Global strategic stability is facing increasingly heightened risks and tests. On the one hand, more and more countries have joined the nuclear club, and the interactions between countries are far more complicated than the bipolar confrontation during the Cold War period. In South Asia, India and Pakistan had openly crossed the nuclear threshold in 1998, increasing the risk that a conventional or sub-conventional conflict in the region could escalate to a nuclear war. In Northeast Asia, the North Korean nuclear issue has been dragging on for a long time. The United States has been vigorously developing missile defense technology under the name of responding to North Korean threats, which has raised China’s concerns. In the Middle East, although an agreement was reached on the Iranian nuclear issue in 2015, it faces domestic opposition from Iran and the United States, as well as opposition from Israel, making its future uncertain. If the Iranian nuclear issue spirals out of control, it may trigger further chain reactions in the region. On the other hand, the development of non-nuclear strategic technologies—such as cyber, space, and artificial intelligence technologies—has broadened the field of strategic stability research. The appropriate way to regulate competition among major powers in the field of non-nuclear strategic technologies and avoid an arms race has become a problem that urgently requires a solution. The integration of nuclear and non-nuclear strategic technologies, such as cyberattacks on nuclear command and control systems, also raises new issues of strategic stability in the field of nuclear weapons.

If we wish to use the lessons of the past to shed light on the present, the practices and experience of the United States and the Soviet Union in the field of nuclear arms control during the Cold War warrant careful study. Against the backdrop of opposing ideologies and confrontation between the two major military blocs, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a fierce arms race. During the Cuban missile crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union were very close to the outbreak of a nuclear war, and repeated false alarms from their strategic early warning systems almost triggered an accidental nuclear war as well. It was precisely because the two countries had recognized these risks, that the United States and the Soviet Union concluded a series of effective arms control agreements, which maintained the overall strategic stability of the world.

China is currently facing increasing pressure to participate in nuclear arms control. In April 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump proposed the idea of trilateral arms control among China, the United States, and Russia during his meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at the White House during Sino-U.S. trade negotiations.¹ After that, Trump administration officials began to urge China to join the U.S.-Russia nuclear arms control negotiations on various occasions. At one point, they even associated China’s participation in the U.S.-Russia negotiations with the possibility of extending the U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). In view of the disparity between the nuclear arsenal of China compared to those of the United States and Russia, China explicitly refused to be involved in the U.S.-Russian nuclear disarmament. China believed that the United States and Russia should continue to significantly reduce their nuclear weapons to create favorable conditions for other countries to join in nuclear disarmament.² Given China’s continued growth in its military power and the large-scale modernization of its weapons systems, China’s participation in some form of arms control may be inevitable in the not-too-distant future.³ Although China has participated in some multilateral arms control negotiations, it has never conducted bilateral negotiations such as those between the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia. Therefore, summarizing and learning from the experience and practices of U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations during the Cold War can provide an important reference for China if it participates in similar negotiations in the future.

I. U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Arms Control Practices

Nuclear arms control between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as between the U.S. and Russia, can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage was 1945-1972, which was a period of an unconstrained arms race. During this period, although the United States and the Soviet Union led the negotiation of two multilateral treaties, namely the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), these two treaties placed no substantive restrictions on the development of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union. This was the case until the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and the first-round agreement of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I). The second stage was 1972-2002, which was a period of arms control under treaty restrictions. The two parties concluded SALT II, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), START II, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET), and the multilateral Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). This stage ended with the United States’ withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. The third stage is from 2002 to the present, characterized by a power imbalance between the two nuclear superpowers and the gradual decline of arms control. Although the United States and Russia concluded the Moscow Treaty [Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty] (SORT) and New START, it is an indisputable fact that the momentum for traditional treaty-based nuclear arms control has been diminishing during this period.⁴

This section will review and analyze the history of arms control between the United States and the Soviet Union according to the specific characteristics of U.S.-Soviet arms control practices.

(1) Framework and Details of Arms Control Negotiations

A common practice in U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations was that the two sides would first reach an agreement on the overall framework of the issues to be discussed, and then negotiate specific details (formula-to-details method).⁵ Generally, the top leaders of both parties decided on the overall framework, while the negotiating delegations at the table were usually only responsible for negotiating the details. The negotiation framework determined the general structure of the future arms control agreement, including the types of weapons to be included in the negotiations, the methods for restrictions, and the general verification methods. The negotiations on the details included specific quantities, ranges, deployments, permitted activities, and detailed verification arrangements.

After the Nixon administration and the Soviet Union started negotiations on restricting strategic arms, the U.S. National Security Council proposed four alternative plans: (1) Set the upper limit of the number of offensive missiles at the total number of missiles in the United States at that time, with each country building 12 ABM launch sites and no restriction on multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs);⁶ (2) The restrictions on offensive weapons are the same as the first plan, but each country only builds one ABM launch site to protect their respective capitals; (3) In addition to the restrictions of the second plan, MIRVs are also banned; (4) Massive reduction in offensive missiles, both parties only build one ABM launch site, but no limits on MIRVs.⁷ These four plans reflected the respective concerns of the United States and the Soviet Union. At that time, the Soviet Union was mainly worried that the United States would achieve technological breakthroughs in the field of missile defense that would cancel out the Soviet Union’s nuclear retaliation capabilities, while the United States was worried about the increase in the number of Soviet offensive missiles. The first plan basically represented the interests of the United States, in which the United States did not need to make any cuts to its missile defense program, while the Soviet Union would have to reduce its offensive missiles. The Pentagon supported this plan, but it was obvious that this plan would not be agreed to by the Soviet Union. The fourth option was too radical, since the two sides were in fact not yet ready to substantially reduce their nuclear arsenals. The second and third differed on whether to ban MIRV, a technology that, if deployed, could significantly expand the nuclear arsenals of both sides. At that time, the United States had completed flight tests of MIRVs, but had not yet begun their deployment, while the Soviet Union was about to begin flight tests. While there were appeals to ban this dangerous technology, neither government was planning to do so.

Henry Kissinger supported the second plan, but his support was intended to fend off criticism from the domestic disarmament faction. He suggested that Nixon could endorse the third or fourth plan first, and then return to the second plan after the Soviet Union rejected the former two. To ensure that the Soviet Union rejected the third or the fourth plan, Kissinger added a clause requiring on-site inspections, because he knew that the Soviet Union would never accept any form of on-site inspection. In the end, as Kissinger had expected, the Soviet Union rejected the third and the fourth plan, and the two sides concluded the ABM Treaty and SALT I based on the second plan.⁸

SALT I was only a provisional agreement, after which the two sides continued to negotiate a formal treaty for the future. In November 1974, Ford and Brezhnev met in Vladivostok and reached the Vladivostok Agreement, which served as the basis for the subsequent SALT II negotiations. The Vladivostok Agreement limited the total number of strategic weapon delivery vehicles (including intercontinental missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and strategic bombers) of both sides to 2,400, among which no more than 1,320 intercontinental missiles and submarine-launched missiles could carry MIRV warheads. If the air-to-surface missiles carried by strategic bombers had a range of more than 600 km, they would be included in the total number of strategic weapon delivery vehicles (2400 vehicles).⁹ However, Ford failed to complete the SALT II negotiations during the remainder of his term.

After taking office, Carter had a choice to make: should he reach a quick agreement with the Soviet Union based on the Vladivostok Agreement, or renegotiate in order to reach a more ambitious agreement? Carter eventually decided to abandon the Vladivostok Agreement and sought to implement further reductions with the Soviet Union. Carter did this for two reasons: first, the new Democratic administration did not want to be limited by an agreement inherited from the previous Republican administration. Second, Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, often obsessively compared himself to Kissinger (瑜亮情结, had a “Yu-Liang complex,”,” or obsessive competition between a pair of well-matched counterparts) and sought to outdo Kissinger by achieving an even better agreement. The cost of this choice was that the SALT II negotiations continued to drag on for a long time, and the agreement was finally reached only at the end of the Carter administration. This resulted in a lost opportunity for the two sides to use the conclusion of SALT II as a chance to improve U.S.-Soviet relations.¹⁰

During Reagan’s first term, both the INF and START negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union were deadlocked. During the INF negotiations, the Reagan administration proposed that the United States would refrain from deploying medium-range missiles if the Soviet Union would destroy their deployed missiles in exchange. The Soviet Union naturally rejected this proposal. The Soviet Union believed that the INF negotiations should include the missiles of Britain and France, while the United States held that these negotiations should only include the United States and the Soviet Union. The START negotiation plan proposed by the Soviet Union planned to reduce the number of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles of both parties by 20% based on the number of vehicles in SALT II. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration wanted to restart the whole process from scratch and proposed to reduce the number of ballistic missile warheads (including submarine-launched missiles and land-based missiles) to 5,000, with land-based missiles not exceeding 50% of the total, and the number of heavy and medium land-based missiles remaining under 210, so that in the future, two countries would gradually achieve equal throw-weights.¹¹ According to this plan, the Soviet Union had to make substantial reductions, while the United States could continue its existing nuclear weapons modernization program. At the end of 1983, NATO decided to start deploying medium-range missiles in Germany, and the Soviet Union withdrew from the negotiations.

The breakthroughs of the INF and START negotiations occurred during Reagan’s second term. After Gorbachev came to power, the Soviet Union first agreed that the INF negotiations would not include the missiles of the United Kingdom and France and that the number of medium-range missiles deployed by the United States and the Soviet Union around the world should be equal (global equality). At the Reykjavik Summit at the end of 1986, Gorbachev proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union should not deploy medium-range missiles in Europe and proposed a global limit of 100 on medium-range missile warheads. Later, when George Shultz visited Moscow in April 1987, Gorbachev agreed to the “Global Zero” plan to destroy all medium-range missiles.¹² In Reykjavik, Gorbachev also proposed to reduce all strategic weapons by half. This proposal was a surprise to the United States. But the United States representative believed that, given that the Soviet Union had more nuclear warheads in total, the Soviet Union would still have more warheads after the proportional reduction. In the end, the two sides reached an agreement where, after the reduction, the nuclear capabilities of the two sides would be equal, namely 6,000 nuclear warheads and 1,600 delivery vehicles.¹³

(2) Restricting Opponents Through Arms Control Negotiations

One of the purposes of arms control is to use arms control negotiations to limit the opponent’s military power, preserve one’s own strategic capabilities, and guide strategic competition to areas in which one has advantages.¹⁴ In the arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union’s land-based heavy intercontinental missiles were constantly in focus for the U.S. In the mid-1970s, due to the poor accuracy of Soviet missiles and their lack of capabilities to strike hard targets, U.S. concerns focused on the higher throw-weight of Soviet missiles as compared to those of the United States. Paul Nitze was originally a U.S. SALT negotiator, but he later quit negotiations due to his dissatisfaction with U.S. negotiating strategy.¹⁵ He believed that a major flaw of the Vladivostok Agreement was that it did not limit the throw-weight, while the throw-weight of the Soviet SS-19 missile was three times that of the American Minuteman III, and the throw-weight of the SS-18 missile was seven times that of the Minuteman III. According to the Vladivostok Agreement, the Soviet Union would gain a three-fold advantage in terms of per-missile throw-weight and a two-fold advantage in terms of total throw-weight. Therefore, Nitze believed that only limiting the number of missiles without limiting the throw-weight would undermine strategic stability.¹⁶

As the accuracy of Soviet missiles improved, the United States began to worry that the Soviet Union might acquire the ability to destroy American intercontinental missiles in the future. The concern of the U.S. was based on the following logic: When a crisis occurred, the Soviet Union could use its high-precision, high-yield nuclear warheads to destroy all of the United States’ Minuteman ICBMs. The United States would then be left with only two options, either to retaliate against Soviet cities with its remaining less-accurate submarine-launched missiles and bombers, which would incur Soviet retaliation against American cities, or to surrender. In order to avoid this situation, the United States launched research and development on the MX intercontinental missile to obtain the ability to strike Soviet missile silos. However, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, before the MX missile could enter service, the accuracy of Soviet missiles would advance to the level of successfully being able to hit U.S. intercontinental missile silos, creating a so-called “window of vulnerability.”¹⁷

Negotiations on heavy missile restrictions extended throughout the Cold War period and beyond. The SALT I agreement prohibited the conversion of light ICBM silos to heavy ICBM silos, and encouraged the Soviet Union to dismantle older ICBMs (SS-7, SS-8) in exchange for new submarine-launched missiles (SLBMs). The SALT II Treaty placed limits on nuclear weapon delivery vehicles, nuclear weapon delivery vehicles carrying MIRVs, ballistic missiles carrying MIRVs (including ICBM, SLBM, and air-launched ballistic missiles [ALBM]), and ICBMs carrying MIRVs. Although the treaty stipulated that both parties could adjust the structure of their nuclear forces within these limits, these sorts of complexly nested limits actually meant that the Soviet Union could only convert its intercontinental missiles into SLBMs, but not the other way around. START I set limits on the number of warheads carried by heavy ICBMs and the total throw-weight of strategic ballistic missiles, and prohibited the production, testing, or deployment of new heavy ICBMs, heavy SLBMs, and mobile launchers for heavy ICBMs, while also cutting the number of land-based heavy missile SS-18 in half. START II called for the gradual reduction and eventual elimination of all MIRVed ICBMs. Because START II never actually came into effect, Russia never completely destroyed its heavy ICBMs.

The core concern of the Soviet Union was that the United States might use its technological advantages to develop a strategic defense system and cancel out the Soviet Union’s nuclear deterrence capabilities. The ABM Treaty of 1972 prohibited both sides from deploying missile defense systems that protected their entire territory. In 1983, Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which sparked a debate concerning the broad and narrow interpretations of the ABM Treaty.¹⁸ Since then, the question of whether the control of strategic offensive weapons had to be linked with strategic defensive weapons had been the focal point of arms control negotiations between the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States. At one point, the Soviet Union insisted that negotiations on medium-range missiles, strategic missiles, and space weapons should be linked together and conducted simultaneously. In Reykjavik, Reagan and Gorbachev almost reached an agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons. The divergence between the two sides was that while Gorbachev demanded that SDI tests should be limited to the laboratory level, Reagan insisted that any test allowed by the ABM Treaty could proceed. The two sides refused to make concessions, so the talks eventually failed. Over the next few years, the Soviet Union gradually abandoned its position regarding the linkage of these issues, and the United States and the Soviet Union signed the INF Treaty and START I.

After the Cold War, the START II Treaty between the United States and Russia did not restrict strategic defense. However, when ratifying START II, the Russian State Duma linked its entry into force with the ABM Treaty. In fact, this treaty never entered into force. After the [second] Bush administration withdrew from the ABM Treaty, Russia announced that it would no longer be bound by START II. The issue resurfaced in 2009 when the Obama administration was negotiating the New START Treaty with Russia. The Russian side expressed the hope that strategic arms negotiations could include the issue of missile defense, but the U.S. side firmly rejected such an inclusion. The approach ultimately adopted was to mention the linkage of strategic offensive and defensive weapons in the preamble of the New START Treaty, but there were no restrictions on missile defense in the main text of the treaty. After the treaty was concluded, Russia issued a unilateral statement, saying that, as a premise for the treaty to be meaningful, the United States should not significantly upgrade its missile defenses in terms of its quality and quantity. If the construction of U.S. missile defenses threatened Russia, Russia could withdraw from the treaty.¹⁹

(3) Interconnections of Arms Control Negotiations and Domestic Politics

International relations theory often assumes that a country is a unified rational actor whose foreign policy goal is to maximize its own interests. Although this assumption is conducive to theory-building, it is not completely consistent with reality. The government of any country is composed of different departments. These departments have different understandings of national interests, different preferences regarding means and methods to realize national interests, different organizational rules and procedures for strategic issues, as well as different orientations when it comes to power and interests. In fact, policymakers have to negotiate at both the domestic and international levels, participating in a two-level game.²⁰ For arms control negotiations, the game at the domestic level is often more difficult and more important.

For the United States, the game between the doves and hawks within the executive branch determines the position of the United States in arms control negotiations. The doves are represented by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA, which was merged into the State Department in 1999) and the State Department, while the hawks include the Department of Defense and the U.S. military. At times, there were also fierce debates between civilian DoD officials (such as the Secretaries of Defense and Office of Systems Analysis in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations) and the military. The doves usually supported expanding the scope of treaties, hoping to improve bilateral relations through arms control treaties, achieve strategic stability, and reduce the risk of nuclear war. Conversely, the hawks believed that the Soviet Union’s offensive intentions would not change, emphasized seeking peace through strength, sought to avoid concessions to the Soviet Union, and tried to preserve U.S. military superiority. A common justification used by the hawks to oppose expanding a treaty’s scope was that the treaty was not verifiable. On this issue, the Central Intelligence Agency often sided with the doves, arguing that the intelligence community was capable of providing adequate verification. Of course, expanding the range of verification would also help the intelligence community request higher budgets to improve intelligence capabilities. Dovish and hawkish positions were brought together and consolidated through the National Security Council or a specially created coordination group.

In the 1960s, the domestic debate on ABM in the United States fully demonstrated the coupling of military buildup, arms control negotiations, and domestic politics. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was not optimistic about ABM systems, because no matter what missile defense system the United States deployed, the Soviet Union could easily cancel out U.S. efforts by deploying more offensive missiles, which were far cheaper than missile defense systems. The U.S. Army hoped to gain a voice in the field of nuclear weapons through ABMs, and successfully gather the support of other military services to back ABMs. On this issue, Congress trusted military officials more than civilians in the Pentagon. It was hard for Congress to understand why missile defense systems that could save American lives were not deployed. Both the State Department and ACDA opposed ABM systems, believing that they would trigger an arms race and undermine strategic stability. President Johnson did not take a strong stance on ABMs, but feared being accused of disregarding American lives. In December 1966, Johnson decided to start ABM development, but chose not to decide whether to deploy the system before negotiating with the Soviet Union on ABM restrictions. The United States created a negotiation team headed by Ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewellyn Thompson. However, the Soviet Union was not ready to negotiate with the United States at that time. In June 1967, the Soviet Union rejected the U.S. proposal.²¹

Later, domestic political pressure forced the Johnson administration to deploy some form of ABM. There were three options: The first was a large-scale missile defense system to protect American cities from Soviet missiles. The second was a limited missile defense system to protect cities against future Chinese ICBMs. The third was a missile defense system only used to protect ICBM silos. As a compromise with the military, McNamara eventually announced the deployment of a limited missile defense system targeting China in September 1967, but the military actually considered this as the first step for an ABM system targeting the Soviet Union.²² A year later, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to start SALT negotiations. In discussions about the negotiation plan within the Johnson administration, the military still would not accept any restriction on missile defense systems.²³ In the end, due to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Johnson administration did not initiate U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations.

After the Nixon administration came to power, the domestic political atmosphere in the United States changed, and the public began to oppose ABMs. In particular, according to the missile defense plan of the Johnson administration, the United States was about to deploy large-scale radars and interceptor missiles carrying nuclear warheads around some major cities. This was met with fierce opposition from local residents. Correspondingly, voices opposing ABMs were also growing in the U.S. Congress. Nixon revised the main purpose of the missile defense system to the protection of ICBM silos in March 1969 and started ABM/SALT I negotiations with the Soviet Union in November of the same year. These negotiations culminated in the ABM Treaty, which banned ABM systems that protected the entire territories of the two countries. Each side could only retain two (later amended to one) ABM systems to protect its capital and/or ICBM launch sites. The U.S. missile defense system at the Grand Forks Air Force Base was operational in October 1975. However, since its technology was at an early stage and had very limited military capabilities, the base was eventually decommissioned in February 1976.

The game between the U.S. executive branch and Congress determined whether the treaty would be approved successfully. According to the U.S. Constitution, arms control treaties must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate. Therefore, influential members of Congress—such as Democratic Senator Henry Jackson of Washington State—had a substantial influence on arms control negotiations.²⁴ The SALT I Treaty imposed unequal missile quotas on the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States could deploy no more than 1,710 ICBMs and submarine-launched missiles, while the Soviet Union could deploy 2,347.²⁵ This made Jackson furious. Although he finally consented to ratify the SALT I Treaty, he added an amendment to the Senate’s resolution of ratification, requiring that future negotiations must be based on the principle of equality.²⁶ The Jackson Amendment had a direct impact on subsequent negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union. In addition, to gain Jackson’s support, Nixon also promised to purge the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). The number of ACDA staff shrank from 219 in December 1972 to 162 in July 1973. By early 1974, only four of the ACDA’s 17 senior officials remained.²⁷

U.S. presidents often needed to consider the defense budget and arms control negotiations together. In order to obtain the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to ratify a treaty, the president needed the support of the hawks, so major arms control treaties with the Soviet Union were often accompanied by major investments in nuclear weapon modernization. Furthermore, in order to get the simple majority of both houses of Congress necessary to pass the budget for modernizing strategic weapons, the president also had to win the support of the doves in Congress. Therefore, in terms of defense, the U.S. president must often walk a tightrope between the hawks and the doves: He cannot go too far down the road to military expansion, so as not to anger the doves, but he also cannot place too much emphasis on cooperation and negotiations with the Soviet Union, so that he can appease the hawks.

The personal image of the president also mattered. If he consistently presented a tough image, the public and Congress would be more inclined to believe that any arms control agreement he reached with the Soviet Union would not weaken the security of the United States. Conversely, an arms control deal struck by a president who was perceived as dovish tended to be met with more skepticism. Republican presidents had a natural advantage in this regard, as Nixon and Reagan were considered die-hard anti-communists before taking office. Democrat presidents often needed to prove their tough stance. Kennedy only established himself as a reliable defender of U.S. interests after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because Carter advocated cutting the defense budget before taking office and unilaterally canceled the B-1 strategic bomber and neutron bomb projects after taking office, he was always considered too weak. As a result, the SALT II Treaty concluded during his term was heavily criticized. Seeing no hope of approval after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter withdrew SALT II from the Senate.

II. Experience from U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Arms Control

This section will analyze the experience that can be drawn from the nuclear arms control practices of the United States and the Soviet Union. The experience can still serve as an important reference for maintaining the current global strategic stability.

(1) Nuclear Arms Control Was in the Common Interest of the United States and the Soviet Union

The massive destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons and the emergence of the mutually assured destruction principle had made it impossible and meaningless to win a nuclear war. Therefore, preventing the outbreak of nuclear war had become the common interest of the United States and the Soviet Union. In the words of Thomas Schelling and Morton Halperin, “The central feature of arms control is the recognition of the common interest, of the possibility of reciprocation and cooperation even between potential enemies with respect to their military.”²⁸ Specifically, the common interests of the United States and the Soviet Union in the field of nuclear arms control include: reducing the risk of nuclear war (including nuclear war triggered by pre-emptive attacks, deliberate nuclear war, and accidental nuclear war); preventing the escalation of crises; reducing spending on nuclear weapons; and preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Strategic stability is the core concept that guided U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms control. This theory was conceived with the birth of nuclear weapons and reached its maturity in the early 1960s. The condition for stability was “mutually assured destruction,” meaning that if either side could survive the first strike from the other with enough nuclear weapons to inflict devastating blows on the society of the other side, neither side would have any incentive to strike first. According to this theory, missile defense systems that could protect the entire territory of one side and silo-launched MIRVed ICBMs would create instability, while missile defense systems that could only protect ICBM silos and SLBMs deployed on survivable nuclear submarines would increase stability. This principle was embodied in nuclear arms control between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and later between the United States and Russia.

However, even under a stable power structure, nuclear war could still break out due to misunderstandings, accidents, or unauthorized actions, so the two sides needed to eliminate misunderstandings and ensure prompt communication through transparency and confidence-building measures. As early as 1955, Eisenhower proposed the idea of “open skies,”,” believing that the United States and the Soviet Union could open their airspace to each other’s reconnaissance planes in order to dispel concerns about surprise attacks. This vision eventually became a reality with the signing of the Treaty on Open Skies in 1992.²⁹ After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union concluded the Hotline Agreement in 1963, establishing two 24/7 two-way telegraph lines linking their respective capitals. Both countries subsequently modernized and expanded these hotlines several times. The United States and the Soviet Union also signed the Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Outbreak of Nuclear War and the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1971 and 1973, respectively. The two countries agreed that eliminating the risk of nuclear war and avoiding the use of nuclear weapons were the policy goals of both parties, and one should notify the other party when their early warning systems detected an unknown target and before test-firing any missiles from outside their own territory in the direction of the other party.

The United States and the Soviet Union’s recognition of their common interests in the field of nuclear weapons gradually deepened through interactions, crises, dialogues, negotiations, and learning.³⁰ In 1987, Joseph Nye proposed the concepts of “nuclear learning” and “security regime” for the United States and the Soviet Union. Learning can be divided into two types: simple learning and complex learning. The former can change policy means to better achieve established goals, while the latter may lead to the reevaluation of policy goals. U.S.-Soviet interactions in the security field produced common knowledge, which changed the two parties’ original beliefs and their perceptions of security interests, and facilitated the gradual establishment of certain security mechanisms to prevent risks. These security mechanisms, in turn, facilitated mutual learning between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.³¹

It should be pointed out that the Track 2 diplomacy between U.S. and Soviet academics had an important impact on U.S.-Soviet nuclear learning and their conceptualization of common interests.³² The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs was a typical example.³³ The Pugwash Conferences originated from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955. This manifesto warned that nuclear weapons threatened the survival of mankind, called on scientists from the East and the West to discuss measures to avoid nuclear wars, and urged governments to resolve disputes by peaceful means. The first Pugwash Conference was held in Canada in 1975. Scientists from the Eastern and Western camps participated in their individual capacities, and discussed the dangers of nuclear weapons and measures to prevent nuclear wars. The goal of the Pugwash Conference was to build a platform for communication, educate the public, and ultimately influence government decision-making in direct or indirect ways. In 1995, the Pugwash Conferences and its Secretary General Joseph Rotblat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in bringing about the PTBT, NPT, and SALT I treaties as well as the Biological Weapons Convention, and for their significant contributions in changing the thinking on nuclear disarmament after the Cold War.³⁴

(2) Arms Buildup and Arms Control Are Both Means to Realize National Interests

Both arms buildup and arms control are means to realize national interests, but not ends in themselves. A country should choose policies that best suit its national interests based on the international security landscape and its own interests. Military expansion does not necessarily strengthen national security. Excessive military buildup will result in a heavy economic burden and the aggravation of the security environment, thereby weakening national security in turn. In the same way, arms control does not necessarily mean greater security. If too many concessions are made in order to sign an agreement or if insufficient concessions are obtained from the other side, it will also be detrimental to national security.

Assessing the other side’s intentions is the key for deciding whether to engage in confrontation or seek cooperation. If the other side’s goal is backed by extreme expansionism at any price, then the interaction between the two sides is a zero-sum game. In this case, concessions and compromises will be seen as weak and vulnerable to bullying, so confrontation is the best choice. However, if the other party’s goal is to maintain the status quo, then the interaction between the two sides is not a zero-sum game, and arms buildup will lead to unnecessary security dilemmas and arms races. In this case, the best strategy is self-restraint and active communication that demonstrates each side’s intentions.³⁵ Needless to say, however, assessing the other party’s intentions is precisely the hardest thing to do.

Security decision-makers often tend to estimate the other party’s intentions in a pessimistic way and exaggerate the other party’s capabilities. In the later years of the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. ruling and opposition parties began to worry that the deployment of intercontinental missiles in the United States had lagged behind that of the Soviet Union, the so-called “missile gap.”³⁶ A U.S. intelligence assessment in 1960 concluded that the Soviet Union would deploy 140–200 intercontinental missiles in 1961, and this number would increase to 250–350 in 1962 and 350–450 in 1963.³⁷ However, after the deployment of reconnaissance satellites, the United States finally confirmed that the Soviet Union had deployed only 10–25 ICBMs in September 1961.³⁸ In the 1970s, in the face of the Soviet Union’s growing strategic capabilities, then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush appointed an independent external group called “Team B” to assess the Soviet Union’s strategic intentions. “Team B” judged that the aim of the Soviet Union was not only to deter a nuclear war, but to seek a strategic advantage over the United States in order to win a nuclear war.³⁹ This conclusion had a significant impact on internal debate within the United States regarding the U.S.-Soviet détente and SALT II negotiations. In the end, post-Cold War interviews with Soviet officials showed that the conclusions of “Team B” were wrong.⁴⁰

An overly pessimistic assessment of the other side’s capabilities and intentions can trigger overreactions, leading to unnecessary arms races.⁴¹ In the 1960s, the Soviet Union began building its “Tallinn” air defense system near Leningrad. American intelligence agencies had difficulties judging whether the system was an air defense system or a missile defense system, and if it was an air defense system, whether it could be potentially upgraded to a missile defense system. Coupled with the fact that the Soviet Union was building a missile defense system around Moscow, the United States was worried that the Soviet Union might build a missile defense system covering the whole country, thereby weakening U.S. nuclear deterrence capabilities. As a result, the United States began to develop penetration aids and MIRVs, and updated its nuclear war plan, adding more than 100 nuclear warheads to specifically attack the “Tallinn” system and Moscow’s missile defense system. Ultimately, the result was that, if a nuclear war did break out, not only would Moscow not be sufficiently protected, but it would suffer significantly greater damage.⁴² As the construction of “Tallinn” system proceeded and U.S.-Soviet SALT I negotiations began, the United States was subsequently able to confirm that “Tallinn” was not an anti-missile system, and the Soviet Union did not intend to expand its construction for a national missile defense system. However, at the time, the U.S. military was not willing to give up its MIRV technology, and the final SALT I agreement did not restrict MIRVs.

Arms control can constrain the development of strategic weapons on both sides and improve the security environment through cooperative measures. Before the conclusion of SALT I and the ABM Treaty, the number of Soviet offensive missiles had surpassed that of the United States, and it was still increasing its missile deployments at a rate of about 200 missiles per year. In contrast, the United States had no plans to increase its deployment of new missiles. The essence of SALT I and the ABM Treaty was to use restrictions on U.S. strategic defense capabilities in exchange for restrictions on the Soviet Union’s offensive weapons. At that time, the U.S. Congress also had no plans to fund a large-scale strategic defense system.⁴³ Another example came in the late 1970s when the Soviet Union began deploying the SS-20 medium-range missile, which could reach Europe but could not strike the United States. This deployment raised concerns in Europe. At the end of 1979, NATO proposed the principle of a “double-track system,” that is, while negotiating with the Soviet Union to destroy SS-20 missiles, it was simultaneously preparing to deploy “Pershing II” medium-range ballistic missiles and “Tomahawk” cruise missiles in Europe. At the end of 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union reached the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the two sides destroyed all land-based short-range and medium-range (range 500-5500 km) ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

Arms control also helps improve bilateral relations. In its essence, arms control is the result, not the cause, of the easing of tensions between states. However, since the issue of nuclear weapons is such a strong indicator, nuclear arms control agreements could in turn have an important feedback effect on inter-state relations. Looking at the history of nuclear arms control between the United States and the Soviet Union, arms control agreements were “a magic wand” (定海神针, Divine Needle that Calms the Sea, from Chinese mythology) that could calm the relationship between the two countries. These agreements were able to lay the foundation for U.S.-Soviet cooperation in other fields and provide predictability. In addition, regardless of whether an agreement could be reached in the end, the arms control negotiation process itself was of great significance. The protracted U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations during the Cold War gradually developed into a security mechanism for both sides and was backed by institutional momentum, becoming the anchor of stability in U.S.-Soviet relations.⁴⁴

(3) Transparency and Verification Are Important Means of Confidence-building

The U.S.-Soviet and later U.S.-Russian arrangements for arms control inspections deepened with the advancement of technology, bilateral relations, and the goals of arms control negotiations. Verification methods include notification, data exchange, weapons expos, national technical means of verification, and on-site inspections. SALT I and the ABM Treaty only stipulated the use of national technical means for verification, and the two parties promised not to interfere with verification, nor to adopt concealment measures to obstruct verification. However, the agreements did not clearly indicate which measures would be deemed as obstructing verification. In addition to limiting the number of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles, SALT II also restricted qualitative improvements. For this reason, it was necessary to verify certain characteristics and parameters of missiles, such as the number of stages, length, maximum diameter, take-off mass, throw-weight, and type of propellant. Therefore, the agreement further clarified that both parties should not adopt measures to encrypt telemetry data as this could obstruct verification. The INF Treaty, START I, START II, and New START all require verification of reductions in nuclear weapon delivery vehicles and introduced detailed on-site inspection measures for this purpose, including baseline data inspections, facility closure/new construction inspections, warhead count inspections, destruction inspections, and short-notice inspections.⁴⁵

In addition to detecting and deterring treaty violations, a more important function of transparency and verification measures is to build confidence. Through transparency and verification measures, both sides can gain confidence during the implementation of the treaty and a better understanding of the other side’s nuclear force structure. This can help avoid worst-case scenarios in defense planning. Long-term cooperative transparency and verification arrangements can also enhance mutual understanding, promote the stability of the strategic relationship between the two countries, and reduce tensions. It is no exaggeration to say that well-designed transparency and verification measures are more important than specific reductions in the number of nuclear weapons. In July 2010, seven former commanders of the U.S. Strategic Air Command and U.S. Strategic Command sent a letter to four influential senators, expressing their support for the New START Treaty reached by the United States and Russia. They believed that the transparency and verification measures in the treaty would allow the United States to effectively gain insight into Russia’s nuclear forces, which would help stabilize the relationship between the two countries. The function provided by these measures is something that cannot be replaced by national technical means.⁴⁶ In March 2017, at a hearing of the Armed Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Paul Selva and Commander of U.S. Strategic Command John Hyten said that the verification provisions of the New START treaty would allow the United States to predict Russia’s behavior in the field of strategic nuclear forces to a certain extent and prevent arms races.⁴⁷

In the early stages of U.S.-Soviet arms control, the Soviet Union’s attitude towards transparency and verification measures was very conservative. During the SALT I negotiations, the Soviet Union refused to provide the United States with any information about its nuclear forces. Negotiations were based entirely on U.S. data, using U.S. code names for Soviet weapons rather than their actual model names. Not only was this information kept secret from the United States, but the Soviet military also kept it strictly secret from the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The negotiators from the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs knew nothing about the performance, parameters, quantities, and deployment locations of Soviet strategic weapons, and were completely dependent on the reports provided by the U.S. representatives. There was one well-publicized example: During the negotiations, the U.S. military representative General Royal Allison showed a map that indicated the deployment sites of Soviet ICBMs. The Soviet representative General Nikolai Ogarkov got up and took Allison aside and told him not to do that again because the civilian officials in the Soviet delegation were not authorized to see such things.⁴⁸ The final SALT I agreement did not include any mutual exchange of data and relied entirely on national technical means for verification. During the Senate ratification hearings, Senator Jackson accused the executive branch of failing to pressure the Soviet Union to provide data, arguing that while U.S. intelligence agencies had a good understanding of Soviet nuclear forces, the American people did not.⁴⁹ During the SALT II negotiations, the United States put strong pressure on the Soviet Union to provide basic data, and the final SALT II Treaty included a simple dataset on the nuclear force structures of both parties.

Whether there could be effective verification and to what extent it could be accepted had been the key issues during the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union on the prohibition of nuclear testing since the late 1950s. In the summer of 1958, a meeting of experts in Geneva devoted itself to researching the feasibility of the verification techniques needed to stop nuclear testing. The final report issued by the meeting argued that a global monitoring network composed of land-based stations, monitoring ships, and sampling aircraft could be established. This system would provide a high detection and identification probability for atmospheric nuclear tests with a yield of more than 1 kiloton (height below 50 kilometers) and underground nuclear tests with a yield greater than 5 kilotons. When incidents of an uncertain nature were detected, they could be resolved through on-site inspections.⁵⁰ Afterward, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union announced a moratorium on nuclear testing and began negotiations on the issue of banning nuclear testing. The focuses of the debates included “decoupled underground nuclear explosions,”,” the number of on-site inspections, and veto power against inspections.⁵¹ The parties came very close to reaching an agreement, but negotiations eventually failed because of the aborted four-country Paris Summit.⁵² Starting in 1961, the Soviet Union and the United States resumed nuclear testing in succession. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, both the United States and the Soviet Union felt the threat of nuclear war. In 1963, the United States and the Soviet Union finally concluded the PTBT, which did not require on-site inspections. This treaty prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and outer space.

Subsequently, the United States and the Soviet Union concluded the TTBT and PNET in 1974 and 1976. The TTBT stipulated that the yield of underground nuclear tests could not exceed 150 kilotons, while PNET stipulated that the yield of a single nuclear explosion could not exceed 150 kilotons, and the total yield of a group of explosions could not exceed 1,500 kilotons. In order to verify the equivalent of the nuclear explosion, the TTBT protocol stipulates that both parties must submit geological information of the nuclear test site, which would be used to work backward from the seismic waves to calculate the explosion equivalent. The PNET protocol stipulated that detailed technical data must be submitted before peaceful nuclear explosions. If the total yield of a group of explosions exceeds 150 kilotons, on-site observers shall be allowed to use instruments to confirm that the yield of any single explosion does not exceed 150 kilotons. However, the United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty because they believed the treaty’s verification measures were insufficient. In order to promote the ratification of the treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union conducted one nuclear test each at nuclear test sites in the two countries in August and September 1988 and used their own measurement methods to monitor each other’s nuclear tests. After the joint test, the two sides agreed on a new verification protocol and made detailed regulations on the methods for monitoring nuclear tests. Both treaties finally entered into force in December 1990.

III. Lessons for China

Arms building and arms control issues are gaining increasing importance in Sino-U.S. security relations. For a long time, nuclear arms control was not a high-priority topic in Sino-U.S. relations due to the disparity in competitiveness between China and the United States. The traditional view of American experts was that, after New START, the United States and Russia needed to conduct one or two more rounds of disarmament before it would be China’s turn to participate.⁵³ However, as the modernization of China’s nuclear weapons advanced, the United States began to pay increasing attention to China’s nuclear weapons and other non-nuclear strategic capabilities. The Trump administration went so far as to directly propose the idea of trilateral arms control. Although the Trump administration did not propose any substantive arms control plan and its methods of promoting the idea were too simple and crude, the proposal did successfully mobilize public opinion and domestic politics to focus on this topic. After the Biden administration came to power, they also expressed a view that China needed to join future arms control negotiations.⁵⁴

In recent years, the capabilities of China’s nuclear force technology have improved significantly, and China’s nuclear warhead count has also been slowly increasing. China has successively unveiled the DF-5B ICBM capable of carrying MIRV warheads, the DF-26 medium- and long-range missile supporting both nuclear and conventional weapons, the modified ICBM DF-31AG, the new land-based mobile ICBM DF-41, and a new ballistic missile nuclear submarine. According to reports, China has also been developing air-launched ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads as well as next-generation ballistic missile nuclear submarines and their submarine-launched missiles.⁵⁵ The academic community’s estimation of China’s total number of nuclear warheads has gradually increased from 240 in 2011 to 350 in 2020.⁵⁶ The U.S. Department of Defense’s Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021 report states that the number of Chinese nuclear warheads may reach 700 by 2027 and at least 1,000 by 2030.⁵⁷

In addition, the construction of the U.S. strategic missile defense system will weaken the strategic stability between China and the United States. The United States has always publicly stated that the scale of the missile defense system protecting its homeland is designed to address risks from North Korea and Iran. China and Russia have far more strategic missiles than North Korea and Iran, and the U.S. missile defense system cannot intercept them.⁵⁸ However, given the asymmetry in nuclear force structure between China and the United States, only a small number of Chinese nuclear warheads would survive a U.S. attack designed to destroy them. This means even a small-scale U.S. strategic missile defense system could potentially intercept China’s retaliatory nuclear warheads.⁵⁹ Therefore, any improvement in the performance and reliability of the U.S. strategic missile defense system will inevitably mean a reduction in China’s nuclear retaliation capability. However, the U.S. has always explicitly refused to accept any restrictions on its development and deployment of missile defenses, which may lead to an offensive/defensive arms race between the two countries.⁶⁰

In addition to nuclear weapons, the competition between China and the United States in other fields also warrants our attention. First, one of the reasons that the Trump administration withdrew from the INF Treaty was that China was not restricted by the treaty in its development of conventional ballistic missiles.⁶¹ The United States wants to limit China’s conventional missile capabilities, but it is unclear what price the United States is willing to pay to achieve this goal. Second, China and the United States have been accusing each other with regard to aspects of cyber economic intelligence, cybersecurity intelligence, and cyberattack weapons. In 2015, it was reported that China and the United States might reach an agreement on cyber arms control, promising not to attack each other’s key infrastructure in peacetime, but the agreement eventually fell through.⁶² Finally, since the Chinese space test in 2007, the United States has been paying much more attention to space security. However, the United States still rejects any form of substantive arms control measures, only accepting transparency and confidence-building measures.⁶³

In order to cope with challenges to global strategic stability, China can draw many lessons from US-Soviet arms control during the Cold War.

(1) Significantly Increase Transparency and Participate in Strategic Dialogues at all Levels

The experience of U.S.-Soviet arms control during the Cold War shows us that appropriate military transparency and continuous bilateral arms control negotiations and dialogues are of great significance for building confidence, preventing miscalculations, and avoiding worst-case scenarios. In recent years, as China’s economic strength has grown, China’s national defense budget has increased year by year with a steady stream of emerging military capabilities and weapons. The issue of China’s military transparency has received an increasing amount of attention, gradually becoming one of the most controversial areas in China’s security policy. Although China’s military transparency has greatly increased compared to the past, on the whole, the level of China’s military transparency is still low, its military transparency policies have not substantially changed, and China’s responses to finger-pointing from the outside world are still passive. China’s comparatively low level of transparency damages the country’s image, raises unnecessary suspicions, and reduces the effect of deterrence to a certain extent.

Therefore, China should substantially increase its nuclear transparency. First, China can consider making public the approximate number of its nuclear warheads, the model numbers of all nuclear missile weapons, and launch tests for the vast majority of strategic missiles. Second, nuclear transparency must adhere to the principle of “strategic transparency and tactical ambiguity.” Troop numbers, weapon model numbers and weapon’s purposes generally do not need to be kept secret, while specific technical details and operating procedures should not be made public. Third, government departments with publicity, secret protection, intelligence, and operational functions can formulate unified and operable classification guidelines and revise them as the project progresses.⁶⁴

China and the United States should actively promote strategic dialogues at all levels. Sino-U.S. strategic dialogues can be divided into Track 1, Track 1.5, and Track 2 dialogues. Broadly construed, Track 1 dialogue includes both exchanges between the Chinese and U.S. militaries as well as dialogues between the U.S. State Department and the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Narrowly construed, Track 1 dialogue only refers to the former. In April 2008, a Chinese military delegation visited Washington for a joint symposium between the Chinese Ministry of Defense and the U.S. DoD. Since then, this dialogue was halted for certain reasons and has not been resumed. Track 2 dialogue refers to the dialogue between the academic communities of the two countries, while the Track 1.5 dialogue is led and organized by the academic communities, with government officials and military personnel participating in their private capacities.⁶⁵ In strategic dialogues, China and the United States can focus on each other’s military theories, nuclear policies, concepts of conflict escalation, and assessments of strategic weapon capabilities.

(2) Proactively Design Arms Control Framework Plans

Although China is unlikely to participate in substantive arms control in the short term, this does not mean that China will do nothing as it waits for that day to come. China should make full use of this interval period, plan ahead, and proactively design arms control plans it desires for the future. First, it can coordinate its own nuclear weapons modernization with future arms control. Second it can gain an advantage in future negotiations. There has already been much academic discussion about how China could participate in arms control negotiations in the future, and it is necessary for the Chinese government and military to conduct relevant research as soon as possible.⁶⁶ Factors that need to be considered in the arms control plans include: the relationship between strategic offensive and strategic defensive weapons, the relationship between nuclear weapons and non-nuclear strategic weapons, the control of non-strategic nuclear weapons, the disposal of nuclear warhead stockpiles, new nuclear weapon delivery platforms, and the establishment of a mutual notification mechanism of launches and other confidence-building measures.

It is also necessary for China to research the verification technology and counting rules needed for possible future arms control. Unlike the United States and Russia, China’s nuclear deterrence relies on the concealment and maneuverability of nuclear weapons.⁶⁷ The on-site inspection approach adopted in U.S.-Russian arms control treaties would undermine China’s nuclear deterrence capabilities, so it is not suitable for China. In addition, during peacetime, most of China’s nuclear warheads are separated from the missiles and stored in special warhead bases.⁶⁸ According to the counting rules of the U.S.-Russian arms control treaties, the number of deployed nuclear warheads in China is close to zero.⁶⁹ How to factor in China’s practices in future arms control and formulate corresponding counting rules is an issue that needs to be resolved in advance. As a first step, with the permission of the host country, China could observe the verification process for U.S.-Russian arms control treaties as an observer in order to become familiar with the existing verification methods of the United States and Russia.

(3) Unwaveringly Uphold China’s Nuclear Strategy Tradition

During the Cold War, China maintained its unique nuclear posture without participating in the frantic arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. China’s nuclear strategy tradition is quite different from that of the U.S. and the Soviet Union: First, China believes that nuclear weapons are “paper tigers.” Due to the existence of the nuclear taboo, the probability of actually using nuclear weapons remains very low. The main purpose of developing nuclear weapons is to counter nuclear blackmail, rather than their actual use.⁷⁰ The nuclear postures of the United States and the Soviet Union focused on nuclear warfighting and limiting losses as much as possible in the event of a nuclear war. Second, the principle guiding the construction of China’s nuclear forces is “efficient and effective” (精干有效). This principle does not require a large nuclear arsenal. As long as China possesses “a basic means of counterattack” (有起码的还击手段), so that “if you want to destroy us, you will also suffer some retaliation” (你要毁灭我们，你自己也要受到点报复), it would be enough.⁷¹ The United States and the Soviet Union had far more nuclear warheads than necessary to completely destroy each other. At its peak, the combined total number of nuclear warheads of the two countries exceeded 70,000.⁷² Third, in peacetime, China’s nuclear weapons are kept at a relatively low state of readiness.⁷³ The nuclear forces of the United States and the Soviet Union maintained a rather high level of readiness and could launch within minutes after receiving an order.⁷⁴

China’s unique nuclear posture is an important contribution to world peace. China should unwaveringly adhere to its nuclear strategy tradition and use it to guide its modernization of nuclear weapons and the possible arms control it may face in the future. From the arms control experience of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, we can see that both arms control and arms buildup are means of improving national security. Traditionally, China lacks experience in arms control. And it needs to adjust its way of thinking as it is facing a new security environment. On the one hand, it is necessary to break free from the past mindset and dispel fear and resistance towards arms control. The purpose of arms control is not merely to safeguard and support arms buildup, but also to serve as another path for realizing national interests. On the other hand, as China’s economy advances and technological capabilities improve, the development model for its strategic forces will change from a capability-oriented model designed to catch up with more advanced countries to a model that places more emphasis on the guiding role of top-level strategies.