, they are not designed to become unusable after a short period of time so that the customer buys a new one. Weapons of the World Wars are still in use in many conflict zones, and they become replaced by the new and newer generations of the wastrel of the West. Although this is outside of this paper’s main focus, but we can see this phenomenon by looking at the example of the spread of the vz.58 model explored by Chivers (2011).
Last but not least, as we have discovered how arms control relies on Western democratic values and interest, now we will prove this by looking at the United States and the institutions of arms control in its service: US supported arms reduction in Europe and the operation UN Arms Trade Treaty. First, it is important to note that even though the US usually votes in favour of, and signs such restrictive treaties, it is unlikely to adopt and ratify them, therefore they do not come into force, this can be seen in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 and the UN Arms Trade Treaty of 2013 (Nikitin and Maerli, 2008; UN General Assembly, 2017; UNODA, n.d. ). Also, as the US relies relevantly on its military power and so do the World, trusting in its peacekeeping goals, therefore the US is a legitimised hegemon of the international order (Schaefer, 1980; Kohn, 2009). Here is where our analysis comes into picture, discovering how this position is kept up by international arms control cooperation. First, the World blindly accepts the power of the US, we can see this from the example of how its biopower could arguably be used for offensive purpose, yet it is acknowledged as defensive development, or the case of attacks on al Quaeda where actions relied purely on uncertainty without objectivity, still legitimate in the name of ‘war on terror’: anything can be legitimised as defence (Rappert, 2005: 225; Mitzen and Schweller, 2011: 31-34.). Not to mention that the global exceptionalism on nuclear weapons (seen before) relies on US values who are and who are not eligible to possess nuclear weapons (Ritchie, 2013: 52-55). I find this one source of stabilising US position, but another relies within the treaties in service of arms control. These agreements reduce the number of weapons on one hand and modernise (mostly by NATO standards) the remaining ones on the other. This is a double action for trashing non-used European weapons out, going straight to the market, as even though the US funds weaponry destruction, it is a more relevant revenue to sell them. Of course, these go through a precise licencing process, but as there is always a leak, they get into the hands of those actors who the US fights against. Interestingly, the US remains to be the single market and seller on these weapons for the West. It buys from those who disqualify them and sell in the East and Africa in the name of supporting those who promote US interest instead of US soldiers (Chivers, 2011; Hartung, 2008). Based on this I point out that this circle of actions maintains US hegemony, as it does not reduce its own arms so relevantly as does other states’, also the US holds the role to go and fight against those weapons which has been pushed out from reliable hands by US dominated agreements and sold by the US itself. Therefore, I can only see that the US rejects to enforce its own arms control to be able to keep its ‘guardian of the World’ position by selling/pushing out weapons to its enemies so that it can keep fighting and the World continue to depend on its military. How could this be stopped, you may ask. My answer would be that by complete global ratification of the UN Arms Trade Treaty, most importantly by the US. This could be funded by the UN – paying for those weapons to stop them entering the market – so that no further arm would get into illegitimate hands and eventually the US army would not be needed for the Western peace more than any smaller European arm. Yet, this is a long way to go due to the well-known security dilemma and the too dominant norms of the US.
In a conclusion, as first we have seen that there is a constant security dilemma in states’ ‘thinking’ in times where there is no existential ‘real’ threat as they can never be sure on other states’ intentions, not even when there is cooperation or other common institution as states are essentially live in anarchy, there is no global sovereignty above states. Also, we have understood how arms control has been given birth by democracy, therefore by nature, serves Western norms and interests, marking dissimilar opinions as untrustworthy states who are inadequate to hold relevant (nuclear) arms. Then, we reached the complexity of how Western states promote the control of arms, yet they are unwilling to ‘burn their money’ and they rather sell their surplus weapons – outcome of arms reduction – to those ‘unreliable’ states. Finally, we have discovered these motivations to not to control arms completely by analysing the US. Here we found that the US dictates the norms of arms control, the West relies on US military what strengthens its global leader position. The US, using this reliance pushes NATO standards for further change of old weapons, by this resulting new sales of Europe to the East and Africa, where the US then can go and fight against those weapons, so that the West stays reliant on its ‘peacekeeping’ military, and so on. This all may be an endless circle of US hegemony, but I think a strong European cooperation and most importantly trust, by enforcing the US could result a true disarmament by the UN Arms Trade treaty, but as we have seen, this is a too complex issue as for now, to be solved that easily.
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