How Arms Treaties Historically Lessened Tensions in the World

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How Arms Treaties Historically Lessened Tensions in the World
Arms treaties have a rich history, particularly in international relations. A study conducted by Tannenwald to assess whether Arms control treaties work revealed that Arms control treaties and more specifically the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) have worked to ease tensions between states (51). Tannenwald further expounds that states that signed the NPT were less likely to acquire nuclear weapons as compared to non-NPT states (52).
Apart from the NPT, several arms control treaties were signed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Ideally, the nuclear age and the Cold war started almost consecutively. As such Every U.S. President since the Cold War strived to devise ways to control nuclear weapons (Tannenwald 54). A significant arms treaty that reduced anxiety during the cold war was the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which barred the testing of nuclear weapons on the space, oceans, and atmosphere in 1963.
It is also worth noting that Arms control treaties during the earlier stages of the Cold war did not end or even slow down the build-up of arms either quantitatively or qualitatively. Neither the U.S. nor the USSR gave up a single weapon (Tannenwald 60). However, if we accept that it was not realistic to hold that arms control could surpass the political instability of the broader relationship between the U.S. and the Soviets, we can see that its contribution was important in a way.

Indeed, the very fact of the dialogue and negotiations between the U.S. and the USSR was reassuring in some way to both the public and the participants themselves, and this helped minimally to lessen nuclear anxiety.
From the above discussion, I can conclude that arms control treaties to an extent, lessened anxiety in the world. More specifically the Limited Test Ban Treaty eased anxiety between the U.S. and the Soviets as it brought nuclear testing activities to a halt (Tannenwald 63). Also in the last stages of the Cold war, President Reagan captured public attention by his genuine abhorrence of Nuclear Weapons. Therefore, I believe that these treaties helped in lessening tension between the warring states and this can be listed as one of the factors that brought the Cold war to an end.
Work Cited
Tannenwald, Nina. “US Arms Control Policy in a Time Warp.” Ethics & International Affairs 15.1 (2001): 51-70.