How does the Soviet Union view the costs and benefits of nuclear arms control? What factors motivate Soviet negotiations with the Western world on this crucial issue? And what, precisely, does the Soviet Union hope to accomplish through nuclear arms control? Originally published in 1988, The Other Side of Arms Control provides an in-depth examination of this too infrequently discussed aspect of the arms race and the ongoing negotiations to halt it. In The Other Side of Arms Control, Alan B. Sherr argues that the time is now right for significant substantive progress to be made on nuclear arms control: the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev has demonstrated greater flexibility and willingness to compromise on a number of difficult issues, including verification. But more important, circumstances within and outside the Soviet Union now make progress on arms control crucial to Soviet political and economic goals as well as foreign policy objectives. Written in accessible, nontechnical language, The Other Side of Arms Control will be of historical interest to students, teachers, policymakers, and others concerned with the future of nuclear arms control.

During the Cold War, many believed that the superpowers shared a conception of strategic stability, a coexistence where both sides would compete for global influence but would be deterred from using nuclear weapons. In actuality, both sides understood strategic stability and deterrence quite differently. Today’s international system is further complicated by more nuclear powers, regional rivalries, and nonstate actors who punch above their weight, but the United States and other nuclear powers still cling to old conceptions of strategic stability. The purpose of this book is to unpack and examine how different states in different regions view strategic stability, the use or non-use of nuclear weapons, and whether or not strategic stability is still a prevailing concept. The contributors to this volume explore policies of current and potential nuclear powers including the United States, Russia, China, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. This volume makes an important contribution toward understanding how nuclear weapons will impact the international system in the twenty-first century and will be useful to students, scholars, and practitioners of nuclear weapons policy.