Disarmament
What has been agreed to, what has not, and does it matter?
What is a Disarmament Treaty?
For the purposes of this essay, we will define a Disarmament Treaty as one that seeks to ban the use of a type of weapon, the use of a weapon, or bans all weapons for one or more countries. I know definition is rather vague and large, but most Disarmament Treaties are created to reduce or limit the use of armed conflict going forward.
To illustrate we can use the example most of us know, disarmament of nuclear weapons. The first treaties were about stopping other countries from getting nuclear weapons. It traded peaceful nuclear support for countries investigations and production of nuclear weapons. Later treaties outlawed types of weapons and testing of them.
So, the term disarmament applies to many of the ways to end war or end the use of a singularly evil weapon. It is also used as a rallying call for world disarmament and world peace, but these calls for total peace are never implemented.
Early disarmament attempts
There have been talks to prevent wars for almost as long as there have been wars.
One of the first disarmament treaties was the Strasbourg Agreement of 1675. It outlawed the use of poisoned bullets. France and the Holy Roman Empire agreed to ban the use of poison bullets created with arsenic and sulfur packed shells. These devices were mainly used as projectiles against ships and were invented by Leonardo de Vinci.
This treaty seemed to be effective for the two powers involved and future conflicts.
Key Historical Treaties
Serious and world-wide disarmament negotiations occurred in the 20th century. There are two major reasons for this. First, the communications infrastructure was in place. Telegraphs for reporting status and gaining approval from a home country was now possible. Contrast that with the delay in communication during the US Revolution. Getting messages to England took anywhere4 from 6 to 12 weeks. Second, warfare became crueler. Before the 1900s war was mainly carried out by troops with rifles or swords and key soldiers on horseback. But starting in the 1900s war changed to include things like tanks, shelling from long distance, chemical weapons, and air attacks.
These extraordinarily devilish weapons left people wounded and maimed. Advances in medicine saved more and more soldiers but left gapping wounds that the home populace was stunned to see. The disarmament movement was built after introduction of these changes.
Washington Navel Conference, 1921 – 22
After World War I, five of the great powers attempted to regulate naval forces, which were critical at the time. After a lot of negotiation, a treaty was hammered out letting the UK and the US 500,000 tons of warship tonnage, Japan 300,00 and France and Italy 175,000. This was based on the UK and US having a two-ocean navy, and Japan being positioned in the much larger Pacific Ocean. It omitted some classes of ships, leading to an explosion of building of cruisers which were not counted.
Geneva Protocol 1925 - Chemical Weapons after WWI
Chemical Weapons were used extensively in World War I, mainly poison gases. In 1925 – after years of public outrage – the Geneva Protocol outlawed the use of Chemical Weapons. Millions of soldiers from all sides were left with scars, missing limbs, a variety of chemical illnesses, and what we now call PTSD.
It was not a complete prohibition in that it didn’t outlaw the development or production of chemical weapons, and the signatories were not bound if they were used by a non-signatory, but it was a start and mainly followed in World War II.
Both of these treaties were negotiated after World War I. World War I was one of the first mechanized wars using technology, including chemical weapons. World War I also broke out in the era of communications. Previously unknown and unremarked warfare methods were now broadcast on radio and newspapers. The reality of war shocked people. And the reality of war continued long after the end of that war..
This led to a very popular movement to disarm countries, or least ban certain weapons.
The Lessons from Nazi Germany.
After World War I, the Versailles Treaty and the Locarno Treaties established some particularly onerous requirements on Germany. In addition to reparations, it limited the military of Germany. In the years after, these treaties were understood to be overly punitive, and inserted at the insistence of France signatories at the time. The treaties were one of the reasons that the Weimar Republic fell to the Nazi Regime. The Nazi’s violated the treaties little by little with almost no consequences.
Germany almost immediately worked on outlawed actions include officer development, weapons development and testing and air warfare inside the Soviet Union.
The impunity that the treaties were breached has only reinforced to the assumption by United States, China and Russia that other countries will ignore treaties when it doesn’t serve their interests.
In 1936, German military moved back into the Rhineland which had been agreed to be demilitarized. The original Versailles treaty limited Germany to vessels under 10,000 tons, violated early and renegotiated with Britain. In 1935 Nazi Germany signed a new treaty limiting the size of the German Navy to 35% of the total tonnage of the UK. Germany abrogated the treaty in 1939.
The original Versailles treaty allowed Germany no air force. In 1935 the Luftwaffe was establish.
The Original Versailles treaty limited the German Army to 100,00 troops. This was broken in 1932 – 33 by the new Nazi regime.
These blatant transgressions changed how treaties were followed AND abused. Now key treaties include international or binational inspections to ensure a treaty is being followed
New and (sometimes) Successful Treaties
New and (sometimes) Successful Treaties
Biological Weapons
The first treaty to outlaw and entire type of weapons was the Biological Weapons Treaty - officially Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. Which is a mouthful.
Biological weapons and chemical weapons were originally regulated together. But better science made it necessary to spilt the two for treaty purposes. Biological weapons are harder to understand but we know have, unfortunately, an example that is recent, Covid 19.
I am NOT saying Covid 19 was created, but the trajectory of Covid 19 is a great example of a biological agent. Let us pretend that Covid 19 was created in a lab instead of an accidental cross species contamination. The process to create a Covid 19 type infection would be to take a current disease, like SARS, and modify it so that is very east to spread and much harder to cure.
If they were used on a battlefield, biological weapons have the capacity to spread from the combatants to the general populace. If used as a terrorist weapons or secretly by a country, a bio weapon would easily cause panic and doubt in the current government that cannot contain it. Because there was no “cure” in place already in China, I don’t think Covid was artificially created. If a country is going to use of test a biological weapon, my assumption would be that they have created a cure for the disease as well as the weapon.
Biological targeting with new DNA splicing abilities would allow for creation of bio weapons that could be used on a targeted population, like women or Black men. This makes the use of them even more frightening.
Chemical Weapons
Chemical Weapons Convention in 1992 outlawed the use of chemical weapons as well as the production, acquisition, and transfer of technology related to chemical weapons. The treaty also created a process to destroy existing chemical weapons.
It has been mainly successful. It is definitely successful so far concerning use and stockpiling of weapons. However, there is general agreement that China, Russia, and the United States are still actively investigating chemical weapons under the guise of proactive defense in case of the use of them by another actor.
Environmental Modification Convention
The Environmental Modification Treaty ENMOD, was a response to the use of the herbicides like Agent Orange. Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant. It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. It was used without understanding (or without caring) about the effects on people. It was deadly on people.
The government of Vietnam says that up to four million people in Vietnam were exposed to the defoliant, and as many as three million people have suffered illness because of Agent Orange, while the Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that up to one million people were disabled or have health problems as a result of exposure to Agent Orange. The United States government has described these figures as unreliable, while documenting cases of leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, and various kinds of cancer in exposed U.S. military veterans.
New, but not supported by the Unite States
The United States has been an outlier in agreeing to disarmament treaties. The United States has refused to sign many of the abolition treaties for certain types of weapons. There are 2 reasons.
1. Signing a treaty does not mean that other nations will honor their commitments. This lesson was learned early on when other disarmament treaties provided false comfort and were breached. The United States is unwilling to sign treaties that do not have verification processes built in. For example, Russia has used land mines extensively in Ukraine.
2. An unstated reason is that the United States is often involved in movements to support “freedom” with other countries and has many commitments for defense of different nations. Since the defense of some countries falls to the US officially or unofficially, the United States desires the ability to use any appropriate capability in specific regions.
Landmines
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction of 1997, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or often simply the Land Mine Treaty or the Ottawa Treaty, aims at eliminating anti-personnel landmines (APLs) around the world.
By August 2022, 164 states had ratified or acceded to the treaty. Major powers, which are also past and current manufacturers of landmines, are not parties to the treaty. These include the United States, China, and Russia. Other non-signatories include India and Pakistan.
The US helped to write and designed the the Land Mine Band, but the Pentagon was concerned that they may have to use land mines - specifically on the Korean Penisula.
Cluster Bombs
The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) is an international treaty that prohibits all use, transfer, production, and stockpiling of cluster munitions, a type of explosive weapon which scatters submunitions ("bomblets") over an area. Additionally, the convention establishes a framework to support victim assistance, clearance of contaminated sites, risk reduction education, and stockpile destruction. The convention was adopted on 30 May 2008 and was opened for signature on 3 December 2008 in Oslo. It entered into force on 1 August 2010, six months after it was ratified by 30 states. As of April 2023, a total of 123 states are committed to the goal of the convention, with 111 states that have ratified it, and 12 states that have signed the convention but not yet ratified it.
The US seemed to be on the path to signing the CCM by President Obama, but again the US Military raised objections. The Department of Defense says that cluster munitions provide “a vital military capability,” but U.S. forces have not used them since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with the exception of a single attack on Yemen in 2009. The last U.S. production of cluster munitions was in 2016.
But, within the last 6 months, the United States has provided cluster bombs to Ukraine, over the objections of out allies.
Non-Proliferation Treaty
Entered force in 1970, the Non-Proliferation Treaty was passed with dual purposes. The NPT non-nuclear-weapon states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons and in exchange the NPT nuclear-weapon states agreed to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament aimed at the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
This treaty worked to leverage the desires of nations to avoid a costly buildup of nuclear weapons by providing the carrot of nuclear power support if a country did not pursue weapons.
The treaty has worked well in stopping general nuclear weapons from spreading around the globe. However, for some nations it was seen as unworkable. Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea all never signed the treaty or withdrew. Each of these countries have developed nuclear weapons as a safeguard against perceived threats to the government. Other signatories have been accused of trying to violate the treaty by stealth; these nations include Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya.
Four countries voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons. Three of the ex-Soviet states, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus all inherited nuclear weapons from the disillusion of the USSR. All three agreed to give up their weapons for guarantees that they would not be attacked by Russia. These guarantees were provided by Russia, USA, and UK. The agreements and guarantees have proven hollow in Ukraine. Which is just another justification of why disarmament treaties do not work. If Ukraine had kept their nuclear weapons, the cost of going to war might have been too steep for Russia.
The fourth country which gave up nuclear weapons was the apartheid regime of South Africa. South Africa had nuclear weapons and gave them up in 1989. The reason for admitted and abandoning their weapons program was never officially given. The old apartheid regime intimated that this occurred as South Africa no longer feared an African spread of communism. Many experts think that the apartheid regime wanted to dismantle the weapons before power sharing with the non-white population.
Nuclear Testing Treaties
The NPT was built on the first effective treaty on nuclear weapons. The treaty on nuclear weapons testing and development was signed in 1963 by the US and the USSR. It outlawed nuclear testing anywhere except underground. It also pledge that they would work towards complete disarmament – which has never been seriously contemplated due to distrust.
In 1996 the US / USSR treaty was replaced with a UN sponsored Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty with 69 more signatories. This ban also outlawed underground testing.
Nuclear Weapons limitation treaties
SALT I – Strategic Arms Limitation Talks / Treaty. This was the first time limits on arsenals were agreed to. In 1972 the talks were successful in limiting the number of strategic missiles and in limiting anti-ballistic missile defenses (ABM Treaty). It was believed a robust defensive system against nuclear missiles might make a first strike mor successful.
SALT II – A basic framework was agreed to in 1974 (however not ratified by US Congress) to limit the number of multiple warhead missiles allows.
START I – the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed in 1991 and required the two nations to limit weapons to only 1600 delivery vehicles and a total of 6,000 warheads.
START II was negotiation and limited each country to 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. It also allowed sweeping on-site inspections.
Most agreements signed by the USSR were honored by Russia after the fall of communism, but new agreements have been nearly impossible to reach.
NEW- START was signed in 2010 (and scheduled to expire in 2026). It solidified the numbers agreed to in START II. Additionally it added some a very strong inspection regime. This is the last of the bilateral treaties between the US and Russia / USSR which is still in effect.
The on-going nuclear talks between the US and Russia were cancelled after the Russia – Ukraine war started in 2022.
Future of Disarmament
The recent history of disarmament attempts is not promising. Treaties have been breached when it benefits one side of a possible conflict. The only type of treaty that I can see is probably a continuation of some US / Russian nuclear treaty. But this is now much more complicated as China builds more weapons and completes a nuclear triad (the ability to launch weapons via 3 different delivery systems). A three way treaty is nearly impossible to develop when each side has different desired outcomes.
Even looking at Climate Treaties does not give one hope for future disarmament treaties. The treaties in place do not threaten anyone militarily and still are not followed. If a treaty doesn’t benefit a player, the treaty will either not be signed or not be honored.
I think the next area ripe for talks will be the use of Artificial Intelligence proactively in warfare.