How Arms Treaties Historically Lessened Tensions in the World

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How Arms Treaties Historically Lessened Tensions in the World
Arms treaties have a rich history, particularly in international relations. A study conducted by Tannenwald to assess whether Arms control treaties work revealed that Arms control treaties and more specifically the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) have worked to ease tensions between states (51). Tannenwald further expounds that states that signed the NPT were less likely to acquire nuclear weapons as compared to non-NPT states (52).
Apart from the NPT, several arms control treaties were signed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Ideally, the nuclear age and the Cold war started almost consecutively. As such Every U.S. President since the Cold War strived to devise ways to control nuclear weapons (Tannenwald 54). A significant arms treaty that reduced anxiety during the cold war was the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which barred the testing of nuclear weapons on the space, oceans, and atmosphere in 1963.
It is also worth noting that Arms control treaties during the earlier stages of the Cold war did not end or even slow down the build-up of arms either quantitatively or qualitatively. Neither the U.S. nor the USSR gave up a single weapon (Tannenwald 60). However, if we accept that it was not realistic to hold that arms control could surpass the political instability of the broader relationship between the U.S. and the Soviets, we c…