The Political Side of “Disarmament”

Date01 June 1967
Published date01 June 1967
DOI10.1177/002070206702200209
Subject MatterReview Article
Review
Articles
Franklyn
Griffiths,
University
of
Toronto
The
Political
Side
of
"Disarmament"
In
approaching
the
problem
of
disarmament
and,
more
recently
arms
control,
governments
and writers
in
the
West
have
been
concerned
more with
the
discovery
of
ways
to achieve
specific
arms
arrangements,
than
with
the
question
of
how
the
political
will
necessary
for
such
arrangements
is
created
among
actual
and
potential adversaries.
Though
there
is
little
shortage
of
reasonably
practicable
proposals
for
the
governments
to
act
upon,
insufficient
account
is
taken
of
the
fact
that
governments,
singly
and
together,
do
not
act
on
the
basis
of
ideas
alone.
Under
the
prevailing
conceptions
of
disarmament
and weapons
management,
the
discussion
of
arms
problems
has
to
a
great
extent
been
divorced
from
international
and
domestic
political
realities.
Ad-
mittedly
the
appearance
in
the
United
States
of
the
theory
of
tacit
bargaining
and
of
the
more
analytical
notions
of
arms
control
does
mark
definite
progress
in
conceptualisation
as
well as
in
the
policy
realm.
Yet
it
remains
that
the
Western approach
to
disarmament
and
arms
control
has
been
almost
entirely
unaffected
by
methods
of
political
analysis
that
have
become
available
since
the
last
century
To
use
David
Easton's
term,
there
is
at
most
a
"reformative"
political
theory
of
disarmament
and
arms
control
in
the
West.
It
con-
sists,
first,
of
certain
value preferences,
such
as
"peace"
the
prevention
of
thermonuclear
war,
"stabilisation
of
the
international
military
en-
vironment"
reduction
of
military
spending, enhanced
well-being
of
the
nations, the
creation
of
an
international
setting
conducive
to
progressive
domestic politics.
Secondly
it
consists
of
a
series
of
assumptions
about
the
nature
of
international
relations. Third,
there
is
a
further
set
of
assumptions
and
beliefs
concerning
appropriate
ways
of
realising
the
value
preferences
in
the
international
context.
An
explicit causal
theory
of
international
relations
is
missing.
So
also
are
the
corresponding
hypotheses
upon
which
political
action
for
international
change
should
depend.
For
a
variety
of
reasons
a
theoretical
perspective
on
arms
prob-
lems
has
been
suppressed,
and
instead
we
have
an
extended
series
of
assumptions
or
at
most
an
"argument"
to
the
effect
that
formal
and
informal inter-state
negotiations
for disarmament
and
arms
control
are
the
optimum means
of
achieving enhanced
security
and
well-being.
These
assumptions
undoubtedly
possess
a
certain
relevance.
More
to
the
point, though,
they
also
constitute a
veil
which
distorts
our
percep-
tion
of
arms
problems
and
screens out
data
relevant
to
their
solution.
Some
of
these assumptions
have
been
questioned
by
writers
in
different
contexts,
but they have
yet
to
be
examined
together
as
they
bear
on
our
approach
to
international
arms
bargaining.

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