Arms Control and the Cold War:

...Is it wise to develop an attitude towards arms control that makes it peculiarly subject to moral judgment, tests of good faith and a sensation that world government is in the making...

...And in many cases these changes would prove the original arms limitations were inaccurate and in need of serious modification...

...Radically different criteria would be required to evaluate the various modes of transportation that might qualify as militarily significant "means of delivery," together with their communication and coordination, vulnerabilities and target systems...

...Thus the dangers of misinterpreted intentions, of accidents and false alarms, of unauthorized actions and of ordinary mistakes, of unforeseen problems and difficulties, might be appreciably enhanced during the process of attaining the posture permitted under the arms-limitation agreement...

...An important question is whether penalties for violation and forms of redress are provided in the agreement itself...

...Strategic forces in particular would be confronted with rapidly changing requirements in a rapidly changing military environment...

...To maximize their effectiveness under an agreement they will adapt to the limitations they can foresee...

...The technical ramifications of a concrete arms limitation may go far beyond the level of detail embodied in an explicit agreement...

...In such circumstances, there may be good reason to deflate the significance of minor violations and to avoid the implication that a charge of violation is an accusation of bad faith...

...We can hope for this but should not count on it...

...They may be a potent and mutually beneficial ingredient in that environment, but it is unlikely that they will be immune from the cold war itself...

...But if one side assumes that morality and virtue are uniquely involved in this particular international enterprise, while the other assumes that the infant must learn to survive in a world of potential conflict, tough diplomacy and military maneuver, acute misunderstanding may result—thus not only discrediting arms control but exacerbating military and diplomatic relations...

...In these major cases of willful violation it would obviously make a difference whether violations are initiated by the major powers, whose collaboration is essential, or by lesser powers that might be subjected to some kind of organized discipline...

...It is important therefore to consider the task of the military services, and the special problems of planning and operation that they would face...

...Not all nations are deterred from serious military and political action by the fear of not seeming altogether peace-loving...

...Many sources of intelligence would become more ambiguous, and many novelties and innovations in behavior would have to be analyzed and interpreted...

...In a world in which nearly unanimous opinion must have deplored the Chinese intervention in Tibet and encroachment across the Indian border, the intervention nevertheless occurred...

...The requirements for judgment, interpretation of facts, difficult forecasts and projections and allowance for error, innovation, and disorganization will be set by the needs of the regulatory process to cope with a rapidly changing military environment...

...Certainly the experiment would have more chance of success if the main participants had similar ideas about the rules of behavior expected of them...

...Their task of compliance must be made feasible...

...The inclusion of such provisions should depend a good deal on whether the agreement is such that violations can occur through inadvertence, negligence, misunderstanding, unauthorized behavior, chance, force majeure or excessive zeal—or only through willful decision at the highest level...

...To quarantine it against the facts of international political life might make it an ornament and a symbol, rather than a virile restraining force...

...This observation has implications for the inspection and regulation of the arms-adjustment process...

...they will take advantage of anticipated loopholes, even if their anticipations are not always correct...

...As such, it will be exploited by some nations for gain or aggrandizement, and will cause frequent dispute and disagreement within countries as well as among them...

...A very substantial program of disarmament would probably confront the military services with a radical change in posture, in technology, in intelligence about the enemy and in military responsibilities...

...Sanctions, while probably not automatic, will depend on the willingness of certain countries to incur the risks and costs of charging violation and bringing sanctions to bear, utilizing diplomacy for the purpose...

...If both sides walk on eggs where the agreement is concerned, the agreement may survive...

...To stipulate penalties or modes of redress may facilitate the exaction of penalties, help to eliminate further dispute over countermeasures once violations are certified and minimize the initiative required in bringing the disputes procedure into operation...

...It may be hoped, even expected, that wise and realistic arms control will allay the dangers of cold war and help to ease tensions...

...Even if military forces were to be reduced to zero during the process of disarmament, the important requirements of defense and of deterrence in the interim —until all potential enemies had been disarmed—would still have to be fulfilled...

...Just as it may be impossible to keep research and development from continually changing the technology with which anus control must cope, it would probably be naive to suppose that military plans, operations, doctrine and attitudes, will stand still as arms limitations are imposed one after the other...

...And if the agreement is itself evolving, or if it envisages a continuing reduction of military force or curtailment of military activity, there may be a long and dynamic period of confusion, adaptation and of trial and error by the military services which must predict not only the more usual events in an uncertain world but the course of disarmament itself...

...Missiles, aircraft, surface vessels, etc., within a certain range of performance, are recognized as strategically significant...

...But one must assume that if a substantial measure of arms control is negotiated, the military services would at some stage take this into account in their research and development, their procurement and their planning...

...The military services themselves must respect the purposes of arms control (even if they disagree with them...

...As in today's world of moves, feints and threats, there will be risks for the violators as well as for those who charge violation...

...Unless the initiation of arms control saps the vitality of the military services, collapses their morale, hardens their personnel policies, destroys their initiative and freezes their technology and tables of organization—all of which would probably be disastrous—one must suppose that the very imposition of agreed arms limitations on the military services would stimulate radical change...

...There would be special problems of organization and morale in a rapidly declining force, just as there would be unprecedented requirements for cooperation and understanding between the military services and the civilian side of government...

...In fact, it might not necessarily be taken for granted that to exploit loopholes and to skirt the edge of the agreement were acts of bad faith— unless we expect all participants to view arms accords, once reached, as outside the bounds of normal politics, and hence to be judged by different standards from those that apply in agreements even among allies...

...Charges of violation or bad faith will probably be handled not by solemn judicial procedures but by the usual techniques of international politics...

...At the present time there exists some reasonably comprehensive notion of what the significant means of delivery are...

...still, the military services will continue to be motivated by their responsibilities for defense and deterrence...

...The cooperation of the military services in an arms-control enterprise is likely to be critically important to its success...

...These changes could easily require adaptations on their part as difficult and as extensive as those brought about by the revolutions in military technology of the last 15 years...

...They must respect the quality of the judgment and the decisions involved (even if they disagree with them...

...Major violations, resulting from policy decisions, would be harder to accommodate in some "normal" disputes procedures and would raise political and diplomatic issues, despite the existence of a nominal procedure for exacting penalties...

...This suggests that regardless of the nominal procedure for disputes, and the nominal sanctions, the basic sanction will be the willingness of the participants to respond with vigor, politically and militarily, to abuses and threats of abuse...

...but to do so might be to impose a greater burden on the experiment than it could support...

...An arms control agreement, it is often stressed, will not in itself introduce a new era of peaceful international relations...

...But as disarmament proceeds, the defense against means of delivery may substantially change, as well as the targets and the timing requirements of means of delivery, and the intelligence available to both sides...

...This process might be deplored if it led to vigorous efforts on both sides to evade the spirit of the agreement...

...Furthermore, there is little evidence that military research and development have yet been guided by the anticipation of severe armaments limitations resulting from negotiated arms agreements...

...and the morale and the understanding of the military services, in an arms-control environment, will still be essential to the nation's security...

...illustrations (and cover) are by Emily Schorr Elman...

...So, despite the hopes of the optimists, arms agreements will be a part of the political-military environment...

...As we observed above, the usual "indicators" of a potential enemy's intentions and activities that might constitute strategic or tactical warning would be severely changed or perhaps camouflaged in the confusion and adaptation taking place under a severe arms-limitation process...

...It is sometimes thought that all countries concerned with their image abroad would bend over backwards to avoid violation or ever being charged with it...

...In this article, adapted from a chapter in their new book, Strategy and Arms Control (to be published next week by the Twentieth Century Fund), Thomas C Schelling and Morton H. Halperin of Harvard University's Center for International Affairs explain why an arms control agreement must be designed to survive in continuing cold war environment...

...Analogously it may be wiser to think of civil rather than criminal procedures...

...It must be able to do so without relying excessively on arbitrary and unreasonable rules and limitations, or on procedures that would destroy the respect of the military services for the rules imposed on them in the interest of mutual security...

...The answer is by no means obvious...

...Moreover vigorous adaptation to the arms-control environment will be just as necessary for their collaboration with the arms limitations as would be required for evasion...

...and they must not be made to feel that those responsible for the arms controls lack a sense of responsibility for the nation's security...

...If the agreement is viewed as part of the ordinary universe of international military diplomacy, we have to assume that, like any bargain or alliance, it will be in the arena of international politics and will be assimilated into the threats and reassurances of the cold war...

...Weapon characteristics, as they have evolved from military research and development, have on the whole not been designed for effectiveness in an arms-control environment...

...If both sides try to be tough, "realistic" and resilient, the agreement may be effective and durable...

...To make explicit provision for exacting compensation from a violator, or to provide equivalent concessions ?? the victim, is to recognize that violations can occur within the agreement and that they are to be taken in stride, with countermeasures proportioned to the violations...

...In a world that is not unanimous as to who was or is at fault in Korea, Indochina, Taiwan or Berlin, or in the Arab-Israeli dispute, it is too much to suppose that miscreants will be certain of, and certainly deterred by, a concentration of world opinion against them...

...the limitations imposed on them must not seem capricious...

...Just consider, for example, a limitation on the most important means of delivery of nuclear weapons...

...They have to be prepared to risk even the destruction of the arms agreement itself if this is necessary to deter its erosion or destruction by violations...

...Short of open violation there may he exploitation of loopholes that contradict the spirit of the agreement, and efforts to test its limits...

...This may occur in the participating countries either by deliberate government policy or by the overzealous efforts of military and civilian officials to meet their primary responsibilities...

...ARMS CONTROL or no arms control, the military services have to reform their functions of defense and deterrence...

...They have not been designed for the particular limitations on size, numbers and mode of deployment, or even geography and communications, of a partially disarmed world...

...it is too much to hope that the establishment of arms control will end the cold war...

...It is almost certain that important aspects of this dynamic process will be overlooked, or mistakenly forecast, at the time agreement is reached...

...and not all nations would at all times rather be respected for their virtue than for their toughness...

...The response to an alleged violation of the letter or the spirit of the agreement could also be subject to the kind of internal controversy that has arisen over our policy toward Quemoy, Cuba or Berlin...

...Perhaps arms control should be treated as a new experiment in international relations, subject to unprecedented standards of international behavior...