Ebook: Tokugawa Japan & NATO: Structures of Arms Control Beyond the State
Author: Christopher Portosa
- Genre: History
- Year: 2013
- Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
- Language: English
- epub
Tokugawa Japan & NATO: Structures of Arms Control Beyond the State (An Exploratory Study) Contents include: Arms Control Structures of NATO and Early Modern Japan Potential Cases: I: Arms Control in Early Modern Japan & Early Modern Europe II: NATO as Arms Control III: The Warsaw Pact as Arms Control IV: Attempts to Centralize Control over Nuclear Weapons after WWII Conclusions: Towards a Model of Arms Control and Weapons Diffusion On the Co-evolution of Technology and Social Organization Weapons have long attracted processes of social control, including the social control of the possession, use, diffusion, exchange, and, many times, even the existence of specific weapons. In the ancient past emperors and kings would sometimes attempt to transform “swords into plowshares” by melting them down, thereby reducing access to the means of violence. More generally, state formation and growth includes the social control and regulation of the means of violence. This process is in effect the most familiar and common strategy of preventative arms control, even if it is limited to the jurisdictions of particular centralized states. However, as technological growth and diffusion continues apace, including the potential diffusion of the most devastating weapons systems to marginal states and even to non-state terrorists, the subject of arms control in international society rises in significance. What social structures generate greater or lesser degrees of weapons diffusion and proliferation, that is, what is the social structural and political basis for the relative success and failure of arms control? I shall present an exploratory study of the relative success of arms control in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Tokugawa Japan: Both of these cases, as I shall discuss, succeeded in creating organizational structures that extended the scope of arms control beyond the confines of particular centralized states (against the spread and proliferation of nuclear weapons in NATO beyond the US, France, and the UK, and against the spread, proliferation, use, and possession of firearms and swords in early modern Japan). The US in NATO and the shogunate or Tokugawa Bakufu in relation to the regional military houses of Japan succeeded in eliminating the threat of war and arms races between member governments, even while these member governments retained their own independent militaries; further, the hegemon and member governments of these security structures formed asymmetric yet reciprocal relationships in which the member governments contributed and participated in processes of arms control directed at their own governments. For comparison, I shall discuss other potential cases studies including cases of arms control under conditions of interstate anarchy and also political centralization: arms control in early modern Europe (an anarchic, politically decentralized structure), the Soviet Empire’s Warsaw Pact (a centralized structure which extended beyond official state boundaries), attempts to centralize the control of nuclear weapons in an international or extrastate body (such as the UN) after World War II, and also the contemporary arms control “regime.” (A “regime” that is officially led by the International Atomic Energy Association of the UN and is also partly led by the asymmetric security alliance of NATO). Note: Structures of Arms Control Beyond the State: The Success of NATO and Tokugawa Japan (and also a somewhat longer version) was presented as a dissertation proposal in Charlottesville, VA in 2006 and 2007. This project has its origins in two larger projects Asymmetric Nuclear Weapons Sharing, and Yoshiwara as Jujitsu. I was in ill health, and thus I am putting this book online. The present version has been slightly revised including the title.
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