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Revisiting Fred Iklé's 1961 Question, “After Detection—What?”

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Revisiting Fred Iklé's 1961 Question, “After Detection—What?” BRAD ROBERTS Revisiting Fred Iklé’s 1961 Question, “After Detection—What?” BRAD ROBERTS Dr. Brad Roberts is a Research Staff Member at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia. He is also an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University, Chairman of the research advisory council of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, and a member of The Nonproliferation Review’s editorial board. He is the author of Weapons Proliferation and World Order After the Cold War (Kluwer Press, 1996). riting nearly four decades ago, Fred Iklé violation will not be deterred if it thinks it can penned the fundamental arms control com- discourage, circumvent, or absorb our reaction. Wpliance question: “after detection—what?”1 We must study, therefore, not only what our In an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine in opponent may do to avoid detection, but also January 1961, he framed the issue as follows: what he may do to escape the penalty of being The current debate on arms control and disar- detected.2 mament puts great stress on the problem of If Iklé’s question is remembered at all in the current how to detect violations of whatever agree- arms control debate, it is typically recalled as rhetorical ments may be reached....Yet detecting viola- in nature. Arms control opponents sometimes invoke Iklé tions is not enough. What counts are the to support their arguments that arms control is possible political and military consequences of a vio- only when it is not necessary and that it is a dangerous lation once it has been detected, since these delusion between military adversaries. There is a cer- alone will determine whether or not the viola- tain irony in their invocation of Iklé in this way, given tor stands to gain in the end. In entering an his own subsequent service as head of the Arms Control arms control agreement, we must know that and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). Iklé’s question is we are technically capable of detecting a vio- invoked less frequently, but also to good effect, by those lation but also that we or the rest of the world arms control supporters who argue that tending arms will be politically, legally and militarily in a control agreements “deserves at least as much attention position to react effectively if a violation is as the negotiations that produced them in the first discovered....[e]ven if we can develop an in- place.”3 spection system that makes the probability of detection very high, a nation contemplating a 10 The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2001 BRAD ROBERTS But Iklé’s question was not rhetorical. He described sacrifice….They must be ready to assume a greater eco- and evaluated various measures to be taken after detec- nomic burden for defense and they must risk a step-up tion. He identified a role for economic and political sanc- in military competition.”6 tions, though he expected that their effect would be Iklé characterized this set of political, economic, and stronger on cautious violators than adventurous ones. He military measures as “a program to deter evasion.” Sur- predicted difficulty in sustaining such sanctions, argu- veying the Cold War setting, he was clearly pessimistic ing that the party injured by the violation might not want about its prospects for success. He well foreshadowed to jeopardize “long-term policies which seem more the kinds of debates that would emerge over future So- promising and important than countering an accom- viet compliance with the treaties on strategic arms limi- 4 plished evasion.” He was especially skeptical that world tations, anti-ballistic missiles, biological weapons, and opinion could be turned rapidly into substantive politi- threshold testing.7 And he certainly anticipated Soviet cal and military changes damaging to the violator, ob- tactics to frustrate international efforts to secure com- serving that “one reason world opinion is so impotent is pliance with its treaty obligations, as well as the numer- 5 that memory is so short.” He anticipated an influential ous difficulties the United States faced in leading those role for international organizations in sustaining the po- efforts. litical will to punish violators, but also saw the ability of the violator to exploit the weaknesses of those orga- A re-reading of Iklé’s article four decades later adds nizations to his advantage. some valuable perspective and insight into the challenges of contemporary arms control compliance in Iraq, North Iklé argued further that political and economic sanc- Korea, Russia, and elsewhere. But to re-read his essay tions were unlikely to prove viable without military ones today is to be reminded of how much the world has as well. He described two types of military sanctions. changed. It was penned as John Kennedy was preparing One he called “restorative measures,” aimed at restor- to replace Dwight Eisenhower as president, when the ing the military situation to what prevailed before the supposed missile gap was a central issue in the presi- arms control measure was implemented. He predicted dential campaign. Four decades later, a very great deal the limited benefit of such measures as a deterrent, since has changed that bears on the compliance problem—in the violator might well conclude that he will be no worse the content and scope of arms control, in the structure off by cheating, and might well be better off if his ac- of the international system, and in the international role tions go undetected or if the injured parties prove inca- of the United States, for example. How has the compli- pable of responding (“heads you lose, tails we’re even,” ance problem changed over four decades? Does Iklé’s as Iklé put it in characterizing the perspective of the 1961-vintage pessimism about the ability of international cheater). The other type of military sanction goes be- processes to secure arms control compliance by egre- yond restorative to punitive actions. Iklé argued that gious treaty violators remain valid in today’s world? treaty violations should change the injured parties’ per- ceptions of the cheating state by dispelling doubts about In an effort to answer these questions, this article pro- its peaceful or cooperative intentions and clarifying its ceeds as follows.8 It begins with an assessment of the intent for aggression. The changes in perception would salient differences between the world in which Iklé wrote lead to an abandonment of negotiated restraint as a foun- and the world of today as they relate to the compliance dation of the strategic competition and renewed military problem. This assessment chronicles the emergence of spending aimed at credibly deterring the feared military a substantial set of political, military, and economic tools aggression of the violator. The prospect of such puni- for coping with noncompliance. But it also identifies the tive measures promised more effective deterrence of emergence of a set of extant compliance problems that treaty violations, argued Iklé, than the prospect of re- are of genuine historical significance because they storative ones, as the violator would have to calculate threaten the future viability of the entire arms control the possible long-term reversal of his military fortunes, regime. The article then explores the role of the United whatever short-term gains might be won through cheat- Nations Security Council in dealing with these compli- ing. As he put it, “Those who wish to prevent the viola- ance challenges. This is a role that Iklé hardly antici- tion of arms-control agreements must deter potential pated. The capacity of the major powers to enforce the violators by their evident determination to make a double treaty regime is emerging as a sine qua non of their spe- The Nonproliferation Review/Spring 2001 11 BRAD ROBERTS cial status in the U.N. system. Whether optimism or pes- Development of Compliance Mechanisms simism is in order hinges on whether one believes that Second, Iklé did not anticipate the subsequent devel- those major powers have enough of a stake in the arms opment of specialized compliance mechanisms within control regime as a means to exercise their singular in- the arms control regime. fluence to enable them to cooperate on noncompliance challenges that are also threats to the peace. A brief history is illustrative. The 1961 Antarctic Treaty provides for regular meetings of states parties and THEN AND NOW on-site inspections supplemented by aerial inspections, as well as recourse to the International Court of Justice How has the arms control compliance context changed for disputes that cannot be resolved to the satisfaction between 1961 and today? The changes are numerous— of all parties to the dispute. The 1968 Latin American nine are reviewed here. Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty established a three-tiered or- ganization (OPANAL) consisting of a general confer- Increase in Arms Control Measures ence of states parties, an elected council, and a permanent First, Iklé focuses almost exclusively on a single arms secretariat to handle implementation questions. The 1970 control measure—the proposed nuclear test ban. To be Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons sure, there is the occasional reference to the Antarctica (NPT) includes a provision for conferences of states Treaty, the Korean armistice, and the Disarmament Con- parties at five-year intervals to review the operation of ference of the 1930s. But the merits and demerits of the treaty; it also relies on the previously existing Inter- Iklé’s “program to deter evasion” are evaluated almost national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to carry out solely in terms of what might and might not be possible some oversight functions. The 1972 Seabed Arms Con- vis-à-vis the test ban. trol Treaty and the 1975 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) followed suit by providing for re- Between then and now, the United States has become view conferences at five-year intervals in order to re- party to more than 30 arms control measures.9 The re- solve problems that might arise after the treaties’ entry sulting arms control regime encompasses a few bilat- into force.
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