Arms control in the 1990s

Growing political rapprochement between the United States and the Soviet Union and economic pressures on both superpowers and their allies are producing a new round of arms control negotiations and agreements. Verification techniques are being revolutionised, so-called confidence-building measures are being attempted on an impressive scale and a greater transparency and a less offense-oriented outlook is beginning to permeate military establishments. This working paper extrapolates these trends into the 1990s and examines the prognosis for a wide variety of items on the arms control and disarmament agenda - including nuclear, chemical and conventional weapons - in the last decade of the twentieth century . This paper is to be published as a chapter in Coral Bell, Agenda for the Nineties, Canberra Studies in World Affairs, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra