What are the main goals of Nuclear Arms Control Agreement?
Is to stop or at least limit an Arms Race.
But first, we have to understand what does it mean, Arms race.
Arms race is a specific phenomenon of
international affairs when two states, or several states,
or block of states are competing with each
other in the number and the quality of weapons and military equipment.
Although it's quite old phenomenon of international relations,
I always say that's more than type of
arms race appeared in 19th century in the epoch of industrialization.
However, an arms race during the Cold War,
and specifically nuclear arms race,
was a very special phenomenon in international affairs.
The global Cold War was an ideological, economic,
and scientific opposition of two superpowers and their allies.
We will try to understand what was so
specific about nuclear arms race during the Cold War.
During the Cold War,
Soviet Union and United States developed
their nuclear forces in reference to one another,
but the same time,
they were developing their strategies independently.
The whole history of this bilateral competition can be divided into three periods.
During the first period,
started in 1945 when the first nuclear device was tested and lasted until early 1960s.
Both countries were just developing their nuclear strategies.
The basic principles of these nuclear strategies were not yet established,
so both countries were developing their nuclear forces as intensive as they could.
They were producing as many nuclear weapons as they could produce.
The second stage of the nuclear arms race started
in the middle of 1960s and lasted until early 1980s.
During that period, both sides were trying to somehow limit this arms race.
Some agreements were negotiated and signed,
although there were not so many achievements in these efforts.
It is only after the end of the Cold War when the Soviet Union, and later Russia,
and the United States managed to stop
nuclear arms race by negotiating and implementing arms control agreements.
Other countries did participate in nuclear arms race, too.
Countries like France, Britain,
and China were developing their nuclear arsenals during all that period.
But it was a specific strategy.
They did not compete with each other and they didn't try to compete
with the Soviet Union in the number of nuclear weapons.
They had very specific goals and very specific strategies.
So we will not talk about that now.
The implementation of successful,
credible nuclear deterrence strategy requires development of several systems.
Each country have to develop, first of all,
reliable, long-range launchers and delivery vehicles.
But also, it is necessary to develop an early warning system,
a system which will help to target the nuclear weapons.
So during the Cold War,
the United States and Soviet Union competed in numbers of these systems.
That was kind of quantitive arms race.
The second dimension of the nuclear arms race was a qualitative nuclear arms race.
Both sides were trying to develop new,
more advanced launchers and delivery vehicles,
platforms, space systems, et cetera.
Land-based, stationary, and mobile platforms were developed, tested, and deployed.
Sea-based ballistic missiles were deployed on submarines.
Cruise missiles with nuclear warheads were developed and
deployed on warships, submarines, and airplanes.
There was even an attempt to launch a ballistic missile from an airplane.
The systems of that type were designed and even tested but have never been deployed.
The Soviets and American engineers, and weapon specialists,
and scientists constantly were trying to improve the design of their weapons.
When the first nuclear device was tested,
both sides tried to be the first to test thermonuclear device.
The same time, the engineers of both sides were trying
to launch the explosive yield of their devices.
The next step in the qualitative arms race was development of multiple warhead missile.
It meant that one missile could carry several warheads,
and sometimes, these warheads could be independently targeted.
So each warhead could destroy a specifically designated target.
This is called multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles or MIRV.
Let's now have a look at possible improvements.
On the slide, you see how different ballistic missile can be deployed on land, on sea,
can be deployed on mobile or stationary platform,
can be single warhead, multiple warhead,
or multiple warhead arms with
multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles or independently targetable warheads.
At the same time, the number of warheads launchers were rapidly growing
during all the periods of the Cold War.
A large spectrum of different types of weapons was designed,
developed, and deployed by both countries.
The biggest bomb ever tested was Soviet-made,
terrible nuclear Tsar bomb.
The same time, both sides developed a very small nuclear weapons like artillery shells.
The number of weapons was increasing all the period of the Cold War.
From the very beginning of the Cold War,
the United States and Soviet Union competed in the sphere of nuclear armaments.
We can present it as a scheme where, here,
it will be time
and quantity of warheads and launchers.
The United States started earlier,
and the Soviet Union on the first stage of the Cold War tried to reach
the same level and developed a parity of capabilities with the United States.
But the United States always tried to keep its domination in nuclear weapons.
So they competed for a long time,
but at one moment,
it appeared that both sides,
the United States and Soviet Union,
managed to develop a capability to destroy each other several times.
After that, it appeared that the resources they allocate for development of new weapons,
and for production, and deployment of
new launchers and warheads are not so useless anymore.
If you want to kill your enemy three times
and your enemy can kill you twice, what's the difference?
So, at what moment it appeared that this arms race had no sense?
But both sides of course,
could not stop these arms race unilaterally.
Only on the basis of a compromise or mutual agreement could they somehow limit,
if not stop, the development and production of new weapons,
new launching systems, and warheads.
That was the reason why they started negotiating nuclear arms control agreements.
