Toward a Negative Arms Race

By 1988 it was clear that economic warfare had become the decisive weapon on the cold war. It was also becoming more evident that the ideological basis for that war was crumbling. There was increasing evidence of the decline of Marxism within the Soviet bloc among all strata of society, as well as the first tentative expressions by Ronald Reagan of willingness to abide the “evil empire.” For the first time in forty years, peace based on more than the balance of power seemed within the realm of possibility. A requirement for an end to the cold war was an economic peace that would reduce the pressure of the arms race. Yet peace still had to have a military as well as economic component, at least until such time as the institutions of conflict might pass from the scene. The balance of power had to remain intact during the precarious stand-down from the old trajectory of increased confrontation. How was that to be done when the resource base for the generation of military power was so different in the USSR and US? We suggested a revival of the UN proposal to limit military expenditures and allow each country to choose its military instruments as it saw fit. This flexibility would have direct advantages in promoting US-USSR relations and reducing the level of economic war between them. It would also permit each nation to meet its military requirements in other regions, such as the Middle East, without detente with the other superpower tying them both to weapons systems designed for use in central Europe. Chapters 8 and 9 were originally published as parts of “Foundations of a Theory of Economic Warfare and Arms Control,” in Conflict Management and Peace Science [Wolfson and Farrell, 1989].