Number: RL33865
Title: Arms Control and Nonproliferation: A Catalog of Treaties and Agreements
Authors: Amy Woolf, Paul K. Kerr, and Mary Beth Nikitin, Foreign Affairs, Defesne, and Trade Division 
Abstract: Arms control and nonproliferation efforts are two of the tools that have occasionally been used to implement U.S. national security strategy. Although some believe these tools do little to restrain the behavior of U.S. adversaries, while doing too much to restrain U.S. military forces and operations, many other analysts see them as an effective means to promote transparency, ease military planning, limit forces, and protect against uncertainty and surprise. Arms control and nonproliferation efforts have produced formal treaties and agreements, informal arrangements, and cooperative threat reduction and monitoring mechanisms. The pace of implementation slowed, however, in the 1990s, and during the past six years, the Bush Administration has usually preferred unilateral or ad hoc measures to formal treaties and agreements to address U.S. security concerns.
Pages: 66
Date: April 9, 2008