Evolution of Arms Control

From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age

Häftad, Engelska, 2013

Av Richard Dean Burns

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Drawing on his knowledge of the comparative history of warfare and arms control across preliterate, ancient, medieval, and modern polities, Richard Dean Burns focuses longitudinally on such perennial arms control issues as negotiation, verification, and compliance. Although he does not, for example, allege that war elephants and nuclear weapons are of equal destructive potential, he does discern instructive similarities between Carthage in 202 BCE and Iraq in 1991 AD. Arms control and disarmament measures have been pursued and adopted throughout the history and prehistory of human warfare: sometimes as protocols recognizing evolving humanitarian taboos; sometimes as terms imposed by the victors on the vanquished; and sometimes as accords negotiated between rivals fearful of mutual destruction. Arms control measures ramped up in significance and urgency at the dawn of the 20th century by the introduction of rapid-fire weapons, aircraft, chemical agents, and submarines, and again at mid-century with the advent of weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological—with sophisticated delivery systems. As Burns makes clear, the enormous increase in destructive potential brought about by thermonuclear weaponry essentially changed the nature of war and, therefore, of arms control.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2013-06-06
Mått151 x 227 x 21 mm
Vikt390 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieWeapons of Mass Destruction and Emerging Technologies
Antal sidor264
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781442223790

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PrefaceIntroductionPart I. Means and Techniques: A Historical Typology1. Arms Limitations and/or Reductions2. Demilitarization, Denuclearization, and Neutralization3. Regulating Use/Outlawing Weapons and War4. Customs and the Law of War6. Stabilizing the International EnvironmentPart II. Comments on Arms Control Processes: Negotiations, Verification, and Compliance7. Arms Control Negotiations8. The Verification Process9. Compliance and Noncompliance10. Reflections –On Nuclear Weaponry: The Cold War and AfterAppendix (Chronological listing of treaties and agreements)NotesGlossaryEssential ResourcesIndex

This is a concise, comprehensive, and scholarly work. Burns (emer., history, California State Univ., Los Angeles) traces arms control efforts back to the Punic Wars, and in some cases beyond. The most common types of efforts have been imposed on the vanquished by the victors. However, the Treaty of Versailles established a multilateral body to enforce its terms, the League of Nations, but it was easily subverted. The problems with arms control agreements are trying to distinguish between offensive and defensive weaponry, state sovereignty, technological change, and verification. One of the more interesting parts of the book deals with chemical weapons. Again, the origins go back to antiquity in attempts to control or outlaw such weapons as Greek fire, the poisoning of wells, and other chemical and biological agents. There have been many diplomatic attempts, all of which the author includes, to outlaw such weapons. But, they are still available and used. More successful have been attempts to control nuclear weapons, perhaps because these attempts have largely been bilateral. This is an excellent reference book and should be acquired by academic libraries. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections.