Q&A · 12:00-15:28

What naval treaties teach about nuclear arms control

A comparison with the Washington and London naval treaties exposes the verification and participation problems facing multilateral nuclear-arms agreements.

Question

Could a Washington-style nuclear-arms treaty overcome the weak supervision and oversight that troubled the interwar naval treaties?

Short answer

Only with credible verification and broad participation; strategic ambiguity and major powers' reluctance to bind themselves would otherwise recreate familiar naval-treaty weaknesses.

Notes

Alex has not watched the Perun video mentioned in the question, so his answer addresses the treaty idea itself. The interwar naval treaties provide examples of enforcement problems that a nuclear-arms agreement would have to address. Verification becomes difficult when states value strategic ambiguity and do not want to acknowledge every weapon they possess. A treaty also loses force when major powers promote rules that they will not accept as binding on themselves. Broad participation and credible supervision therefore matter as much as the numerical limits written into an agreement.