MAKING SURE
- Is Arms Control verification a subjective political or an objective technical practice?
by Patrick Kidd

The verification process has fulfilled a very important role in the context of arms control since the outbreak of the Cold War. According to the Dictionary of International Relations, verification “is the process whereby actors seek to confirm that others are complying with agreements, conventions and understandings.” (Evans & Newnham 1998, p. 251) This process is very multi-faceted and requires a large variety of information and evidence gathered from a number of different sources, which are often vastly different from one another.

This information and evidence can generally be placed in to one of two very general categories: objective information and subjective information. Objective information is that which is known to be fact and has been obtained often through monitoring of a state by national or non-national technical means and is presented without bias. Subjective information is often based on political factors which are in turn based on observations made about a state’s political and military activities.

William D. Jackson (1982) points out that because “both excessive verification requirements and reliance on verification procedures that are perceived to be inadequate can thus obstruct progress in arms control” it is paramount to note that “Verification must be viewed therefore not only as a technical subject, but as a political subject.” (p. 346)

The debate on the subjective or objective nature of verifying arms control agreements was particularly active during the term of office of the Reagan administration in the United States in the 1980s. A lot of the literature on the subject came out of this period firstly due to increased suspicion of Soviet violations of agreements during Reagan’s Presidency and secondly due to the recent signing of the extremely unpopular (in the United States at least) SALT II accord, which was believed by many to be incredibly complex to verify to a standard which would be agreeable to the American Administration.

Michael Krepon (1989) raises some interesting points in his article, ‘The Political Dynamics of Verification and Compliance Debates’. He proposes that the process of verification does not occur unless a state believes it to be politically viable. He talks about the ‘Adequate Verification’ attitude prevalent in the USA between 1963 and 1979, mentioning that it was not always necessary to waste time and effort trying to gauge Soviet compliance with agreements and that it was only necessary to do so when non-compliance posed a significant military or political threat to the government of the United States of America.

Aspin and Kaplan (1980) confirm Krepon’s observations on Adequate Verification, declaring that if margins of error occur in the verification process, but “these margins are so small that undetected Soviet cheating would not upset a favourable assessment of the treaty’s impact on our security, then the treaty is adequately verifiable,” (p. 177) meaning that if the treaty was shown to be ‘adequately verifiable’ it would fulfil the political function it was required to fulfil by the United States, which was being sufficient to ensure national security.

The process of ‘Adequate Verification’ itself suggests, by its mere existence, that at the time of its adoption the United States government did not possess the means to detect all potential Soviet violations.

This policy was replaced in 1981, during the Reagan administration after it had been long felt that ‘adequate verification’ was sufficient. It was replaced by ‘effective verification.’ A decision was made amongst Reagan’s officials that “tougher verification provisions and more exacting standards for determining adequacy would be required for future agreements.” (Krepon 1989, p. 141) This is a prime example of the increase in political toughness exhibited by the Reagan administration towards the verification process and demonstrates the increased politicisation of the process during the 1980s well.

Krepon also mentions that the Soviets were unlikely to break many of the earlier arms control treaties because the political consequences of breaking these agreements far outweighed the gain from performing the tests. He quotes former US Senator, Jacob Javits, who stated, based on a report by Dr Kissinger, “there is every likelihood that the agreements will be complied with because it is in the interest of the U.S.S.R. to do so.” (p. 139) Krepon’s article suggests that the political considerations related to verification are far more important to the process than the technical considerations.

Karl Pieragostini (1991) agrees with Krepon that there is a general likelihood of compliance to treaties, reiterating the sentiment that cheating is an unattractive prospect to those engaged in arms control agreements as “if caught, the cheater faces markedly greater costs. What would the other side do? What would happen to the cheater’s standing in the international community?” (p.424) and also that “The alternative of not cheating has attractions. Money will be saved through reduced arms expenditure, security will be enhanced by constraints placed on the other side, and a resulting reduction in tensions could have wider implications.” (p. 424) He echoes this further by mentioning that “the inherent threat of discovery and reaction acts as a deterrent to future cheating.” (p. 423)

Mark Lowenthal and Joel Wit (1985) also discuss this when they talk about the different types of non-compliance, mentioning that “Although the military significance of any violation may be small, there remains a political significance.” (p. 163) They state the point that “Risking a treaty, or perhaps an entire regime of treaties, for a small military advantage, sends a troubling message about the intention of that party,” (p. 163) however, they are more sceptical of Soviet intent than Javits, Krepon and Kissinger in their observation that “Violating a treaty for some military advantage may make sense, depending on the calculation of risks and benefits.” (p. 163)

Krepon’s arguments are not without opposition. Stephen Meyer (1984) disagrees with the proposal that the government of the United States takes such a blasé stance on minor Soviet violations and ‘hedging’ on arms control agreements, stating that “Many in government and in the broader defence and foreign policy community have come to accept the proposition that arms control agreements that are not completely verifiable pose a potential threat to U.S. national security.” (p. 111)

Despite this, Meyer is not completely in disagreement with Krepon. He tells us that the monitoring process (the technical aspect) is only a small part of the verification process by stating that “A distinction that is important, yet often blurred is that between monitoring and verification. Monitoring refers to efforts to detect, identify and ‘measure’ developments and activities of interest.” (p. 112) He goes on to say that “Monitoring, therefore, is a technical process in that it merely attempts to ‘see’ what is occurring.” (p. 112)

In his article, Meyer makes references to the political nature of the verification process, with a particular example being when he talks about the politicisation of the monitoring process, declaring that “The verification process is susceptible and sensitive to political distortion… The fact is that identical monitoring information will not always lead to the same verification outcome.” (p.114)

Nancy Gallagher (1997) refers to the co-operation theorists view that verification is “a ‘self-help’ substitute for the functions that a world government would perform.” The basis of this theory is that the ‘truth’, as determined by the verification process can be used by a government as political weight to reassure the population that arms control is a worthwhile process, as the government can be seen to be taking an active stance on ensuring the compliance of another state to these agreements.

Another example of political factors influencing the verification process can be seen in the changes in Soviet policy throughout the Cold War period. After the Second World War, Soviet attitudes towards verification were reserved. However, as time went by and different ways of enacting the monitoring aspect of verification became more politically useful to successive regimes, the Soviets began to accept more varied methods of ensuring compliance with Arms Control agreements. This changing policy shows just how important subjective political factors are in the verification process. It shows that the opinions of different individual Soviet leaders and governments mattered greatly on the decision to incorporate the verification procedures in to national policy. (Sherr 1988)

In his book ‘The Other Side of Arms Control’, Alan B. Sherr talks about this change in Soviet policy regarding verification throughout the Cold War area. He mentions that different forms of verification were considered to be more acceptable by the Soviets depending on the regime in power at the time. For instance he tells us that despite the Soviet enthusiasm for co-operative measures and national technical means as instruments for verification, there was a large amount of disapproval in the Kremlin for verification of arms control treaties by the process of international regulation performed by supranational bodies, independent of the states involved in the agreements. (pp. 243-247)

He states that Soviet approval of this practice was limited to acknowledgement that “an aggrieved party to an appropriate agreement could seek redress from the United Nations Security Council, where the USSR could exercise its veto if necessary to block any action.” He goes on to say that “Soviet leaders made no concrete commitments to proposals that might subordinate their power.” (p. 247)

Later on in the Cold War period, in the Gorbachev era, attitudes towards verification by means of international regulation changed within the leadership of the Soviet Union. Sherr presents evidence that this was happening and that Soviet attitudes towards verification by means of international agency was beginning to change after Gorbachev’s accession to the position of Soviet Party Leader, highlighting, amongst other steps, the agreement made at the Conference on Disarmament in Europe, which “can be seen as a bridge between ever more intrusive types of on-site inspection conducted by parties to an agreement, and the development of an international regulatory agency with broad inspection powers.” (p. 268)

Miroslav Nincic (1986) talks about the more technical aspects of the verification process in his article about Soviet compliance with arms agreements in Scientific American. He mentions the importance of telemetry to the verification process, and that “telemetric information is test-performance data that are transmitted as a stream of radio signals…each side routinely intercepts the other’s signals to gather military intelligence.” (p. 25) He asserts that this information, when intercepted, can be used to verify compliance with arms control agreements and forms an integral part of the verification process.

Also discussed in Nincic’s article is the importance of verifying compliance with the ABM treaty. The importance of technical means when it came to verification of this treaty was paramount as it was very important for both sides to ensure that the other state did not possess a more widespread early warning system in order to maintain the status quo.

The US became particularly concerned upon discovery of the Krasnoyarsk radar in 1983 by a Big Bird satellite (p. 21) that the Soviet Union was violating the ABM treaty and gaining an advantage over the United States by vastly increasing its capacity to detect incoming ICBMs in time to launch an effective counter-attack. Because of the significance of this it was therefore vital for the United States to possess the means, such as reconnaissance planes and the Big Bird satellites, to verify Soviet compliance.

This does not mean, however, that political factors are not present in the verification of the ABM treaty. One of the main issues when negotiating the treaty is one that is very familiar in arms control. Schear (1985) raises the question, “How do both sides draft agreements when the weapon systems (or components) they want to limit also have applications they may wish to exempt from restraint?” (p. 154) The decision is entirely subjective as it depends on the usefulness of the system to the incumbent administration and cannot be reversed when it comes to verification of the treaty by the opposite side.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that technical means do indeed play a very important monitoring role in the process of verifying the many arms control treaties which were agreed during the Cold War period. It is fair to suggest that without national and non-national technical means the verification process would have been considerably more complicated and possibly even non existent, as without these means the process would have been based almost entirely on a trust relationship between the USA and USSR which was almost non-existent for large amounts of this period of history.

Despite this, however, the evidence to suggest that subjective, political factors played a more important role than objective technical facts is overwhelming. There is a consistent theme in the literature of political factors in one state influencing the use of technical means, for example, a change in administration, leading to a change in perspective on the technical aspect of verification, or suspicion of a possible treaty violation.

One very important piece of evidence for this is the previously mentioned ‘Adequate Verification’ policy held by the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. The idea that it is only necessary to be able to detect treaty violations which pose a militarily significant threat to US national security suggests that, with verification, subjectivity is of critical importance when it comes time to decide whether or not it is necessary to consult objective information.

William D. Jackson (1982) summarises the political, rather than technical, nature of arms control accurately in the introduction to his article, stating that “U.S. Administrations in particular have acted with domestic political risks as well as international security risks in mind in approaching the arms control verification issues.” (p. 345) He also highlights that “The verification regime must be designed with political as well as technical requirements in mind,” and that “Verification procedures also must address the subjective insecurity of the participants in order to provide political support for the agreement.” (p. 351)

In doing so he is echoing many other scholars by saying that evaluation of the verifiability of negotiated arms control agreements is a process based primarily on subjective political factors rather than those that are objective and technically-based.
Bibliography:
Evans, G. & Newnham, J. (1998) The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations. London: Penguin
Gallagher, N. W. (1987) ‘The Politics of Verification, why ‘How Much?’ is not enough’, CSP, 18 (2)
Jackson, W. D. (1982) ‘Verification in Arms Control: beyond National Technical Means’, Journal of Peace Research, 19 (4), 345-53
Krepon, M. (1989) ‘The Political Dynamics of Verification’, International Affairs, 65 (2)
Lowenthal, M. M. and Wit, J. S. (1985) ‘The Politics of Verification’ in W. Potter (ed.) Verification and Arms Control 1985
Meyer, S (1984) ‘Verification and Risk in Arms Control’, International Security,
Nincic, M. (1986) ‘Can the US trust the USSR?,’ Scientific American, 254 (4), 33-41
Pieragostini, K. (1991) ‘Arms Control Verification, Cooperation to reduce uncertainty’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 30 (3), 420-44
Schear, J. A. (1985) ‘Arms Control Treaty Compliance, Buildup to a Breakdown’, International Security, 10 (2), 141-82
Sherr, A. B. (1988) The Other Side of Arms Control, Soviet Objectives in the Gorbachev era, Boston: Unwin Hyman