Arms and Diplomacy

摘要

The withdrawal of the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in 2019 threatens the collapse of the entire nuclear weapons control system created over the past 50 years. This may lead to an uncontrolled multilateral arms race. This dangerous turn of events is assessed differently by politicians and experts. One of the growing trends of thought postulates that the bipolar world of the Cold War times has given way to multipolarity, and therefore bilateral limitation of nuclear weapons is no longer possible. This premise is complemented by the hypothesis that the latest weapons and military technologies cannot be limited by the old methods of negotiations and agreements, which therefore should also be abolished. It is proposed to focus on the organization of various multilateral forums to create an enabling environment for strengthening nuclear deterrence, transparency, and predictability. However, scientific analysis shows that both of these premises are unfounded. First, despite deep reductions in nuclear weapons over the past 30 years, the share of the two leading powers in the global arsenal of such weapons has barely decreased, and the nuclear landscape remains largely bilateral. Second, the revolutionizing impact of advances in military technology is not new but a common occurrence that has recurred regularly throughout history. The experience of the past five decades has convincingly demonstrated that arms control can be successfully implemented if there is political will at the highest state level to reach agreements on the limitation and reduction of nuclear weapons.