Introduction

The guiding idea of non-offensive defence (NOD) is simple: that armed forces and military postures should be (re)— structured with a view to maximizing their defensive while minimizing their offensive capabilities. One can identify a number of precursors of the modern NOD idea, including Liddell Hart of the 1920s and 1930s, and various post-World War II planners. Western NOD proponents had only hoped for achieving an NOD-like defensive restructuring of the Soviet forces in an indirect way: by first persuading Western states to restructure and subsequently forcing the USSR to emulate, for instance through arms control negotiations. Interest in NOD has been growing for a number of years in various Third World states, and has remained largely unaffected by the end of the Cold War. NOD principles might conceivably be applied as a guideline for regional arms control, to various actual and potential conflict spots, the identified as such by the presence of e.g. territorial claims, and political instability.