ABSTRACT
Arms control deals with some of the world's most esoteric technology, the ideas that move its advocates are simple and obvious ones. They maintain that no nation will gain from nuclear war. They contend that the steady accumulation and refinement of weapons of mass destruction attack the human spirit and undermine the chances of survival not just of the Soviet Union and the United States but of the world and its people. Agreement reached for its own sake and affecting little is probably worse than no agreement. Agreements, like those reached in Moscow, that arise from serious negotiation and exact some mutual restraint should become a useful base on which to build. Since the mid-1960s, the strategic balance has altered in a direction less favorable to the United States. In the West, negotiation is seen as useful because it is a means of working out differences and reaching agreement; negotiation is supposed to force up compromise and settlement.
