The Future of Arms Control

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

For more than 50 years, the United States and Soviet Union/Russia have participated in arms control negotiations to manage their nuclear competition, promote transparency and predictability in nuclear plans and programs, and mitigate the risk of nuclear war. At the same time, the international community adopted the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and established a regime of safeguards and procedures to mitigate the risk that additional nations would acquire nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia remain bound by the limits in the New START Treaty through 2026, but it is not clear whether, or when, they will resume negotiations on further measures to reduce nuclear risks or limit their numbers of nuclear weapons. The nonproliferation regime also faces challenges, both from nations with nuclear weapons programs outside its constraints and from nations who support a more timely and direct pathway to nuclear disarmament. Emerging technologies and advanced weapons systems could also complicate arms control by introducing new challenges to stability and new risks of nuclear escalation. This course will begin with a review of the analytic foundation of bilateral nuclear arms control, addressing the relationship between the concepts of deterrence and strategic stability and the pursuit of bilateral nuclear arms control agreements. It will also provide an overview of the history of U.S.-Soviet/Russian nuclear arms control treaties and multilateral nuclear nonproliferation endeavors. The second half of the course will address current issues in arms control and nonproliferation. These include prospects for U.S.-Russian strategic stability discussions and formal agreements; prospects for a U.S.-China strategic stability dialogue and, possibly, arms control cooperation; the potential benefits of transparency, confidence-building, risk reduction measures, and norms; the challenges to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; the potential role of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; and the potential effects of emerging technologies and domains–such as space, cyber, lethal autonomous weapons.