Arms Control in Asia
This is a pioneering study of a neglected topic. Some of the authors contend that Asian governments have come to recognize the role of arms control in limiting the region's conflicts; others are skeptical. Gower Rizvi, in analyzing the India-Pakistan rivalry, observes that although the arms buildup on both sides has contributed to increasing tensions, negotiating an arms control agreement in the absence of a meaningful resolution of the political problems would be an exercise in futility. The same point might be made about the other regional rivalries discussed in the book. The essays are all of high quality, but there is an exceptionally perceptive and informative chapter by the editor, Gerald Segal, on Sino-Soviet military relations.
Related
Since independence, India's nuclear policy has been to seek either global disarm ament or equal security for all. The old nonproliferation regime was discriminatory, ratifying the possession of nuclear weapons for the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council while preaching to the nuclear have-nots about the virtues of disarmament. India was left sandwiched between two nuclear weapons powers, Pakistan and a rising China. The end of the Cold War has not ushered in an era where globalization and trade trump old-fashioned security woes. If nuclear deterrence works in the West, why won't it work in India?
The American breakthrough in studies of Communist China during the last decade, despite all the difficulties of study from a distance, has given us a new capacity to appraise Peking's shifts of current policy. At the same time, our very success in understanding short-term developments tends to foreshorten our perspective, as though Chairman Mao's new China were actually as new as he so fervently exhorts it to be. If we ask the long- term question-What is China's tradition in foreign policy?-our query may provoke two counter-questions: Did the Chinese empire ever have a conscious foreign policy? Even if it did, hasn't Mao's revolution wiped out any surviving tradition?
Washington is leaving a crucial piece out of the nuclear puzzle. It will be China, not Russia or any rogue, whose nuclear policy will concern America most in the years ahead. The People's Republic has started to modernize its arsenal, and Western actions will help determine just what form China's force ultimately takes. Before rushing to deploy missile defenses, Washington should consider whether they would solve a problem or create one.
