The United States Nuclear Arms Control And Disarmament (1961-1976)

For different purposes, the Soviet Union and the United States conducted a number of arms control and disarmament negotiations on different aims and contents. The topic of this paper is the arms control and disarmament activities, including unilateral, bilateral and multilaterals, which the United States took part in from 1961-1976. This paper uses the research methods of history, international politics and other disciplines, and makes use of the originally declassified documents that are related to the US arms control and disarmament activities to comb the arms control and disarmaments behaviors in detail. The four chapters are as follows in addition to the introduction and conclusion part:Chapter one introduces the arms control and disarmament negotiations during the Kennedy administration. This period is not only the initial stage of the United States but also the international nuclear arms control and disarmament. The Kennedy government eased the bilateral relations by establishing hotlines and on the other hand set up arms control and disarmament agency to display that the nuclear arms control and disarmament policy had become an important part of national security policy. In addition, in order to make barriers for other countries’ controlling the nuclear weapons, the two countries concluded Partial Test Ban Treaty.The second chapter discusses the situation of the rapid development of arms control and disarmament activities in the United States. This part focuses on the typical achievements of the United States government in the field of arms control and disarmament under the leadership of Johnson. The Johnson administration reached a consensus with the Soviet Union about nonproliferation of nuclear weapons to conform to the international trend. Meanwhile, in order to prevent the similar events like the Cuban missile crisis, the United States established the Latin American nuclear free zone. The nuclear free zone has both essentially symbolic and practical significance.During this period, nuclear vehicles continued to progress. Both countries began to deploy ICBMs, causing the escalating arms race, and the two sides formed a mutual hostage relationship. On the other hand, compared with the traditional arms control field, due to the advances in space exploration and marine technology, outer space and seabed were also incorporated into the arms control. For fear of the seabed and outer space for the deployment of nuclear delivery vehicles, and also in order to play a leading role in the arms race, the two countries reached a consensus on the seabed and space non military.The third chapter discusses deepening development stage of the United States nuclear arms control and disarmament activities. Compared with the prior development, the arms control and disarmament activities at this time were to limit the number of bilateral strategic weapons. The international relations and the domestic conflicts at that time caused a certain impact on the United States arms control and disarmament activities. Although the leaders of the two countries made several visits, but not every visit could promote arms control and disarmament talks. The significant result in this period is that the United States cleared the biological weapons policy and signed the Biological Weapons Convention.The fourth chapter analyzes the American party political constraints for arms control and disarmament and impact on arms control and disarmament policy mode. Whether traditional or the nuclear arms control and disarmament period during the cold war, many factors, whether the same or not, in different countries affected the policy of arms control and disarmament. One-party system of the Soviet Union made the arms control and disarmament policy relatively stable, and always ran through the cold war. Oppositely, the United States, a typical two-party system country, because of the differences between the parties, party politics promoted nuclear arms control and disarmament activities, at the same time also hindered the activities to some extent. The constraints of the two parties’ political forms on arms control and disarmament policy can embody the characteristics of the US arms control and disarmament.Conclusion makes a brief analysis of the history of the United States arms control and disarmament activities, and also discusses the two parties’ cooperation in the field of nuclear arms control under the party politics in the United States.