The United States and Arms Control: The Challenge of Leadership.

• Author: Miller, Charles
• Position: Review

The United States and Arms Control: The Challenge of Leadership Allan S. Krass (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997) 205 pp.

Allan Krass, currently working on the staff of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Bureau of Nonproliferation and Regional Arms Control, has produced a strong work detailing the history and current state of arms control. Based on his knowledge and command of the subject, he writes a cogent and well paced book that takes the reader from the Cold War to the current debates.

The initial chapters provide the necessary factual context for understanding modern arms control. One marvels at the rapidity with which the arms control movement has grown in the past decade, and Krass paints an exciting picture of all of the players involved, from individual compliance inspectors to nation states. After a short discussion of the expansion of the scope of international arms control, the author moves to a detailed description of Cold War implementation, verification and compliance measures, themes he revisits throughout the book. He divides verification into two parts: data exchange and notifications, and inspections and observations. Within this framework he looks at the four major areas of arms control since 1987: nuclear, conventional, chemical and biological and toxin weapons.

After reviewing the arms control achievements of the Reagan, Bush and Clinton Administrations, Krass turns to a fascinating description of the evolving arms control bureaucratic structures, which have seen their work load increase dramatically since the end of the Cold War. Later, he addresses the costs and benefits before turning to persistent problems in arms control, arguably the most interesting section of the book. Krass examines areas of internal friction within the government, particularly between the intelligence community, which finds itself with a shifting mission, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency(ACDA), which has strategic, long-range thinkers but little influence due to lack of budget, size and respect. Krass also describes ways in which technology has provided tools for compliance and verification measures as well as a plethora of raw data that often outstrips the capacity of analysts to produce useful intelligence. This dynamic, combined with the fact that most other nations cannot match the United States' technological capabilities, has led to an emphasis on low-technology monitoring and compliance measures. Krass...