Security in the Contemporary World
Cooperation in traditional security
Distinguish disarmament from arms control.
Traditional security is not only about weapons and war. Even rivals can cooperate to limit violence.
First, there are ideas about when war is acceptable at all: only for the right reasons, such as self-defence or to stop genocide, and only with limited means: no harm to civilians, and no more force than needed.
Three main forms of cooperation:
| Form | Meaning | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Disarmament | all states give up certain kinds of weapons completely | the Biological Weapons Convention (1972) and the Chemical Weapons Convention, which ban making or keeping these weapons |
| Arms control | rules that regulate how weapons are acquired or developed, without banning them | the US–USSR Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972, SALT II, and START |
| Confidence building | rivals share information about their military plans and forces | telling each other about troop exercises and movements |
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 is an arms control treaty. It let the countries that had tested nuclear weapons before 1967 keep them, and asked all others not to acquire them. It limited nuclear weapons; it did not abolish them. India has refused to sign it, calling it unfair.
The superpowers chose arms control for nuclear weapons rather than disarmament: they did not want to give them up, but they wanted to make war less likely and the arms race less expensive.
Confidence building works because many wars start from misunderstanding: a rival's exercise is mistaken for an attack. Sharing information means no country is taken by surprise.
All these show that traditional security can include cooperation, not just confrontation.
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