Arms control is a term for international restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation and usage of small arms, conventional weapons, and weapons of mass destruction. Historically, arms control may apply to melee weapons before the invention of firearm. Arms control is typically exercised through the use of diplomacy which seeks to impose such limitations upon consenting participants through international treaties and agreements, although it may also comprise efforts by a nation or group of nations to enforce limitations upon a non-consenting country.
Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing weapons. Disarmament generally refers to a country's military or specific type of weaponry. Disarmament is often taken to mean total elimination of weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear arms. General and Complete Disarmament was defined by the United Nations General Assembly as the elimination of all WMD, coupled with the “balanced reduction of armed forces and conventional armaments, based on the principle of undiminished security of the parties with a view to promoting or enhancing stability at a lower military level, taking into account the need of all States to protect their security.”
World War III, World War 3, WWIII, WW3, or the Third World War are the names given to a hypothetical global conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use since as early as 1941. Some apply it loosely to limited or more minor conflicts such as the Cold War or the war on terror. In contrast, others assume that such a conflict would surpass prior world wars in both scope and destructive impact.
Brinkmanship or brinksmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict. The maneuver of pushing a situation with the opponent to the brink succeeds by forcing the opponent to back down and make concessions rather than risk engaging in a conflict that would no longer be beneficial to either side. That might be achieved through diplomatic maneuvers, by creating the impression that one is willing to use extreme methods rather than concede. The tactic occurs in international politics, foreign policy, labor relations, contemporary military strategy, terrorism, and high-stakes litigation.
Détente is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce tensions.
The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though no other country engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers.
Grand strategy or high strategy is a state's strategy of how means can be used to advance and achieve national interests in the long-term. Issues of grand strategy typically include the choice of military doctrine, force structure and alliances, as well as economic relations, diplomatic behavior, and methods to extract or mobilize resources.
Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats of using force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons and is related to but distinct from the concept of mutual assured destruction, according to which a full-scale nuclear attack on a power with second-strike capability would devastate both parties. The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer. Deterrence in an international relations context is the application of deterrence theory to avoid conflict.
In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refer to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.
In international relations, the security dilemma is when the increase in one state's security leads other states to fear for their own security. Consequently, security-increasing measures can lead to tensions, escalation or conflict with one or more other parties, producing an outcome which no party truly desires; a political instance of the prisoner's dilemma.
Able Archer 83 was a military exercise conducted by NATO that took place in November 1983. It simulated a period of heightened nuclear tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, leading to concerns that it could have been mistaken for a real attack by the Soviet Union. The exercise is considered by some to be one of the closest moments the world came to nuclear war during the Cold War. It was the annual Able Archer exercise conducted in November 1983. The purpose for the exercise, like previous years, was to simulate a period of conflict escalation, culminating in the US military attaining a simulated DEFCON 1 coordinated nuclear attack. The five-day exercise, which involved NATO commands throughout Western Europe, was coordinated from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) headquarters in Casteau, Belgium.
The Cold War from 1979 to 1985 was a late phase of the Cold War marked by a sharp increase in hostility between the Soviet Union and the West. It arose from a strong denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. With the election of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and American President Ronald Reagan in 1980, a corresponding change in Western foreign policy approach toward the Soviet Union was marked by the rejection of détente in favor of the Reagan Doctrine policy of rollback, with the stated goal of dissolving Soviet influence in Soviet Bloc countries. During this time, the threat of nuclear war had reached new heights not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
The military modernization program of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) which began in the late 1970s had three major focuses. First, under the political leadership of 3rd paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, the military became disengaged from civilian politics and, for the most part, resumed the political quiescence that characterized its pre-Cultural Revolution role. Deng reestablished civilian control over the military by appointing his supporters to key military leadership positions, by reducing the scope of the PLA's domestic non-military role, and by revitalizing the party political structure and ideological control system within the PLA.
Colin S. Gray was a British-American writer on geopolitics and professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, where he was the director of the Centre for Strategic Studies. In addition, he was a Senior Associate to the National Institute for Public Policy.
Lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) are a type of autonomous military system that can independently search for and engage targets based on programmed constraints and descriptions. LAWs are also known as lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), autonomous weapon systems (AWS), robotic weapons or killer robots. LAWs may operate in the air, on land, on water, underwater, or in space. The autonomy of current systems as of 2018 was restricted in the sense that a human gives the final command to attack—though there are exceptions with certain "defensive" systems.
The post–Cold War era is a period of history that follows the end of the Cold War, which represents history after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. This period saw many former Soviet republics become sovereign nations, as well as the introduction of market economies in eastern Europe. This period also marked the United States becoming the world's sole superpower.
Charles Louis Glaser is a scholar of international relations theory, known for his work on defensive realism, as well as nuclear strategy. He is the founding director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, as well as a professor of political science and international affairs. His best-known book, Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of Competition and Cooperation received an Honorable Mention for 2011 Best Book from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association.
A military artificial intelligence arms race is an arms race between two or more states to develop and deploy lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). Since the mid-2010s, many analysts have noted the emergence of such an arms race between global superpowers for better military AI, driven by increasing geopolitical and military tensions.
The United States foreign policy of the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, from 1953 to 1961, focused on the Cold War with the Soviet Union and its satellites. The United States built up a stockpile of nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery systems to deter military threats and save money while cutting back on expensive Army combat units. A major uprising broke out in Hungary in 1956; the Eisenhower administration did not become directly involved, but condemned the military invasion by the Soviet Union. Eisenhower sought to reach a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, but following the 1960 U-2 incident the Kremlin canceled a scheduled summit in Paris.
The Artificial Intelligence Cold War is a narrative in which tensions between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China lead to a second Cold War waged in the area of artificial intelligence technology rather than in the areas of nuclear capabilities or ideology. The context of the AI Cold War narrative is the AI arms race, which involves a build-up of military capabilities using AI technology by the US and China and the usage of increasingly advanced semiconductors which power those capabilities.
