Did "Peace Through Strength" End the Cold War?: Lessons from INF

Cold War? 1 I N o w that the Cold War seems to be over, with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the transition of the Central Eastern European countries toward democracies and market economies, two important debates are taking place among scholars, policymakers , and the public at large. The first concerns the future of European security and the question of whether the post-Cold War world will be a safer or a more dangerous place.’ The second debate focuses on the reasons for the recent changes. An emerging conventional wisdom seems to hold that the end of the Cold War represents a victory for Western strategies of “peace through strength” or at least ”containment.” Standing tough against the Soviets seems to have paid off, leading to a complete turnaround in Soviet foreign policy, revolutionary arms reduction treaties, and the collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe. Therefore, the lesson to be learned, in this view, is that resolve and “bargaining from strength,” rather than strategies of reassurance, are likely to produce cooperative outcomes, particular in times of increasing uncertainty about the future of the Soviet Union.2 This paper builds upon and expands an argument originally developed in Thomas Risse-Kappen, Structure and Process in Superpower Arms Control: Lessons from INF, Working Paper (Los Angeles: Center for International and Strategic Affairs, UCLA, 1989). I am very grateful for comments on earlier versions of the paper by Matthew Evangelista, Ann Florini, Gert Krell, Richard Ned Lebow, Robert Nurick, William Potter, Richard Rosecrance, Leon Sigal, Michael Stafford, Janice Gross Stein, and James Thomson. For a more historical account of the INF story, see Thomas Risse-Kappen, The Zero Option: INF, West Germany, and Arms Control (Westview, 1988). Thomas Risse-Kappen is an Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University’s Peace Studies Program, and spent 1990-91 on leave at lnternational Security Programs, Yale University. 1. See, for example, Jack Snyder, ”Averting Anarchy in the New Europe,” International Security, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Spring 1990), pp. 5-41; John Mearsheimer, ”Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-56; Stephen Van Evera, “Primed for Peace: Europe After the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter 1990191), pp. 7-57. 2. ”What made the start of [arms] reductions possible was the willingness of the democracies to maintain an adequate deterrence posture. What will sustain the process of reductions is the willingness to ensure that at every level of reductions, deterrence is maintained and preferably strengthened.” Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Yasuhiro Nakasone, and Henry A. Kissinger, ”EastWest Relations,” Foreign Affairs,Vol. 68, No. 3 (Summer 1989), pp. 1-21, at 8-9. See also Robert International Security, Summer 1991 (Vol. 16, No. 1) 01991 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 162 D i d ”Peace Through Strength” End the Cold War? I 163 One of the first events that led many to believe in the wisdom of ”peace through strength” was the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which eliminated all U.S. and Soviet land-based medium range missiles , and also systems of shorter ranges above 500 km. (See chronology on pages 164-165.) The treaty contains intrusive verification procedures, unprecedented in nuclear arms control, including on-site inspections at deployment and maintenance facilities. The agreement was concluded only after the West had deployed new Pershing I1 and cruise missiles in Europe, in response to the Soviet SS-20 buildup. While earlier attempts to reach a negotiated outcome failed, the INF Treaty became possible when the Soviet leadership finally accepted the 1981 Western proposal of a ”zero option” eliminating all U.S. and Soviet land-based INF missiles world-wide. Thus, the treaty is widely regarded as the result of effective coercive diplomacy. As George Bush argued, I was in Europe trying to convince European public opinion that we ought to go forward with the deployment of the INF weapons, and thank God the freeze people were not heard-they were wrong-and the result is we deployed , and the Soviets kept deploying, and then...