In their seminal work, Strategy and Arms Control, Thomas Schelling and Morton Helperine argued that meaningful arms control endeavors can translate into strategic stability – an idea that dominated the arms control frameworks for decades. However, arms control frameworks have become ineffective and not aligned with the novel and complex challenges of the twenty-first century.

The multipolar structure is more destabilizing than the bipolar world, enforcing security dilemmas and strategic selectiveness.

In an evolving landscape of international and regional security, the global arms control frameworks confront several novel and complex challenges that have severe implications for strategic stability, crisis management, conflict resolution, and arms race stability. The foremost challenge confronting these frameworks arises from the evolving multipolar distribution of power. Marked by several competing blocs, as compared to a bipolar world, the multipolar structure is more destabilizing.

It involves a variety of players with varying interests, new convergences, alliances, and strategic interests. It increases the structural competition on the international stage, enforces the security dilemma, provides space to the emerging and assertive nations, and fosters selectiveness in the arms control regimes. John Mearsheimer’s scholarship on the matter posits that such a shift comes at the cost of diminishing global cooperation and a weakening commitment to international norms.

In the wake of power flux, ensuring compliance with arms control norms becomes increasingly insurmountable. Amidst an increased security dilemma, the parties to the frameworks lose their appetite for conformity, jeopardizing the entire arms control architecture.

Non-compliances particularly stem from the range of the missiles, irreversibility of a particular type of weapon, verification problems, concealment, and effective monitoring. In such situations, ‘static subjectivity’ and ‘atomistic security concerns’ prevail, whereby arms control and strategic stability mean different things for different states. It will result in the traditional ‘self-help’ situation where states solely rely on their relative power.

Consequently, the crisis of legitimacy quagmires the initiatives, and states lose confidence in meaningful arms control dialogue. It creates a vacuum and intensifies the arms race.  Historically, the arms control frameworks have also significantly lost legitimacy due to their inherent discriminatory nature, as they legitimize the acquisition of a particular set of weapons by a few countries and prohibit others.

Static subjectivity and atomistic security concerns prevail, where arms control means different things to different states.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) does not dismantle the nuclear capabilities of the countries acquired before 1968, but curtails the acquisition of all others who intend to develop the capability later on. More recently, providing nuclear-armed submarines to Australia under the AUKUS and Nuclear Supplier Group’s Waiver to India, despite not being a signatory to the NPT, are some empirical instances that undermine the credibility of the NPT and other regimes promoting arms control and non-proliferation.

Dynamism, versatility, and adaptation to the changing circumstances and molding the frameworks with the needs of time have remained a bone of contention. For instance, the developments in outer space, emerging technologies, and AI-enabled weapons remain covert, with no clear and legally binding international instruments. It is believed that weapons, especially such as hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), although conventional, can compromise ‘survivable second strike’ capabilities of the states, a capability that is conditioned for the existence of deterrence.

Additionally, the frameworks are also not dynamic as they have not taken into account the rising asymmetries that are prolific following novel developments in the power flux. Unlike the Cold War period, parity-based agreements between the two blocs, the 21st century has unveiled more states with power ambitions and comparative asymmetries.

To achieve equilibrium with the adversaries has led to arms buildup and strategic chain reactions at the global level. As a result, many proponents have spurred behavioral arms control initiatives that are themselves subject to subjectivity. It posits that states must behave responsibly in the form of signaling, diplomacy, and decision-making in high-stakes situations. Can the security imperatives and geopolitical necessities, and the fear of subjugation, allow states to behave so prudently on the logic whose premise is contingent on the intention of the adversary?

Frameworks lose legitimacy due to discriminatory practices like the NPT’s selective restrictions.

The strategic stability in the international arena has turned fragile. The collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has intensified the tensions. There is indeed a need for the latest mechanism that can encompass and align with the new and emerging technologies.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.