Arms Control vs. Peace through Strength

The belief that arms races cause wars (Chapter 14) logically suggests arms control as the way to peace. The domestic equivalent is the idea that gun control reduces crime. Arms control bets national security on the assumption that potential enemies will reduce armaments to safe levels.

The term “arms race” refers to a rapid, iterative increase in the quantity or quality of weapons in peacetime that increases the chances of war. The most common example given is the arms race leading up to World War I and the idea that the assassination in Sarajevo led to an accidental war. As noted in Chapter 12, in the twenty years or so before World War I, French and British spending doubled, and German spending increased tenfold from a much smaller base. Inconveniently for the theory, non-defense spending increased even faster in all three countries. Also inconvenient, nations that never got into World War I such as Sweden and Switzerland vastly increased their arms spending. Even today, these perpetual neutrals are among the best-armed states in the world.

We now know from diplomatic correspondence and cabinet meeting minutes that Germany aimed to displace Britain as Europe’s hegemon, eliminate France as a world power, dominate Russia and end its hope of controlling Constantinople, and unite middle Europe under its control. We know from exhaustive study of these primary sources that the German arms buildup of the previous two or three decades did not drive but implemented policy (Fischer 1967).

Arms race theorists have argued that failing to respond to an arms buildup will prove lack of hostile intent and prevent war. Thus, the one-sided arms buildup that preceded World War II is equally inconvenient for arms race theory.

Cold War policy makers using game theory (Chapter 2) coordinated arms control and arms buildup on the assumption that the superpowers shared a common interest in avoiding nuclear war. Arms control theory evolved from “first strike” capability into Mutually Assured Destruction—in effect, a game of Prisoners’ Dilemma (Chapter 2). Betting on the rationality, the idea was to make sure that any country launching an attack would suffer total destruction, making the acronym for the doctrine, MAD, a description of the mindset required to start nuclear war. It worked—or at least did not fail.⁵ The Cold War arms race did not result in a nuclear war, despite coming close in 1962 and 1983.

Arms control faces new problems with the end of the Cold War. Barnett (2004) judges it irrelevant in the Core and futile in the Gap countries (Chapter 14). The increasing number of nuclear powers, the pursuit of chemical and biological weapons, the failure of the most dangerous states to keep agreements, and the growth of global terrorism—particularly the possibility that terrorists might obtain weapons of mass destruction invalidate the assumptions on which arms control is based.

The US is so powerful militarily that no likely alliance has the means to project sufficient power far enough to force it to change any policy vital to its national interests. If anything, the US preponderance is becoming even larger, as it continues to develop weapons that are even more exotic and powerful. Yet there is no peace. In a perfect example of Merton’s Law of Unintended Consequences (Chapter 9), America’s enemies have turned to asymmetric strategies (Chapter15) despite a significant “Catch-22.” Small attacks will not change US policy while large ones risk the almost random obliteration of whatever regime the US President sees fit to blame until he gets the right one, as the Taliban in Afghanistan learned.

A close examination of specific cases is not kind to arms control as a means of achieving peace. Germany’s behavior was typical of rising hegemonic powers facing the great power of the day.⁶ It is common for a state interested in changing the status quo to initiate an arms race. The Cold War example suggests that it is difficult to distinguish an “arms race” from a policy of “peace through strength.” Iran and China are prime culprits in the multi-polar world that seems to be emerging in the post-Cold War world.

The domestic equivalent of arms control is gun control. In 2011, the latest year for which US data is available, guns were used to commit 8,583 murders, down drastically from three times as many annually in the 1980s⁷ Two-thirds of gun murders took place in inner cities and involved 18 to 22 year old males; many of them gang members with criminal records.⁸ Most involved handguns, with only 323 committed by rifles of all types. Particularly after mass shootings, defined as four or more victims of a single shooter in a single day, three different perspectives are heard on how to reduce the carnage, each raising a different constitutional issue.

One perspective comes primarily from liberals and groups such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and raises Second Amendment problems. It focuses on the weapons themselves and advocates stringent gun control focusing on background checks, gun show sales, and “assault rifles,” commonly described as semi-automatics (not full automatics, controlled since 1934) with large capacity magazines and irrelevant cosmetic features such as pistol grips, bayonet mounts, and flash suppressors. The second perspective comes primarily from conservatives and groups such as the National Rifle Association. It seeks to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and focuses on the shooters themselves, often individuals on psychotropic drugs, known to be mentally unstable or both, which raises Fifth Amendment problems.

Improvements are possible in US gun laws. Obvious ones include fully implementing the National Instant Check System, better control of private and gun show sales, and better licensing and background checks. Such laws won’t stop thefts or illegal sales including proxies paid to buy weapons for criminals, but are within the constitutional limits. Most effective according to experts such as former New York and Los Angeles police commissioner William Bratton would be long mandatory sentences for anyone who uses a gun (fired or not) in a crime and wider use but better control of “stop-and-frisk” laws that allow police to search individuals reasonably suspected of carrying illegal weapons. The focus on large capacity magazines almost certainly is irrelevant and may be mistaken. It falsely assumes that a frightened defender will hit the attacker with the first shot, that the single shot will stop the attacker, that there never is more than one attacker, and that hunting as the only legitimate shooting sport. Any rifle or pistol that can hold a magazine can hold one of any size. It is no more than a box with a spring that pushes bullets into the chamber for firing, easily fabricated in a home workshop or even by a 3D printer. Since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in September 2004, murder and overall violent-crime rates continued to decrease, and only 2.6% of all murders are committed using shotguns or rifles of any type.

Guns are only a third of the equation. The second part is the murderer. Just as we can improve gun laws without seriously compromising constitutional rights, improvements are possible in the way we care for violent, mentally ill individuals without violating their Fifth Amendment rights. Abusive involuntary institutionalization in the first half of the twentieth century by doctors who had almost total control of patients led to corrections in the 1960s that went too far in the other direction.

There may be a third part of the equation. Some believe that increasing graphic and violent movies and video games that have become more accessible due to cable TV and the Internet are at least a contributory cause of the slaughter. Others respond that this is unproven and that at most they reflect rather than cause the violence in society. Of course, both positions may be true. Whether and what to do about this aspect of the problem of mass shootings is unclear but the question remains open, requiring further research (Chapter 3).

Gun advocates often speak of an individual’s right to self-defense as a matter of faith. But, how often does it happen compared to gun crime? US data from the National Crime Victimization Study [NCVS] suggest about 80,000 Defensive Gun Incidents [DGIs] per year in the United States—nine times the number of gun murders! However, the NCVS survey is not anonymous. Conducted by Department of Justice employees, it effectively warns respondents that they risk prosecution if they admit using or in some states even admit to having a gun, so almost certainly underestimates the actual number of DGIs.

NCVS estimates are orders of magnitude lower than thirteen other national surveys of DGIs conducted by academic researchers, pro- and anti-gun organizations, news companies, and commercial polling firms.

In the largest study of crime in America ever, Lott (1998) examined data on gun ownership, crime, arrests, and convictions separately for each of the US’s 3045 counties for 18 years. He found that state-imposed waiting periods and criminal background checks required by the Brady Act had no impact on violent crime rates. Non-discretionary carry permits (available in 32 of the 50 states when he did the study) reduced the number of gun crimes attempted, and for the ones that were attempted, 98% of the time merely brandishing a gun stopped the attack. High-crime urban areas experience the greatest improvements. Women benefit more than men and the improvement is not limited to those with weapons. This is a case where the free rider effect (Chapter 10) is positive!

Virtually all mass murders take place in “gun-free zones” such as churches, schools, and shopping malls. Despite much stricter gun laws, both the UK and Australia have suffered instances of mass shootings that in some cases have gone on for hours because even the police were insufficiently equipped to stop the shooter (Malcolm 2002). Those in the US usually end quickly when the police arrive. They end even faster whenever an armed citizen is on hand, some examples being the Anniston, Alabama Shoney’s Restaurant in 1991, Pearl Mississippi High School in 1997, Edinboro Pennsylvania Middle School in 1998, Colorado Springs New Life Church in 2007, and Clackamas Oregon Shopping Mall and a San Antonio movie theatre in 2012. Hence, some suggest training and arming at least some staff at every school, and some schools are acting on the suggestion.

The media routinely reports gun crimes, but rarely reports DGIs. This badly distorts the picture of firearm use in the US. Making guns difficult to obtain does not reduce suicides, with most shooters becoming leapers.¹⁰ Gun control advocates cite Britain and Japan but not Finland and Switzerland,¹¹ both of which have higher gun ownership and lower murder rates than the US. The UK has a lower murder rate than the US, but violent crime is some 3.5 times higher than in the US—perhaps because unlike the US with all those DGIs, people there have no way to defend themselves from thugs. There seems little reason to doubt that defensive gun use is very common in the US. The logical conclusion is obvious: any form of gun control that disarms the noncriminal majority will reduce DGIs that drive off burglars, prevent murders, and thwart rapes.