J. I. Coffey

One of the great problems in arms control is that advances in technology, and their application to military programs, tend to invalidate or render meaningless even the soundest arms-control proposals. Twice in the last decade this has occurred, once when the diffusion of nuclear technology and the production of large numbers of nuclear weapons rendered futile any hope of complete nuclear disarmament, and again when the advent of intercontinental missiles made necessary a rethinking of all the proposals for limiting or abolishing strategic strike forces. It may well be that we are about to witness a similar overtaking of current arms-control proposals because of the possibility of deploying highly effective ballistic missile defenses.