Controlling the Arms Trade Since 1945
Публикация №1190296431 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус ARMED FORCES
For the first forty years after World War II, measures to restrict or control the global trade in weapons were slow to gain prominence on the international arms control and disarmament agenda. Although numerous partial proposals had been advanced or launched, these gained few adherents and had no appreciable impact on the volume or sophistication of the weapons traded. Yet the global arms trade has arguably played as large a role in post-1945 world politics (in terms of wars fought and lives lost) as the nuclear arms race between the superpower blocs, and the change since 1945 in the "international military system" has been unprecedented. With the end of the Cold War, a number of initiatives to control the arms trade were launched, some of which rapidly bore fruit. The United Nations, for example, has since 1990 mandated the imposition of five arms-transfer embargoes (in the context of various conflict-resolution efforts), more than in the previous forty years. This article will discuss the various proposals to control the arms trade and explore some of the reasons it has resisted international controls in spite of its importance. It will begin with an overview of the development of the global arms trade since 1945 and the different national regulations and policies governing arms transfers, review the history of post-1945 control initiatives, and analyze the problems with and future prospects for controls on the arms trade...
Anti-Satellite Weapons and Arms Control
Публикация №1190296382 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус ARMED FORCES
Satellites provide important support services to military forces on earth and, therefore, contribute significantly to the stability of the strategic balance. The importance of military space systems in times of both war and peace led to the development of ambivalent policies on the part of the United States and the former Soviet Union. From the late 1950s on, each country sought to acquire anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons to reduce the combat effectiveness of the other's satellites. Each country also, at various times, sought to undertake arms control negotiations to reduce the threat posed by the other's anti-satellite weapons (ASATS)...
The INF Treaty: Eliminating Intermediate-Range Nuclear Missiles, 1987 to the Present
Публикация №1190296326 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус ARMED FORCES
The U.S.-Soviet agreement to eliminate intermediate-range (500 to 5,000 km, or 312 to 3,120 mi.) nuclear missiles, known as the INF Treaty, was signed on 8 December 1987 and ratified by the U.S. Senate on 27 May 1988. The agreement was the culmination of a protracted domestic and international debate about the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe and, more generally, about the basic legitimacy of United States-Soviet arms control agreements. As the first agreement between the two sides to eliminate--rather than simply reduce or constrain--an entire class of weapons, the INF Treaty is popularly believed to be a major arms control success story...
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty: 1972 to the Present
Публикация №1190296290 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус ARMED FORCES
The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 prohibits the United States and the Soviet Union--now replaced by Russia as the United States' principal treaty partner--from deploying nationwide defenses against strategic ballistic missiles. While neither superpower ever entirely abandoned the search for defenses against the nuclear threat, the ABM Treaty was based on a recognition by both superpowers that no foreseeable technology could provide an effective defense against the fearsome destructive power of nuclear weapons, and that building a missile defense would only force the other side to augment its offensive forces to overcome it, in order to maintain its nuclear deterrent. The resulting race between missiles and missile defenses would be expensive and potentially dangerous, would make negotiated restraints on offensive strategic forces impossible, and would undermine the predictability necessary for strategic planning...
Test Ban Proposals and Agreements: The 1950s to the Present
Публикация №1190296211 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус ARMED FORCES
Beginning in the mid-1950s the banning of nuclear tests became one of the most persistent, yet elusive objects of arms control. Beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower, a succession of U.S. presidents made a comprehensive test ban (CTB) a stated objective. They varied greatly, however, in the earnestness with which they pursued that objective and in the preconditions they specified. Eisenhower initiated technical discussions and tripartite (U.S.British-Soviet) test ban negotiations, but succeeded only in achieving an informal test moratorium. President John F. Kennedy intensified the effort to reach a CTB, but after a number of concessions in U.S. verification requirements proved insufficient to satisfy the Soviets, he settled in 1963 for the multilateral Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) which banned all tests except those underground. President Lyndon B. Johnson's support of further limitations on testing was primarily rhetorical. The main arms control emphasis during his administration was on negotiating the multilateral Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed in 1968. In the NPT, however, the superpowers pledged to pursue disarmament negotiations in good faith. Progress toward a CTB came to be the key criterion employed by non-nuclear-weapon states for judging compliance with this undertaking. Richard M. Nixon's administration emphasized strategic-arms negotiations over test ban negotiations, but in 1974 reached agreement with the Soviet Union on the bilateral Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT) banning underground tests above 150 kilotons. In 1976, during Gerald Ford's presidency, the companion Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET), with a similar limit, was negotiated. Jimmy Carter's administration resumed CTB negotiations and made rapid progress at first, but a lack of political will on both sides prevented agreement...
Публикация №1190296070 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус - Soviet Russia (1917-53)
The Russian Revolution of 7 November 1917 was little more than a coup d'état in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The Bolsheviks seized power in the name of the soviets (councils), promising to rule until free elections convened a constituent assembly. After only one session, the Bolsheviks dissolved the assembly. That act, more than any other, sparked the Russian Civil War (1918-22), although it did not fully blossom until after the humiliating peace with Germany in 1918. During the next five years there were concurrent civil wars between revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, and ethnic minorities; war with Poland; foreign intervention; and implementation of revolutionary socialism under the banner War Communism. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland won their independence, while Poland, Turkey, and Romania acquired pieces of the Soviet borderlands. The civil war was the class struggle that the revolution bypassed. It shaped the institutions and perceptions of the Soviet state and resulted in the adoption of autocratic institutions to stamp out counterrevolution...
Публикация №1190295964 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус FAMOUS RUSSIANS
Sergei Witte often expressed sympathy for the many non-Russians in his country. Jews, Poles, and other peoples who were not Russian or Orthodox Christian frequently faced discriminatory laws in the businesses, education, and government of the Russian Empire. But there were basic contradictions in Witte's political career. On the one hand, he held very progressive views and stood for abolishing laws that discriminated on the basis of ethnic origins. Such laws, he felt, hindered the growth of Russia's productivity. Yet this modern outlook contrasted with his admiration for the old traditions of the Russian monarchy, whose absolute powers were often the source of discriminatory laws in the first place. When the Russian emperor Alexander II was assassinated by terrorists in 1881, Witte briefly joined a secret society dedicated to seeking out and destroying terrorists...
Публикация №1190295832 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус FAMOUS RUSSIANS
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
A Siberian peasant and self-proclaimed holy man, Gregory Efimovich Rasputin entered the circle of personal acquaintances surrounding the Russian imperial family sometime after 1905. Tsar Nicholas and especially Empress Alexandra welcomed Rasputin because of the healing powers he supposedly possessed; he seemed to be able to treat the imperial couple's only son, Alexis, who suffered from hemophilia...
Grigori Potemkin [commander, political consultant]
Публикация №1190295760 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус FAMOUS RUSSIANS
"His rarest quality was a physical, intellectual and moral courage that set him absolutely apart from the rest of mankind, and because of this we understood each other perfectly." CATHERINE THE GREAT
Публикация №1190295706 20 сентября 2007 / Научная библиотека Порталус FAMOUS RUSSIANS
"I have great bundles of grain but I have no mill and there is not enough water close by to build one. But there is water enough at a distance if only I shall have time to build a canal, but the length of my life is uncertain. Therefore, I build the mill first and have only given the order to build the canal, which will better force my successors to bring water [to put the mill to use]. PETER THE GREAT
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