What is Disarmament?
Disarmament aims to maintain international peace and security, prevent and resolve armed conflicts and protect civilians by completely eliminating specific weapons.
This is achieved through a broad spectrum of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral measures and agreements such as the and the , which are designed to eliminate biological and chemical weapons respectively.
Disarmament is a separate, but related concept to both arms control and non-proliferation, which were introduced in Unit 1. This unit will cover disarmament in more detail, specifically in the context of the United Nations.
Why does Disarmament Matter?
Proponents of disarmament make a simple argument: Weapons are the prime mover of instability and violent conflict; therefore eliminating weapons stockpiles and stopping the production of new weapons reduces the likelihood of such conflict and the resulting human suffering and material destruction.
Weapons cause harm even in peacetime, because their production and maintenance binds public resources which otherwise could have been used to fund social programmes, healthcare, education or infrastructure. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower articulated this idea in the 1953 “Chance for Peace” address:
[…] Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is: two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is: two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
[…] This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Chance for Peace", speech to American Society of Newspaper Editors. April 16, 1953. Audio courtesy of the Miller Center, University of Virginia.
This argument for disarmament remains true today, and is one of the driving forces of the United Nation’s disarmament efforts. Izumi Nakamitsu, head of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, reaffirmed this position in a 2018 essay:
[…] President Eisenhower recognized that unrestrained military spending creates distrust, worsens tensions and makes peaceful resolutions to conflict harder to achieve. […] Excessive spending on military hardware cannot address challenges such as climate change, mass refugee flows and extreme poverty. In the absence of an urgent global response, these challenges will fuel tomorrow’s conflicts and make each of us less safe.
Izumi Nakamitsu, Global Military Spending Has Doubled but the World Is No Safer. April 25, 2018, Time Magazine Online.
Disarmament and the United Nations
Multilateral disarmament and arms limitation have been central to the United Nations’ peace and security efforts since its founding in June 1945.
The UN has given the highest priority to reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons, destroying all remaining chemical weapons, and strengthening the prohibition of biological weapons. It also works toward eliminating landmines and other indiscriminate weapons, preventing terrorists from acquiring arms, promoting transparency in military spending, and other intermediary targets.
To achieve these goals, the UN established a complex system of people, practices, and international organisations known as the UN Disarmament Machinery. The following chapters will cover its history, central and peripheral components, achievements, and challenges lying ahead.