How conventional arms control failures caused the Russo-Ukraine War

William E. Lippert

Defense & Security Analysis, 2024, vol. 40, issue 1, 138-160

Abstract: What role did conventional arms control (CAC) agreements failures play in Russia's decision to invade Ukraine? Using a process tracing and counterfactual mixed methodology analyzing Russia's invasion motivations, this article attempts to answer the question by assessing Russian strategic policies, proposals, and arms control agreements. These demonstrate that Russia, seeing its sense of “indivisible security” being violated, sought to adjust or establish new CAC agreements to address a growing conventional military imbalance between NATO and Russia. Having failed to establish a fixed and stable conventional military balance through CAC, and as Ukraine edged closer to NATO membership, Russia resorted to the use of force shortly after their December 2021 proposals were not accepted. The article concludes by suggesting that this case supports arms racing and arms-control related causes of war theories, and that dissonant perceptions of the actual or ideal military balance can lead to conflict.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14751798.2024.2300889 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cdanxx:v:40:y:2024:i:1:p:138-160

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CDAN20

DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2024.2300889

Access Statistics for this article

Defense & Security Analysis is currently edited by Martin Edmonds

More articles in Defense & Security Analysis from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().