bobbymike said:
Gee it is not like we have to guess, we witnessed the strategy that brought about the end of the Cold War and ultimately massive disarmament and it was research, develop, build and deploy in potentially massive numbers - originally the US was to deploy close to 17,000 strategic warheads by 1993 (mix SDI in here as well) - until they other side came to the negotiation table, to repeat, the exact opposite of what the arms controllers wanted to do.
Without going too deeply into
the minutiae of it all, the strategy (strategic nuclear) wasn't about bringing an end to the CW era but based on containment and (mutual) deterrence.
Certainly the (disorderly, abrupt) fall of the Iron Curtain took western intelligence (and thus policy) by quite a surprise, though it's also hard to argue that such an event even could be effectively planned and managed (incidentally current putinist "hybrid" doctrine does sort of try to interpret their then experience into a strategy of influence and/or conflict in a weird, through a looking glass revanchist manner). Accounts from all contemporaneus sides point to a seat of the pants approach and basically holding tight. Things unraveled to such a degree that food aid (!) had to be promptly sent to the soon to be former Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev had been chosen already quite a bit earlier by the politburo to expressly address woes that went way beyond military - let alone nuclear arms - concerns. From a pile one can't simply pick one straw and claim it to have broken the camel's back, however apocalyptic that straw may theoretically be.
It's also a complete disservice to the very human social pressures that came from within the totalitarian communist system to suggest these peoples were somehow merely cowed to change, that they lacked agency. I've met and know a fair amount of people who witnessed those events from within. They faced tanks, complete insecurity and tremendous difficulty. They have been pummeled and their identities repeatedly challenged within a lifetime to a degree you and I can scarcely imagine. Sure, this is a discussion about nuclear weapons but I think it worth a detour or a disclaimer or two to avoid availability bias, i.e. seeing only nails for having a hammer (and/or straw for a sickle, going with the CW theme). We really must do better than "they" being a blanket synonym to the "other side" in discerning who and what we're dealing with at any given point. Quite a number of "them", too, were sufficiently convinced that a nuclear apocalypse was not so probable as to have motivation and determination to organize and act in spite of nuclear deterrence.
Lest you think I can't bring this back aroud to nuclear weapons in any meaningful way, then let's reflect on the current predicament vis-à-vis the (end of the) CW. Russia's GDP is (even less than) 1/10th of that of the US, North Korea's less than Vermont's (!) yet overtly confrontational nuclear postures have re-emerged, ranging from frayed to precariously volatile. In certain ways the nuclear risk is more manageable (numbers) is other ways less so (proliferation, "hybrid" percolation, lack of meaningful communication or understanding of intent). Rational "arms control", among other things, is weighing risk against reward. While I (at least) can't quite imagine a feasible path below extinction level stockpiles in any foreseeable situation (and thus those stockpiles should be resourced to be as reliable, modern and safe as possible), there certainly are rational limits to what kinds of amounts of weapons the military can/is at all willing to manage or indeed society can support indefinitely. Symbolic allocation of much greater resources beyond that (the amount of "that" being a more nuanced conversation, not some fixed theoretical combined yield baseline) is almost certainly ineffective, detrimental and self defeating in a multitude of ways.
As was during the CW, arms controllers are not some homogenous group. To lose that nuance e.g. for political expediency or plain convenience is a luxury even the US can't afford (for very long at least). There are elected officials, civilians, academy and career military well and truly steeped in the subject. I myself am sort of grudgingly reading up as far as I think it's my duty as a responsible, otherwise active and engaged person to be aware of these things. I self identify as an "arms controller" insofar as at least not seeing the technology as an end in itself. Predictably and sadly there are also "peace groups" who are basically astroturfed or otherwise unwittingly cajoled from Kremlin just as there were in the olden Soviet Days (which is one of the more traditional, carried over parts of the current putinist "hybrid" doctrine), along with agents provocateurs. The spectacle of Green party presidential candidate Jill Stein and Gen. Flynn attending an event celebrating RT with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, alone, was something else indeed.
We're hopefully just shooting the breeze here and not something more acutely, tangibly intercontinental (nor formulating policy beyond a very granular capacity or capability) so perhaps we can at least recognize that history hasn't ended and while we have the capacity of having it end, we should minimize the reasons to seek or expect that outcome in whatever form (stagnation or conflagration). Arms control agreements and protocols aren't forever either (anymore than, say, the Polaris missile was), nor entirely devoid of cynicism or even deception, but that is not to say they're useless. Just another tool in the box. Idealism is keeping track, keeping perspective, keeping direction and IMHO that's perfectly fine while also being mindful of mundane practicalities as not to be(come) too naïve and/or cynical.
