| ID | 130702 |
| Title Proper | Banner year for conventional arms control |
| Other Title Information | the arms trade treaty and the small arms challenge |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Meyer, Paul |
| Publication | 2014. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | THE CONTROL OF CONVENTIONAL ARMS HAS OFTEN SEEMED THE POOR COUSIN of the global efforts to control weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Since the advent of the atomic era, the focus of arms control and disarmament activity has been overwhelmingly on nuclear weapons and their lesser, if still ugly, stepsisters of biological and chemical weapons. The initial multilateral arms control agreements concerned themselves with limits on the testing of nuclear weapons and, shortly thereafter, with their nonproliferation (e.g., the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968). Bilateral US-Soviet/Russian arms control arrangements also predominantly dealt with the reduction of strategic nuclear forces and restraints on deployments of defenses against (nuclear tipped) ballistic missiles. Efforts to reduce major conventional weapon systems were also taken up in the 1980s in the context of negotiations
between the opposing alliances of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, eventually culminating in the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty) of 1989. This treaty provided for a massive reduction in the conventional forces that had confronted each other for years in Central Europe and established a new, far more stable security order on the continent. Even the CFE Treaty, however, tended to be overshadowed by other major disarmament agreements concluded in those heady post-Cold War days: the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987), Chemical Weapons Convention (1993), Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty (1996), and various US-Russian bilateral strategic nuclear arms accords of the 1990s and early 2000s (e.g., the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty). |
| `In' analytical Note | Global Governance Vol.20, No.2; April-June 2014: p.203-212 |
| Journal Source | Global Governance Vol.20, No.2; April-June 2014: p.203-212 |
| Key Words | NATO ; United States - US ; United Nations - UN ; United Kingdom - UK ; European Union - EU ; Russia ; Weapons of Mass Destruction - WMD ; Arms Control ; Conventional Forces in Europe - CFE ; Arms Control Treaty - ACT ; Cold War ; Post Cold War ; Nuclear Forces Treaty - 1987 ; Chemical Weapons Convention - 1993 ; Central Europe ; Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty - SORT ; Nuclear Proliferation Treaty - NPT ; Nuclear Weapons ; Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - CTBT 1996 ; US-Russian Bilateral ; Strategic Policy ; Nuclear Strategy - US - Russia ; Nuclear Arms Accords ; Warsaw Pact ; Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - 1968 ; International Alliance ; International Negotiation ; International Cooperation ; International Coordination ; International Organization - IO ; International Relations - IR |