Cooperation (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
The Moscow Test Ban Treaty, 1963
Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, both superpowers recognised the urgent need to establish some form of control over nuclear weapons testing. The Moscow Test Ban Treaty, signed in 1963, represented the first collective international agreement to impose limitations on the nuclear arms race.
The treaty prohibited nuclear weapon test explosions and any other nuclear explosions in three specific environments:
- In the atmosphere, beyond its limits (including outer space)
- Underwater, including territorial waters and high seas
- In any other environment where the explosion would cause radioactive debris to spread beyond the territorial limits of the state conducting the test
Whilst the treaty prohibited testing in these three environments, it did not achieve a complete ban on all nuclear testing. Underground testing was still permitted, though the signatories expressed their intention to work towards banning all nuclear test explosions in the future.
The treaty's importance extended beyond its practical limitations. Despite allowing underground testing to continue, the agreement demonstrated that Britain, the USA, and the USSR understood the dangers posed by nuclear technologies and were prepared to accept some limitations on their use. The treaty established the principle that on-site testing was unnecessary, which removed a substantial obstacle in reaching agreement and showed trust between the superpowers. The external monitoring of nuclear tests became more viable as, by 1963, both the USA and USSR possessed relatively sophisticated satellite reconnaissance systems. This treaty marked the first step towards developing further agreements that would eventually lead to multiple countries showing international commitment to limiting, and potentially ending, the possession of nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, July 1968
Background and context
In October 1964, the People's Republic of China successfully tested a nuclear bomb, entering the elite group of nuclear powers alongside France, Britain, the USA, and the USSR. The latter three nations, concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states, worked to introduce a mechanism for controlling proliferation. This effort culminated in July 1968 with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Treaty provisions and principles
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – An international agreement signed in July 1968 establishing that signatories would not transfer nuclear weapons or other nuclear devices to any recipient, nor would they assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear state to manufacture nuclear weapons.
The treaty established the core principle that non-nuclear states would never be able to establish nuclear weapon arsenals by forming alliances with existing nuclear powers. Nuclear powers agreed they would not share their technology, whilst non-nuclear states committed not to seek nuclear weapons technology.
However, the treaty allowed signatories to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, meaning nuclear energy could continue as a fuel source. The treaty was designed as an evolving agreement, encouraging additional countries to sign over time.
Most countries in the United Nations became signatories between 1968 and 1970. France and China, notably, did not sign until 1992, although they had privately pledged to adhere to the treaty's terms in 1968. The US ambassador Llewellyn E. Thompson and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko signed the treaty in Moscow in July 1968.
Technological developments in missile systems
The Kennedy administration's defence build-up
The Kennedy administration, despite accepting a ban on nuclear weapons testing, continued producing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) – long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads across continents, and Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) – missiles fired from submarines that could deliver nuclear strikes, to strengthen the US defence system. The USA had overestimated the strength of the Soviet nuclear threat in 1963, and even though reports showed this, the US military had committed to constructing these weapons and carried out their production. By the late 1960s, the lack of parity between US and Soviet nuclear strength ended, and the Soviets even gained supremacy in the number of missiles.
Anti-Ballistic Missiles
The Soviet Union developed technology to intercept nuclear missiles and prevent them reaching their target. These Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABMs) – missiles designed to destroy a ballistic missile before it reaches its target – represented a major shift in the effectiveness of nuclear missiles as a deterrent to nuclear weapons use.
If one side could destroy the nuclear ability of the other, then Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was no longer effective. This technological development threatened to undermine the entire strategic balance that had maintained nuclear deterrence.
Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles
In early 1967, Robert McNamara, serving as US Secretary of Defense, persuaded President Johnson to delay developing an American ABM system before negotiations with the USSR about the expansion and deployment of their ABMs. The USSR was reluctant to include the ABM system in weapons negotiations, but when the USA developed Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs) – ballistic missiles containing several warheads, each of which can be aimed at different targets – the Soviets were brought to the negotiating table. The USSR's ABM systems were not designed to stop multiple warheads, so they lost their advantage.
How MIRVs Function
These MIRVs functioned by launching into space, where the multiple warheads would split off from the explosive device, and then the re-entry vehicles would land at different target areas, allowing one missile to strike several locations simultaneously.
Motivations for arms control
Economic pressures
Following the signing of the NPT, further discussions on arms limitations were initiated. Both sides faced economic reasons for pursuing such talks. In the USA, there were also social reasons. The nuclear arms race had become a prohibitively expensive process, making arms control a viable option.
Khrushchev's Perspective on the Arms Race
From Khrushchev's perspective, as expressed in his memoirs published after his death, the arms race had the potential to harm a country in multiple ways. He argued that senseless competition with the West over military spending risked doing harmful things to the Soviet Union. Competing with America in areas beyond the most essential military preparedness would:
- Enrich aggressive capitalist circles in the United States, who used Soviet military build-ups as a pretext for overloading their own country's arms budget
- Exhaust Soviet material resources without raising the living standard of the people
He emphasised that with fewer people in the army, more people would be available for other, more productive kinds of work, providing a good common point of departure for progressive forces in their struggle for peaceful coexistence.
Strategic considerations
For the superpowers, possession of nuclear weapons remained critical, but if both sides could agree to limit production, it would prove beneficial. The wars they were engaged in during this period were primarily guerrilla wars, where nuclear weapons were useless. Relaxation of Cold War tensions would allow both the Americans and Soviets to focus on domestic affairs, as the arms race was very expensive.
Furthermore, it became clear that nuclear weapons could have a wider impact beyond their immediate target. A nuclear attack would not affect only the intended victim, and a nuclear accident would not necessarily affect only the country where the accident occurred.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and President Johnson's decision not to run for re-election in November 1968 halted further discussions. The USSR needed to focus on its sphere of influence and was hesitant to engage in potentially fruitless discussions if Johnson's successor proved uninterested in arms limitation.
With the election of Richard Nixon in 1969 and the resolution of the Prague Spring, the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) began. For the Nixon administration, this formed part of a foreign policy designed to improve the US international position. Simultaneously, the US began its policy of Vietnamisation and engagement with China.
Leonid Brezhnev – A Soviet leader who worked in steelworks in Ukraine and trained as an engineer before entering politics, rising under Stalin and eventually leading the USSR from 1964 until 1982. For Brezhnev, SALT presented an opportunity to focus more on internal affairs.
Brezhnev's approach to foreign policy showed ambivalence: whilst he presided over SALT I and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Pact, demonstrating commitment to arms control, he was also responsible for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Although it took nearly four years, the SALT treaty was finally signed in 1972.
Key Points to Remember:
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The Moscow Test Ban Treaty (1963) was the first collective international agreement limiting nuclear testing, prohibiting tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and outer space, demonstrating superpower willingness to control nuclear weapons.
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The Non-Proliferation Treaty (July 1968) established that nuclear powers would not share weapons technology with non-nuclear states, and non-nuclear states would not seek to acquire nuclear weapons, though peaceful nuclear energy use remained permitted.
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Technological developments, particularly ABMs and MIRVs, changed the strategic balance by threatening the MAD doctrine, with the USA's development of MIRVs bringing the USSR to negotiations.
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Economic pressures drove both superpowers towards arms control, as the nuclear arms race proved prohibitively expensive and both nations needed to focus resources on domestic priorities rather than military competition.
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The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began in 1969 under Nixon and Brezhnev, taking until 1972 to produce a treaty, forming part of broader détente efforts between the superpowers.