Amy J. Nelson
Until recently, arms control—the system of agreements, organizations and processes to regulate certain types of weapons—has proved an effective tool for threats from conventional and nuclear technologies. Today, however, arms control is suffering from a spate of major violations, suspensions and withdrawals.
But it is not only state behavior that is undermining arms control. The regimes are being disrupted by the rapid pace of technological change in three key ways. First, industrially advanced nations (and aspiring ones) are accelerating the rate of development for innovations. New technologies are emerging too quickly for working group members—typically a combination of technologists and diplomats—to keep control lists current with emerging threats. Second, the technologies underlying existing weapons, platforms and systems—from the schematics for how they’re made to the software that makes them run—are being digitized, and newer technologies are emerging in digital formats that circumvent existing regulation. Third, the combination of accelerated innovation and digitization is contributing to the digital diffusion of technologies that augment the risk of proliferation and enable states to maintain latent military capabilities.
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