Disarmament

Have you seen a picture of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion? It brings a gamut of emotions: fear, worry, awe, and wonder. The nuclear weapon has awesome power and, without mincing words, has the capability to destroy mankind. Many want these weapons reduced or removed altogether, and this sentiment is not a new one. The call for disarmament, or a general reduction of weapons and stockpiles, has always been an issue in world affairs. The United Nations has had conferences and treaties to pursue a reduction in such weapons.

Disarmament is the process of reducing or eliminating military forces and weapons through cooperation, treaties, and oversight. Learn about disarmament in this lesson, and take a quiz at the end. Disarmament means the reduction of arms and weapons through international treaties and agreements signed in between two or more  states. It’s an attempt to eliminate or radically reduce armaments. It can be distinguished from the concept of arms control, which entails restraint but not necessarily reduction in the number and kinds of weapons available to states. Most disarmament proposals are based on the assumption that weapons are an important source of conflict in themselves.

Definition and Considerations

Disarmament is not something that can be easily defined in a few words. In truth, there are four key parts to it:

1. Reduction in quantity of military items
2. Formal meeting and treaty to achieve
3. Emphasis on weapons and tools
4. Body or group overseeing the process

These four parts lead to a detailed definition, and a detailed plan of action as well. Disarmament is usually focused on weapons, but can include other areas, such as tools and technologies.
The United Nations (U.N.) has been a mediator in arms reduction since the 1960s. They pass resolutions (formal statements of their position), have special committees focused solely on negotiating for disarmament, and have special units that oversee and help with the process.
Ultimately, the main purpose of disarmament is world peace and the survival of mankind. It is a concept that has existed for more than 100 years in the modern world. With each passing conflict, the weapons and tools marked for reduction have evolved. For example, the big weapon in World War I was mustard gas, a biological weapon that saw a post-war call for reductions. In the Cold War, nuclear weapons took center stage.

History of Disarmament:                                

Historically, disarmament has taken place in two contrasting ways. First, after a war, disarmament has often been imposed on the defeated state by the victor. For example, in 1919 the Treaty of Versailles limited the German army to 100,000 troops, thereby effectively eliminating an army that could be capable of offensive activity. A similar restriction was placed on Germany and Japan after the Second World War. But still the victors have been unable to remain united and unwilling to act together to enforce these prohibitions. Nazi Germany established training area sand munitions factories in the Soviet Union after the First World War without suffering any penalties, and as the cold war intensified after 1945, a primary concern of US foreign policy became rebuilding the military might of Japan and West Germany. The other type of disarmament is voluntary disarmament, in which states seek to negotiate a mutually acceptable framework within which all parties will reduce the size of their military establishments.

Types of disarmament:

While the ultimate logic of disarmament points to the total elimination of all weapons, the main types of disarmament plans can be identified.

A first type of disarmament is General and Complete Disarmament (GCD), which seeks the total elimination of all weapons. If this ever happened, the fundamental nature of international relations would be radically transformed.

A second form of disarmament is regional disarmament. It seeks to reduce or to eliminate weapons from a particular geographic area. Over the last five decades regional disarmament plans have frequently taken the form of proposals for nuclear-free zones. A major barrier to the successful negotiation of such agreements is that,once a state in a region has acquired nuclear weapons, it is difficult to prevent others from doing likewise. This was the main problem that ultimately prevented the implementation of the often proposed South Asian Nuclear-Free Zone. Today, both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons, and the proposal looks very unlikely to be implemented in the foreseeable future. However, the history of regional disarmament is not all hopeless. Four main regional agreements remain in effect.

1. In 1967 the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, also known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco, was signed. This treaty prohibits the testing, possession, and deployment of nuclear weapons in the region.
2. Similarly,the 1959 Antarctic Treaty bans the use of Antarctica for military purposes, including nuclear testing.
3. In 1967 an Outer Space Treaty prohibited states from placing nuclear weapons in earth orbit or stationing them in outer space.
4. In 1971 a treaty was signed banning states from placing nuclear weapons on the seabed known as Seabed Treaty.

While the existence of such treaties may provide supporters of disarmament with some hope that they can be extended, it should be pointed out that treaties such as those just mentioned are not strictly about disarmament.Rather, they represent agreements by states not to develop weapons that they were not planning to build in the first place and  not to deploy weapons in areas that are of peripheral strategic value. Were these conditions ever to change, it is unlikely that the mere existence of such treaties would deter states from breaking them.

Conferences and Treaties

There have been many international conferences that have attempted disarmament among the nations of the world. Often, the meetings have ended in some sort of treaty or agreement. Such agreements sought to end the use of a certain weapon and create an enforcement body. Here are some examples:

• International Peace Conference (Hague Convention) 1899: outlined rules of war and prohibited the use of balloon-dropped weapons, poison gas, and specific ammunition
• London Naval Conferences of 1908-1909, 1930, and 1935: listed military items that could not be shipped on open seas, created regulations for confiscating them, and created and modified restrictions on the size of naval vessels
• Washington Naval Conference (1921-1922) and Geneva Naval Conference (1927): created ratios for naval power based on a country's size and international presence; some countries had to scrap entire ships
• World Disarmament Conference (1932-1934): Attempting to avoid another WWI, it sought to reduce offensive attack weapons (versus those for defense) and create an international police unit to enforce disarmament. However, Adolf Hitler rose to power during the conference and all attention was turned to Germany's aggression.
• Baruch Plan and Gromyko Plan (1946): competing U.S. and Soviet Union plans to reduce and eliminate atomic weapons and create a control system for future weapons; both plans failed
• Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (1963): restricted where nuclear weapons could be tested and strategically placed