Perilous onset : the decline of conventional arms control

• Main Author: Higgins, David Stephen
• Other Authors: Bowen, Wyn Quentin ; Verdirame, Guglielmo
• Published: King's College London (University of London) 2016
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.694051

Conventional arms control and associated confidence- and security-building measures (CSBM) have had a profoundly positive effect upon contemporary European, Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security through the massive reductions and extensive limitations they have attained in conventional military armaments, equipment, personnel and activities. These reductions and limitations have been realised through the successful implementation of multilateral regulating regimes, which has been predicated upon the conformism required to ensure their fundamental viability. While the concept of conventional arms control has remained essentially sound, the principal regimes -- the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, the Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures, and the Treaty on Open Skies -- have become increasingly impeded and degraded by widespread non-fulfilment of their binding provisions. With mitigating efforts focused largely upon modalities rather than practical oversight and execution, these regimes have continued to degrade, placing international security at ever-increasing risk. This thesis contends that, while clearly affected by inexorable geopolitical and geostrategic factors, the decline of conventional arms control regimes can be further attributed to functional breakdowns in their elemental operating constructs. This contention has been validated through a contextual examination of the concept, model and evolution of conventional arms control and CSBM, together with empirical case study analysis of the three regimes, in response to the following questions: • Why has there been a decline in conventional arms control? • What are the implications? • What are the prospects of rehabilitation and revival? The thesis concludes that efforts to restore conventional arms control must necessarily include those specifically aimed at rectifying regime model dysfunction. This begins with the re-establishment of the fundamental oversight required to surmount operative disaccord and apathy, thereby ensuring greater uniformity in fulfilling extant normative provisions. This may, in turn, provide a more viable operating basis upon which to enable recovery and improvement.