Chapter 11
International and Collective
Security
PS130 World Politics
Michael R. Baysdell
Saginaw Valley State University
Seeking Security: Four
Approaches
• Unlimited self-defense
– Traditional approach; power through strength
• Limited self-defense
– State-based approach emphasizing arms limitations
• International security
– Collective approach that emphasizes arms limitations
• Abolition of war
– Pacifist approach that emphasizes complete
disarmament
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Security: Standards of Evaluation
• Security is relative
– Role of security norms and collective security forces
• Domestic versus international
• Domestic norms usually preclude bad behavior
• Domestic collective security
• Domestic disarmament
• Domestic conflict resolution
• Impossibility of absolute global security
– Need to compare different approaches to international security
in order to begin evaluating them
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Weapons Proliferation
• Nuclear arms race, 1945-1980s
• Difference between “atomic” and “nuclear” weapons
• Known nuclear powers: US, Russia, UK, China, France,
Pakistan, India, Israel, maybe North Korea
• Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty commits member states to not
have nuclear weapons—188 signatories (not Israel, Pakistan,
India)
• Limited Test Ban Treaty bans atmospheric testing
• Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (unsigned by US) bans all
testing except for maintenance
• START I and II between US and Russia reduced # of weapons
to 3500
• Treaty of Moscow (2002): 1700-2200 weapons each
• Now, focus is on new TYPES: Bunker buster nuclear weapon
Non-Nuclear Proliferation
• Chemical: 1993 CWC treaty bans
• Biological: banned by 1972 treaty
• Great Powers are now in the process of
destroying stockpiles (being incinerated in
Alabama and Utah)
• U.S. #1 in non-WMD arms sales worldwide
Limited Self-Defense through Arms
Control
• Alternative approach to security
• Aims at lessening military (especially
offensive) capabilities
• Based on the belief that the decline in the
number and power of weapons systems
will ease political tension, making further
arms agreements more likely
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Methods of Achieving Arms
Control
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Numerical restrictions
Research and development restrictions
Deployment restrictions
Categorical restrictions
Transfer restrictions
Testing restrictions
Geographic restrictions
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Numerical Restrictions
• Placing numerical limits above, at, or below the
current level--most common approach to arms
control
• EX: START I & II
• START I: Central limits include: 1,600 Strategic
Nuclear Delivery Vehicles (SNDVs); 6,000
accountable warheads; 4,900 ballistic missile
warheads; 1,540 warheads on 154 heavy
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for the
Soviet side
• START II: limited nuclear weapons to 3500, no
MIRVs
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Development, Testing, and
Deployment Restrictions
• Seek to stop a specific area of arms
building before it starts
• Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty
• Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT)
• Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
• Anti-Personnel Mine (APM) Treaty
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Categorical Restrictions
• Involve limiting or eliminating certain
types of weapons
• Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty (1987)
• Anti-Personnel Mine Treaty
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Transfer Restrictions
• Aim at prohibiting or limiting the flow of
weapons and weapons technology across
international borders
– Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
– Missile Technology Control Regime
(MTCR)
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Geographic Restrictions
• No weapons on the seabed or Antarctica
• Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons in Latin America (a.k.a. Treaty of
Tlatelolco)
The History of Arms Control
• Attempts to control arms and other military systems
extend almost to the beginning of written history
• Modern history of arms control began with the Hague
Conferences (1899, 1907)
• Unparalleled destruction in World War I and II led to
bans on poison gas, creation of IAEA
• Biological Weapons convention—countries with
biological weapons agreed to destroy them
• 1980s: Arms control momentum began to pick up
again--Reversing the trend of the cold war and the
increasing proliferation of WMD
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WMD--Arms Control since 1990
• Most significant arms control progress made with nuclear
weapons
– START I and II, Treaty of Moscow
• Overall number of nuclear weapons declining 10,000 ->
2200
– Renewal of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT): All
but 4 nations have ratified
– Efforts to ban all nuclear testing
• Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
– Treaty on chemical weapons
• Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC): pledge to
eliminate all chemical weapons by 2005
• Problems: dual use nature of chemicals, US and other
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countries have not ratified
Conventional Weapons--Arms Control since 1990
• Conventional weapons inventories
– Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE)
– Anti-Personnel Mine (APM) Treaty
• Conventional weapons transfers
– Wassenaar Agreement)
– Dual-use technology a thorny problem
– UN conference on the Illicit Trade in Small
Arms
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International Barriers to Arms
Control
• Possibility of future conflict
– Threat of terrorists and rogue states
– Mini-nukes
• Doubts about the value of arms control
– Skepticism about whether reducing arms will actually increase security (classic
tenet of realpolitik)
– Realist doubt that arms set off an arms race (question of “the chicken or the
egg”)
– Political settlements should be achieved before arms reductions are negotiated
because of inherent dangerousness of the world
– Verification and enforcement of arms control agreements can be an intrusive and
difficult process. Some nations seek to evade or violate terms of arms control
agreements through technologies and
16 strategies that escape on-site inspections
(OSI) and national technical means (NTM).
Domestic Barriers to Arms
Control
• National pride
– Symbol of national power
• Military spending, the economy, and politics
– Supplying the military can be big business
– Iron Triangle: alliance among interest groups,
bureaucracies, and legislators forming a militaryindustrial-congressional complex
– Can both hurt and help the national economy
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International Security Forces: Theory and
Practice
• Defining security
– Changing nature of security
• Organizing security
– Global
• United Nations
– Regional
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Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
African Union (AU)
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Collective Security:
Similar to Domestic Law Enforcement
• Force used only in self-defense
• Peace is indivisible; an attack on one is an attack on
all (ex: NATO Article V)
• States unite to halt aggression and restore peace
• Successful domestically, often fails at the international
level
– Countries unwilling to subordinate their sovereign interests
to collective action
– Difficulty of distinguishing aggressor from the victim (Russia
v. Georgia over South Ossetia, 2008)
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Collective Security
• Bush administration doctrine of Preemptive War in
Iraq war posed question of whether unilateral
preventive action was a legal form of self-defense
under collective security
• International experts appointed by UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan in 2004 issued a report
challenging legality of unilateral preventive military
action.
• Political realities of UN Security Council politics
sometimes mask reasons why members block
collective military action by the Security Council even
if such action is warranted (e.g., French efforts to
curb American hegemony20during run-up to Iraq War.)
UN Peacekeeping
• Response tends to be reactive and passive; forces
attempt to be neutral—act as buffer to restore peace
• EX: Disengagement agreements between Israel and
Egypt in 1970s
• Most efforts in LDCs
• In the past, used military contingents from smaller,
nonaligned powers
• With the end of the Cold War, increasing UN security
role for larger powers, niche capability for smaller
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militaries
UN Peacekeeping Issues
• Budget restraints and dependence on states for dues
• Security Council mandates establish peacekeeping
operations, but these can be limited by the veto power of
permanent members of the Security Council
• Role of international law and the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court
– Questionable behavior of peacekeepers
– Some nations refuse to accept jurisdiction of
International Criminal Court and ignore international
law to resolve disputes
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Peacekeeping and Peace
Enforcement
• Limited effectiveness of peacekeeping
– Lack of political and financial support from member
states for UN forces
– Lack of commitment from five permanent members of
the UN Security Council
• Peacekeeping missions often do not have enough authority or
resources or time to complete mission
• Upsurge in support for proactive peace
enforcement–missions that are both reactive and
preventative in scope
– Continued tension between rhetoric and reality
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Peace Enforcement:
Humanitarian Intervention or
Neocolonialism?
• Sovereignty at risk for smaller LDCs
• Major powers often have powerful
emotional and political incentives to
intervene that may not always be entirely
selfless
• Whose interests are really being served by
the deployment of peacekeepers? Will
powerful countries now have UN license to
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International Security and the
Future
• Peacekeeping–largely a functional response to an
international problem
– Becoming almost a permanent part of world politics
• Frustrations with the United Nations
– Inherent limitations of any international organization
• Need to distinguish between types of international
security efforts and handle them differently
– Peacekeeping vs. peace enforcement vs. peace-building
• Use is likely to continue to increase
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Abolition of War
• Disarmament/General and complete
disarmament (GCD)
• Unilateral
• Negotiated
• Pacifism
Universal
Private
Antiwar
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Many alternatives to security
exist. In order to understand the
best approach to international
security, we must ask…
What makes individuals and states feel
insecure?
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Chapter Objectives: Checklist
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After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
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1. Explain the issue of security by considering what insecurity means.
2. Discuss limited self-defense as an approach to security.
3. Characterize arms control as an approach to achieving security by limiting the numbers and types of
weapons that countries possess.
4. List major events and themes in the history of arms control.
5. Discuss the major developments in efforts to achieve arms control by the limiting and reducing certain
types of arms.
6. Discuss challenges faced by international efforts to limit arms transfers and the proliferation of weapons,
including biological, chemical, and conventional weapons.
7. Summarize and evaluate international and domestic barriers to arms control.
8. Describe the roles that collective security and peacekeeping play in world politics.
9. Discuss the abolition of war as an approach to security, focusing on disarmament and pacifism.
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