Arms Control and Disarmament

I

Introduction

Arms Control and Disarmament, attempts through treaty, proclamation, convention, and tacit agreement to limit the incidence and destructiveness of warfare by controlling the acquisition and use of weapons and military technology. The more traditional term “disarmament” usually refers to limits on the numbers or lethality of weapons. Disarmament may be by tacit or explicit agreement or may be imposed unilaterally on nations, as it was on Carthage by Rome and on Germany by the Allies after both World Wars. “Arms control”, a term invented only in the 1950s, embraces efforts to curb the frequency or destructiveness of war by means which may include, but are not limited to, reductions in armaments; it can involve, for example, such “confidence building” measures as mutual inspections or hotlines for communication in crisis, or a preference for weapons that do not conduce to surprise attack.

II

History

Historically, war appears as a constant feature of human affairs. In three millennia of recorded history, less than 300 years have been free from armed conflict; yet people have always recognized the wasteful, brutal, and inhumane aspects of warfare and have continually attempted to limit its devastation and the spread of increasingly destructive weapons.

One of the earliest formal attempts to limit the scope of war was organized by the Amphictyonic League, a quasi-religious alliance of most of the Greek tribes, formed before the 7th century bc. League members were pledged to restrain their actions in war against other members; thus, for example, they were barred from cutting a besieged city’s water supply. The league was empowered to impose sanctions on violating members, including fines and punitive expeditions, and could require its members to provide troops and funds for this purpose. An early example of an imposed disarmament treaty was the Rome-Carthage Treaty of Peace (202 BC), which ended the Second Punic War; it required the destruction of all but ten Carthaginian warships, and limited the possession of armaments in general. It also banned Carthage’s training and possession of war-fighting elephants.

A

The Middle Ages

Because arms technology remained nearly static from the 3rd century bc to the Middle Ages, few attempts were made to control innovation or the spread of new weapons. In feudal societies, such as those of medieval Europe or Japan, laws and customs developed to keep weapons a monopoly of the military classes and to suppress arms that might democratize warfare. These customs tended to disappear as soon as some power saw a decisive advantage in the use of a new weapon.

In medieval Europe the Roman Catholic Church attempted to use its power as a supranational organization to limit both new weapons and the intensity of warfare. The Peace of God, later the Truce of God, instituted in 990, protected Church-owned property, defenceless non-combatants, and the agrarian base of the economy from the ravages of war. In 1139 the Second Lateran Council prohibited the use of the crossbow against Christians, although not against those the Church considered infidels.

B

Early Modern Period

Firearms widened the scope of war and increased the potential for violence, culminating in the devastation of central Europe in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). Widespread revulsion against the horrors of that conflict led to attempts in many countries to lessen the brutality of warfare by limiting combat to recognized armed forces, by formulating conventions for the humane treatment of prisoners and the wounded, and by organizing logistics to end supply by pillage. These rules prevailed throughout the 18th century, making war a relatively limited and civilized “game of kings”.

Many Utopian plans for the total abolition of war were also formulated during this period by such men as French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles Castel, Abbé de St Pierre. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, cynically but realistically commented that all these plans needed to succeed was the cooperation of all the kings of Europe.

The rise of mass armies during the American War of Independence (1775-1783) and Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) again enlarged the size and devastation of war; yet throughout that period no attempts were made to reduce or limit national arsenals other than those imposed by the victors upon the defeated. The one exception was the Rush-Bagot Treaty (1817), under which the United Kingdom and the United States reduced, equalized, and eventually eliminated their naval and other forces on the Great Lakes and the US-Canadian border. This reflected the discovery by the two nations during the War of 1812 that the vulnerability of the American coast to the Royal Navy was balanced by the openness of Canada to American invasion.