Arms Reductions: An Approach that Has Worked

By William Lambers
History News Service

Less is more.

While this adage has not always been U.S. policy when it comes to nuclear weapons, it is the theme of the nuclear arms reductions agreement signed this week between the United States and Russia.

This new agreement will shrink the nuclear arsenals of both nations to between 1,700 and 2,200 weapons apiece. According to President Bush, "The treaty will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War."

The premise of the agreement is simple: fewer armaments make more peaceful and prosperous relations. And if you flip through the pages of American history, you'll see that this approach has worked before for the United States. In fact, you'll find an interesting comparison dating back nearly 200 years.

Different times. Different weapons. But the same theme -- less is more. Naval forces on the Great Lakes played a significant role in the War of 1812. Control of the lakes was a must for any hope of victory. A massive buildup of warships on both sides played itself out in critical battles on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain. After the war had ended, naval forces from both sides still rode the waves of the Great Lakes.

After the War of 1812, John Quincy Adams was instrumental in convincing the British foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh, that disarmament of the lakes was in the best interest of both countries. In 1817, the United States and Great Britain concluded the Rush-Bagot Agreement (named for the British minister to the United States and acting Secretary of State Richard Rush), which demilitarized the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain by ending military shipbuilding there and calling for the disarmament of existing warships.

What better way to promote peace than to demilitarize what had been a war zone just years earlier? The agreement of 1817 was a significant step toward improved relations between the United States and Britain. Today, it is a relationship we take for granted, but in the early 1800s that relationship was one of conflict and bloodshed. Nor did the United States and Britain graduate to the friendship of today immediately following the War of 1812. The growth of their strong alliance was a gradual process of which the Rush-Bagot agreement was a significant part.

We can see signs of a similar relationship emerging between the two great Cold War adversaries in this week's events. The legacy of the Cold War left nuclear weapons as one of its centerpieces. Both the United States and Russia accumulated stockpiles of more than 20,000 nuclear weapons during their power struggle. Fear of a nuclear holocaust hung over the world for almost 50 years.

Today, both powers hope nuclear weapons reductions will help lead to improved relations. Those relations have been strained in recent years by the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty, which prohibited missile defense, and development of a missile defense system.

At the time of the Rush-Bagot Agreement, a statement in the Times of London read, "No wiser act was ever agreed upon than to the limitation of the naval forces on the Lakes." The same holds true for the United States and Russia today. There couldn't be a wiser act than to reduce nuclear stockpiles. Such an agreement establishes trust and peaceful intentions, and lays the groundwork for further nuclear arms reductions.

Just off the waters of Lake Erie, an international peace memorial stands to inculcate the lessons of international peace by arbitration and disarmament. The waters of Lake Erie are calm now, far removed from the fierce naval battles of the War of 1812. We know that the Rush-Bagot Agreement was one with long-lasting and positive implications. Only time will tell what the impact of the U.S. and Russian agreements on nuclear arms will be. We can only hope that another peace memorial will somewhere stand one day in honor of these Russian-American efforts.

William Lambers is the author of "Nuclear Weapons" (2001) and a writer for the History News Service.

[William Lambers, 821 Neeb Road, Unit 5, Cincinnati, OH 45233. Fax: (513) 347-7747; e-mail: blamb303@aol.com.]

Pictured at top (left to right): King Henry VIII of England, The Mayflower sails for America, Marie Curie, Woodrow Wilson, Adolf Hitler, A protester faces off against Chinese tanks at Tianenmen Square.