Arms Control and National Security: An Introduction. Advance Edition.

Suitable for use with high school students, this booklet on arms control and national security provides background information, describes basic concepts, reviews recent history, and offers suggestions for further reading. The first section, on American attitudes toward national security and arms control, defines five types of limits on weapons systems, presenting examples of each. The second section, "U.S.-Soviet Strategic Competition," traces American attitudes toward the USSR and the use of nuclear weapons from the Truman Administration (1945-1952) to the Reagan Administration. Graphs depicting strategic arsenals of the superpowers and weapons and capabilities of the USSR and the United States are provided. A debate between students of two influential nuclear war theorists--Bernard Brodie and Herman Kahn--provides students with a look at key ideas of the two theorists. A third section focuses on the correlation of major world events and the strategic competition between the United States and the USSR. A fourth section discussing negotiations between the USSR and the United States focuses on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and the more recent Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START). The effects of nuclear weapons, the dangers of nuclear testing, chemical and biological weapons, nonproliferation, and theater nuclear weapons are the topics of the final section. A list of related readings and a glossary of arms control terms conclude the booklet. (LH)