Security by Negotiation

Abstract

The negotiations about arms control and disarmament, that now occupy so prominent a place on the agenda of international politics, have as their chief purported objective the advancement of our security. There is, however, a great deal of scepticism today as to whether our security can in fact be advanced in this way. On the political right in Western countries — especially in the United States — there has occurred a resurgence of belief that our security rests chiefly on measures of defence to strengthen the West’s position relative to that of the Soviet Union, that arms control negotiations are the impediments to this and that serious negotiations about them should be postponed until the West’s defences are stronger. But on the political left also, the movement for unilateral disarmament expresses a lack of confidence in negotiated measures, a search for security independent of the reciprocation of measures we take by other parties.