Unilateral Initiatives and Reciprocal Responses for Arms Control and Disarmament

Abstract

It has become customary in official circles to assume that progress in arms control and disarmament can only be obtained by careful negotiation and eventual signing of formal treaties. Almost all of those who accept this would also agree that the negotiating process has been frustratingly difficult and slow. Pessimists would go further, and argue that after very littile negotiation and essentially no progress towards agreements during the past six years, progress through negotiation may have reached a dead end. And even those who remain optimistic that major arms control agreements will eventually be reached would agree that the path of negotiation will continue to be slow and difficult. A gloomy prognosis indeed.