Editors' Note

Editors’Note Iraq‘s attacks with Scud missiles against lsrael and Saudi Arabia in the Gulf War focused renewed attention on the problem of ballistic missile proliferation. The war showed that although missiles carvying small conventional warheads do little damage and cause relatively few casualties, they may have political and psychological effects. In our lead article this issue, Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland argues that ballistic missiles can be militarily significant, combining speed of delivey and destructiveness, if they carry nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads. Based on detailed calculations of the likely damage and death rates from these types of warheads on ballistic missiles, Fetter finds that chemical warheads would be 50-500 times more deadly than conventional warheads , while biological warheads might be 10,000 times more deadly, comparable to small nuclear weapons in their lethality. He argues that defenses against ballistic missiles are unlikely to reduce the threat posed by such warheads significantly. To respond to the potentially destabilizing spread of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction in the Third World, he callsfor a combination of security guarantees, multilateral arms control, and export controls, backed up by sanctions. Brahma Chellaney, a fellow at the Nitze School of Advanced lnternational Studies of The Johns Hopkins University, analyzes the pattern of nuclear proliferation in South Asia. He argues that American analysts have misunderstood the incentives for proliferation in the region by overemphasizing the military incentives for acquiring nuclear weapons and neglecting vertical nuclear proliferation and China’s regional role. Chellaney suggests that the subcontinent stands on the verge of weaponization. He argues that ideally India and Pakistan would not develop nuclear arms, even if they retained the capability to do so, but that a more limited arms control regime combining small nuclear arsenals with confidence-building measures is more likely. He calls for a total nuclear test ban because it would promote regional nuclear restraint. Does it matter if one country’s economy grows faster than another’s, as long as both grow in absolute terms? This question-the problem of relative gains-has both theoretical and practical importance. Michael Mastanduno of Dartmouth College examines how concerns over relative gains have shaped U.S. policy toward Japan in three cases: the FSX fighter aircraft, satellites, and high-definition television (HDTV). He finds that relative gains concerns were paramount in the case of satellites, played a large role in the FSX controversy, and had only modest effects on U.S. policy toward HDTV. The extent to which these concernswere reflected in each case depended on domestic rather than international factors. Mastanduno concludes that a state is Internatiomd Security, Summer 1991 (Vol. 16, No. 1) 01991by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 3 International Security 16:1 1 4 likely to pursue relative gains more forcefully with its allies as its relative economic power declines and security threats recede. U.S. concerns about Japan's relative gains accordingly have increased in the late 1980s. With the end of the Cold War, arrangements for the future security of Europe have received considerableattention. Charles Kupchan of Princeton University and Clifford Kupchan of Columbia University continue the journal's examination of this vital topic. They argue that the conditions now exist for a concert-based collective security system, which would avoid the pitfalls of earlier attempts at collective security suck as the League of Nations. A concert-based system would build upon the existing structures of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Like the nineteenth-century Concert of Europe, it would rely on coordination among the great powers to prevent major wars. Thomas Risse-Kappen of Cornell University reconsiders the negotiation of the 1987 INF Treaty, which many observers see as a paradigm for successful U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations. He argues that the treaty was neither the result of tough U.S. bargaining strategies-a policy of "peace through strength"-nor of the balance of military power, but instead resulted from domestic politics in Western Europe and the Soviet Union. For example, Gorbachev and the new Soviet leadership that signed the INF Treaty were not persuaded to change their...