The Arms Race and the Banning of Nuclear Tests

Abstract

In the course of recent discussions on a ban of nuclear tests, the great powers have come closer to agreement than they have been on any major issue since the ending of the Indo-China war in 1954. Three factors have operated to bring them together. The breakdown of the United Nations disarmament negotiations in 1957, while leaving the parties free to continue the arms race, left them also with the desire to find some token item on which they could agree. The continued build-up of the nuclear arsenals of both sides, and the successful conclusion of new test series in 1958, meant that each side felt itself nearer to that stage of nuclear satiety at which the military gains of further testing began to decline. And the mounting pressure of opinion in western and neutral countries against the tests, mainly on grounds of their medical effects, meant that from both a domestic and a cold war point of view, the political advantages of an ending of tests began to outweigh its militarydisadvantages. What beneficial effects are likely to flow from such a ban, and what obstacles remain in the way of agreement upon it?

From Political Quarterly, vol.30, no.4, October–December 1959, pp.344–56.