Do Arms Races Matter?

"Arms racing," technically, may have begun as early as the moment when mankind started to rely on military equipment to wage war. In the last century, however, technology pushed the concept to previously unknown levels. The British-German naval arms race was arguably the first modern one, with the Dreadnought-type ships as the ultimate weapon. The drive for the atomic bomb, and later the fusion bomb, were typical examples of races in which the goal was to develop the weapon before the adversary did (Adolf Hitler's Germany in the former case, Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union in the latter).

Since the Cold War, the understanding of the term "arms race" has become rather loose and extensive. The general media now tends to equate it with any substantive development, progress, or buildup in weapons acquisition, but it takes two to compete. Thus, the more restrictive definition Colin Gray gave in 1971 would probably be more useful: "Two or more parties perceiving themselves to be in an adversary relationship, who are increasing or improving their armaments at a rapid rate and restructuring their respective military postures with a general attention to the past, current, and anticipated military and political behavior of the other parties." ¹ Gray's definition omits the alacrity and out-of-control connotations suggested by the term "race." In this general framework, the development of ballistic and nuclear weapons, the so-called weapons of mass destruction that have the most important strategic and political implications, now best exemplify arms races.

Of the two types of arms races, Type-I races, as one may call the first type, are legitimized by strategic actions. Several variants of Type-I races exist, depending on their respective main drivers. One variation stems from counterforce strategies, as demonstrated during the 1970s and 1980s debate on the MX and Midgetman missiles, which were supposed to close a "window of vulnerability" opened by the alleged Soviet capability to exert a disarming first strike on U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Another stems from the existence of defenses; the classic "sword vs. shield" phenomenon fuels this variation. The development of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) warheads by the United States is a combination of both variants: the MIRV program was largely, though not solely, the result of perceived Soviet defensive and offensive build-ups. Concerns of "escalation dominance" drives yet another variation, as exemplified by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) controversy of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Western allies were concerned that the Soviet Union could threaten Europe with limited nuclear strikes without the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) being able to respond in kind.

Symbols and politics drive Type-II arms races, not the mechanics of force ratios and the offense/defense calculus. To a large extent, this phenomenon existed during the Cold War. In his history of the first 50 years of the nuclear age, McGeorge Bundy concludes, "The decisions leading to massive and varied deployments have been dominated by the conviction in each government that it could not tolerate the nuclear superiority of the other." ²

Clear distinctions between the two types are obviously difficult to make, and these two processes often work simultaneously. For instance, the so-called bomber gap and missile gap (arguably created in part by bad or distorted intelligence) are examples where both dynamics--strategy and politics--were at work.

Some analysts have placed the very existence of the action-reaction processes in ballistic and nuclear weapons acquisition in doubt. Some have emphasized the responsibility of the intrinsic dynamics of the military-industrial complex and suggested that the potential adversaries' arsenals are often, deliberately or not, exaggerated to justify a weapons program. ³ Indeed, strategic weapons procurement decisions often involve organizational routines and domestic political factors that have little to do with strategic analysis per se. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara seems to have based his 1962 decision to procure 1,000 ICBMs, for example, much more on the need for compromise between...