Adversarial conventional arms control in Europe: the quest for peace

Lippert, W.E. (2025)

Doctoral Thesis

What explains the form that adversarial conventional arms control (CAC) agreements, which are agreements between geopolitically rival states, assume and what determines their success? CAC in Europe from the end of World War One to the present is the result of states attempting to stabilize the military balance, prevent surprise attacks, and remove potential sources of military dispute through the formal limitation of military capabilities.
This dissertation’s theoretical importance is its contribution to international security and conflict studies. This dissertation contributes to theories concerning military balancing, power balancing, rivalry stabilization, conflict prevention, and war causation. Building up a unique dataset of approximately 25 CAC agreements, this dissertation offers original, empirical analyses based on comparative case analysis of these agreements and offers empirically-based findings and conclusions.
Overall, this thesis is more positive than negative about CAC agreements for several reasons. The successful cases suggest that CAC can contribute to establishing peace or at least creating conditions for a stable relationship between rivals through decreasing sources of dispute; and that CAC overall is at least partially successful.

• Peace and conflict
• Arms control
• International organization
• Qualitative comparative analysis
• Process tracing

• All authors: Lippert, W.E.
• Supervisor: Koops, J.A.
• Co-supervisor: Becker, J.
• Committee: Rietjens, S.J.H.; Bakker, E.; Kühn, U.; Portela, C.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University
• Date: 2025-10-16