Tensions, Political Settlement and Disarmament

Abstract

In examining the present pattern of bipolar hostility in search of a possible avenue of escape from its ominous paradox, one is insistently confronted with the armaments-tension phenomenon. That there is some sort of reciprocity between national military capabilities and international tensions would be difficult to refute, but the problem of illuminating this reciprocal relationship has proven consistently elusive. Positing the desirability of breaking out of this circle, the natural question to arise is the old chestnut ‘which comes first?’