Disarmament

Disarmament, procedure for abolishing, limiting, regulating, or reducing a nation's military forces or weapons arsenal. Widespread or universal disarmament has been a long-sought goal of many. After World War II, the existence of nuclear weapons and the split of the world into 2 hostile camps lent a new urgency to curbing the destructive power of nations. Several treaties (Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 1963; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 1968, a non-binding treaty under UN auspices) were negotiated in the 1950s and 1960s. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were unsuccessful in the 1970s, but the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) between the United States and the USSR went on throughout the 1980s. With the end of the cold war in Europe in 1989–90 and the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact Alliance, major reductions in military personnel and materiel throughout Europe and Russia became feasible, and are currently being planned and executed. In 1993 the Chemical Weapons treaty was signed.