ABSTRACT
International, technological and domestic conditions described in the previous chapter constituted the context for the development of the Cambridge Approach to Arms control. The likely persistence of nation states for the foreseeable future and the likely continuing hostility and ideological incompatibility of the Soviets were no longer widely debated. New approaches to the arms control problem evolved in response both to the lack of progress in United Nations discussions and to the changing perception of the nuclear threat after Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb in 1949. Consideration of new arms control methods and initiatives began in earnest after the Soviet atomic test in 1949. The Panel’s recommendations were insightful, provocative, and prescient of the Cambridge Approach. Although its members were quite general about the objectives towards which a regulatory arms policy should be addressed, they were forceful and relatively specific about the new methods or instruments which a regulatory approach might employ.
