For many, it is both a comfort and a hope that world history develops cyclically. Every major war is followed by attempts to create a better world order. The First World War was followed by the League of Nations and a very extensive disarmament – except in Germany and Japan.
The end of the Second World War was preceded by deliberations among some of the future victorious powers on how the international system should be organized under their leadership. Initially, it was not about disarmament; the US tried to maintain a monopoly on nuclear technology for as long as possible but was soon forced to share it first with the Soviet Union and then also with France, the UK, and China. When this happened, the victorious powers were no longer in coalition but built a new bipolar system based on massive retaliation. An enormous buildup at the conventional level was also carried out, centered in Europe where a significant Soviet conventional superiority was established.
During the sixties and continuing through the seventies, eighties, and nineties, arms control talks began even at the conventional level, from the 70s within the framework of limited arms control talks in Europe (MBFR). Eventually, these transitioned within the framework of the CSCE, later the OSCE, to confidence- and security-building measures and disarmament agreements, resulting in the CFE Treaty.
When the détente after the Cold War, symbolized by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, occurred, it instead led to a massive unilateral disarmament in Europe, which included a significant American withdrawal of a large number of tactical nuclear weapons. The premises for how this disarmament process should be stabilized were not discussed in a thoughtful manner; each country implemented the measures it deemed necessary, not least considering the economic crisis that hit countries like Sweden in the early nineties.
Eventually, new challenges arose in the Balkans and outside Europe. The possibility of handling these challenges through expeditionary forces led to long discussions about the division of labor between the UN, NATO, the OSCE, and the EU. No clear solution was ever achieved, and a significant part of the truly significant operations were in reality carried out by the US in informal coalitions with other countries. These expeditionary forces often failed due to insufficient analysis, perhaps insufficient knowledge, and incorrect premises for how to create long-term peace.
Meanwhile, Russia began to reorganize itself, first as a partner to both NATO and the EU, and to the US for a short time also with a focus on terrorism after the attacks on September 11, 2001. But it did not take long, just a few years into the 2000s, before the analysis of Russian intentions began to change on the Western side. In states like Sweden, it was assumed that there would be a ten-year warning, but this proved to be incorrect. Putin’s speech in Munich in 2007 then led to intervention in Georgia already in 2008 and a first annexation of a significant part of Ukraine in 2014.
Gradually, the Western side began to respond to this, but no more resolute measures were taken until after the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022. By then, the Western side was hopelessly behind but could still transfer substantial support to Ukraine, which allowed Kyiv to withstand the first two years of warfare. However, this support severely depleted the military stockpiles on the Western side, and there were no easy solutions for how this could be replaced in a market economy. On the Russian side, it was easier as they could command production by reintroducing some of the non-market conditions that previously applied to the Soviet arms industry.
As this is written, disarmament is a very distant theme that is not discussed at all in established circles, neither in NATO, the EU, Russia, nor China. China has also very clearly rejected attempts to create conditions for arms control negotiations at a global level as it first wants to catch up with the lead it believes the US and Russia have in the nuclear weapons field.
But the hope is, of course, that even after this phase in world history, a new era will eventually come, where there will be consensus that the international system must be restored. Several major countries in the world economy have a significant need for some form of security, not least on the world’s oceans, to secure international trade. This includes China, which, considering climate change, hopes to conduct new trade via the Arctic to Europe, making Gothenburg suddenly the first port it reaches rather than the last.
In reality, therefore, the study all arms control within a reconstructed international system cannot await new conditions to be established. If one waits too long a new series of mistakes will no doubt be made due to insufficient preparatory research. To start with significant efforts are now underway to enhance nuclear IQ in NATO. The earlier generations familiar with Thomas Schelling and other major scholars in the field of game theory, etc. are no longer in active service.
Lars-Erik Lundin