I do not know whether our present arms control treaties are effective or what it would take to make them effective. The editors of the Washington Post are convinced that they’re effective and essential:
ARMS CONTROL treaties are only as good as the willpower of the countries that sign them. Binding, verifiable agreements help reduce dangers but only when the signatories adhere to them. What’s happening now is a crisis of confidence that is causing the old arms control system to break down. There’s plenty of blame to spread around, including Russia and the United States.
The latest example is President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Open Skies treaty, a modest confidence-building agreement signed in 1992 that went into force in 2002. With 34 signatory nations, it has proved a useful pact, allowing signatories to carry out short-notice, unarmed overflights of other countries with airplanes using sensors that detect and record military activity on the ground. The images aren’t as detailed as U.S. satellites can obtain, but benefit allies that lack the satellites.
This claim caught my attention:
Treaty signatories Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden said the pact remains “functioning and useful.â€
Ahem. Consider this sorry reckoning. Not one country in that list spends more than 1.3% of GDP (the suggested amount for NATO members is 2%) and several spend a lot less. The only country in that list capable of projecting force beyond its own borders is France. In other that’s a list of free riders, dependent on U. S. military spending for their own defense. Of course they want to maintain the treaty. There’s no downside risk for their doing so. We bear all of the risk.
Do you know what would make the U. S. safer? We could stop bombing European capitols without UN Security Council authorization as we are treaty-bound to do. We could stop extending NATO membership into Russia’s near abroad, something we said we would not do. We could stop exploiting UN Security Council authorizations to overthrow other countries’ legitimate governments. We could stop overthrowing other countries’ legitimate governments without UNSC authorization.
Some version of the Golden Rule is a cultural universal, frequently in the negative form (“Do not do unto others…”). We could try that. For example, if we don’t want other countries to interfere in our elections we might consider not interfering in theirs.
I would put the editorial’s opening sentence slightly differently. Arms control treaties only remain relevant as long as they’re in the interests of the major signatories. Is the Open Skies treaty in Russia’s interest? Ours? How about the North Atlantic Treaty? If it’s still relevant to its members (see above) why are so many of them not holding up their end of the deal?
