TODAY’S FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES 12
• Should not include measures such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,
which the GOP believes limits the ability of the U.S. to ensure the safety
and effectiveness of its nuclear stockpile; and
• Should consider a reduction in nuclear stockpiles only if other conces-
sions, such as the abandonment of U.S. ballistic missile defenses, are not
part of the negotiations.
Overview
The pursuit of arms control and disarmament as a part of U.S. foreign policy dates
back as far as 1817 when the United States and Great Britain agreed to demilita-
rize the Great Lakes as part of the Rush–Bagot Pact and Convention (“Rush–Bagot
Pact,” U.S. Department of State 2016). In the late 19th and early 20th century, the
United States became a party to parts of the Hague Conventions on war and armed
conflict. Notably, the United States did not become a party to the portion of the
Hague Conventions prohibiting the use in war of “asphyxiating gases” (the term
used in that era for chemical weapons).
In order for a treaty to become binding on the United States, the treaty or con-
vention must be both signed (by the president or the president’s designate) and
ratified. Ratification requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate on a resolution of
ratification. The United States did agree to a ban on the use of asphyxiating gases as
part of its ratification of the 1925 Geneva Protocol. After World War I, the United
States became involved in arms control efforts related to conventional armaments.
Conventional arms are weapons that are widely used in armed conflict and are not
weapons of mass destruction, as defined above. The Five Power Treaty between
the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Japan, which limited
naval ships by tonnage, is an example of such an effort (Office of the Historian,
“The Washington Naval Conference,” 2016). Ultimately, efforts to circumvent the
treaty and increases in armaments before World War II derailed what had origi-
nally been successful negotiations. From that point onward, with the partial excep-
tion of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty of 1990, most U.S. arms control
and disarmament efforts focused on weapons of mass destruction. World War II, as
well as the emerging Cold War, made conventional arms control, and, for a time,
arms control in the realm of weapons of mass destruction, exceedingly difficult.
When the United Nations Charter was adopted in June 1945, it reflected some of
this thinking. Both Article 11 and Article 47 of the Charter, written with heavy
U.S. influence, differentiate between the regulation of armaments, which today
is referred to as arms control, and disarmament, which relates to the elimination
of armaments (Charter of the United Nations 1945). The General Assembly of
the United Nations quickly clarified that the goal with regard to weapons of mass
destruction would be disarmament, while the goal related to conventional weap-
ons would be arms control (Duarte 2011).
