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Controlling Arms and Men
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14408 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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6 / 1988 |
2,615 Words |
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Ken Adelman
Ken Adelmen is the former director of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency. |
To reflect generally on arms control after nearly five years as director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is welcome. As Gen. Bernard Rogers demonstrated of late--and so many before him--nothing concentrates the mind and loosens the tongue like leaving office. I need no longer heed the wise counsel a British diplomat gave his boss, Lord Harrowby, in 1804, namely, to respond to a pleading foreign official in "neutral, unmeaning civilities."
Arms control's impact on Western security has been hashed and rehashed unmercifully over the years. I believe now, as I believed coming into the post, that arms control is vastly overvalued in public discussions. Our average citizen has been led to believe that someday, somehow, arms control will deliver us from danger. It has often been equated with "peace" by officials who know better and is now so assumed by publics who should be told better.
The most prevailing and perverse myth equates an arms control agreement with a "peace" agreement. This assumes that any such agreement would bring lasting peace to our turbulent world. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Arms control has a ring of finality about it that is clearly unwarranted. "When is it going to end?" people ask of the "arms race." "When can we do without the unclear weaponry, the soldiers, the big arsenals accumulated over all these years?" The answer is: just about when we can dismiss the police or the FBI or the other domestic security apparatus we've built up all these years.
Parchment can't bring peace. Arms control can't
... (1998 of 15515 Characters)
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