Author Description

Disarmament and arms control are firmly associated in the public mind with efforts to maintain international peace through compromise and negotiation. However, there is a much older type of disarmament, which is not the product of give and take but is imposed upon a defeated enemy. Forced disarmament is the subject of this book. It was used frequently in the ancient world as an alternative to massacre or enslavement and it is the United Nations' policy today in Iraq. It was part of every major peace settlement from the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, through the Paris negotiations in 1815 and 1919, to the postwar agreements in 1945. Democracies almost automatically have recourse to it when they are in a position to impose peace upon their enemies, yet relatively little thought has been given to its efficacy. Can it maintain the imbalance of forces created by war and, if so, for how long? Does it simply infuriate the defeated while bringing few advantages to the victorious states? How can the vanquished evade such measures and what can the victorious states do to prevent evasion? What role does public opinion play in supporting forced disarmament by the victors and backing its evasion in the defeated state? Is there any difference between the disarmament measures imposed after a limited and after a total war? Can states be disarmed even without going to war and, if so, in what circumstances? Enforced disarmament has often been ignored by historians, diplomats, and strategic analysts. Yet the democracies have imposed some measure of disarmament on their enemies after every major victory since 1815. In many cases, forced disarmament was one of the most important, if not the most important, of their war aims. The demilitarization of Germany and Japan, for example, was one of the most significant post-war measures agreed by the Soviet Union, Britain, and the USA in 1945, whilst the debate on the disarmament measures imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War continues to rage. The efficacy and durability of enforced disarmament measures, and the resistance they are likely to encounter are thus issues of central strategic and political importance. Philip Towle examines the most important peace settlements from the time of Napoleon to Saddam Hussein, in the first major history of this fascinating subject.