Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: International Issues

  • Japan’s Election and Anti-Nuclear Momentum

    This article was originally published by Foreign Policy In Focus

    Although the smashing victory of the opposition Democratic Party in Japan’s parliamentary elections of August 30 had numerous causes, one of the results will be a strengthening of the campaign for a nuclear weapons-free world.

    In the past few years, Japan’s long-ruling conservatives — grouped in the misnamed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) — had shown increasing signs of dispensing with Japan’s nuclear-free status. Pointing to North Korea’s development of a nuclear capability, party officials had publicly floated the idea of Japan’s acquiring nuclear weapons. More recently, a former government official revealed what many Japanese already suspected: Decades ago, an LDP government had agreed to allow stopovers in Japan by U.S. military aircraft and vessels carrying nuclear weapons. Outside observers even began to voice the idea that Japan’s LDP government, by insisting on U.S. nuclear guarantees, might undermine plans by the Obama administration to reduce the importance of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy.

    But the stunning victory by Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), with its sharply antinuclear stand, has altered this situation dramatically. Pointing to the nation’s “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” — a 1967 government pledge not to possess, manufacture, or introduce nuclear weapons into Japan — Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama promised to work to codify these principles into law. Nor is the party’s antinuclear vision limited to Japan. The DPJ endorses a regional nuclear-free zone. And as recently as this August, Hatoyama told a public gathering that “realizing a nuclear-free world as called for by U.S. President Barack Obama is exactly the moral mission of our country.”

    The DPJ’s victory gives added momentum to a campaign for nuclear abolition that has recently transitioned from an apparently utopian vision to pragmatic politics.

    Growing Movement

    Long before these new U.S. and Japanese officials turned their attention to abolishing the world’s vast nuclear arsenals, citizens groups had organized vigorous campaigns to do just that. And these nuclear disarmament campaigns played a major role in convincing governments to pull back from the nuclear arms race and accept nuclear cutbacks. As a result, the number of nuclear weapons around the world declined substantially — from some 70,000 at the height of the Cold War to fewer than 24,000 today.

    Furthermore, in the last few years the call for nuclear disarmament has turned into a demand for a nuclear-free world. In January 2007 and again in January 2008, a group of former top U.S. national security officials wrote op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal contending that, as the very existence of nuclear weapons raised profound dangers for human survival, the U.S. government should commit itself to the goal of nuclear abolition. During the recent U.S. presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly spoke out for building a nuclear-free world, as he did again this April. On this last occasion, addressing an audience in Prague, he committed the U.S. government to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Subsequently, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon announced his own plan to spur the world forward “on its journey to a world free of nuclear weapons.”

    A number of important constituencies also champion this goal. In 2008, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020. It followed this up in 2009 by unanimously passing a resolution “enthusiastically” welcoming “the new leadership and multilateralism that the United States is demonstrating toward achievement of a nuclear-weapon-free world” and calling upon Obama “to announce at the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference” the beginning of negotiations for “an international agreement to abolish nuclear weapons by the year 2020.”

    The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, relatively silent on nuclear disarmament since its dramatic antinuclear pronouncements of 1983, displayed a new interest in the subject in 2009. On April 8, speaking on behalf of the Conference, Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany welcomed the Obama administration’s leadership “toward a nuclear-free world” and declared that the Conference “look[ed] forward to working with the Administration and Congress in supporting legislation” toward that goal. On July 29, in a keynote talk at a “Deterrence Symposium” hosted by the U.S. Strategic Command, Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore — a member of the Conference’s Committee on International Justice and Peace — startled the military-oriented gathering by insisting that “our world and its leaders must stay focused on the destination of a nuclear-weapons-free world.”

    Labor and Peace

    The labor movement has also started to mobilize against nuclear weapons. On July 10, 2009, the International Trade Union Confederation — representing 170 million workers in 157 countries (including the members of the AFL-CIO) — launched an international campaign for nuclear disarmament. A focal point of the campaign is a petition calling for a nuclear disarmament treaty signed by all U.N. member states. According to the world labor confederation, the campaign was “being run in cooperation with the worldwide ‘Mayors for Peace’ group,” headed by Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, which has called for creating a nuclear-free world by 2020.

    Although the U.S. peace movement has been preoccupied with ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as with averting war with Iran, it recently has increased its efforts around the theme of a nuclear-free world, especially in connection with the run-up to the May 2010 NPT review conference at the United Nations. Beginning in the summer of 2009, peace and disarmament organizations began circulating a nuclear abolition petition directed to Obama, calling upon the administration to use the occasion of the conference to announce negotiations for a treaty abolishing nuclear weapons. There are also plans afoot for a large antinuclear demonstration at the United Nations on May 2, 2010, as well as for smaller events designed to rally support for a nuclear-free world.

    At the moment, the degree to which the Japanese elections will increase the clout of this burgeoning nuclear abolition campaign remains uncertain. The DPJ faces a number of challenges if it is to implement its nuclear-free promises. Although public sentiment in Japan is strongly antinuclear, there is also a rising fear of North Korea’s nuclear program — a fact that might lead to an erosion of the new administration’s nuclear-free doctrine. Compromise on maintaining a nuclear-free Japan is alluring, as Japan has the scientific and technological capability to produce nuclear weapons easily and quickly. Furthermore, many Japanese (and particularly LDP members), though uneasy about Japan’s development of nuclear weapons, feel comfortable under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Thus, they might resist international efforts to create a nuclear-free world.

    Even so, the DPJ’s election sweep should hearten opponents of nuclear weapons, for it provides not only a symbolic victory for antinuclear forces but a potentially significant shift in the nuclear policy of a major nation. Above all, it serves as an indication that, around the world, the antinuclear momentum is growing.

    Lawrence Wittner is professor of history at the State University of New York–Albany and a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate . His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).

  • My Plan to Drop the Bomb

    The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 marked an end and a beginning. The close of the Second World War ushered in a Cold War, with a precarious peace based on the threat of mutually assured destruction.
    Today the world is at another turning point. The assumption that nuclear weapons are indispensable to keeping the peace is crumbling. Disarmament is back on the global agenda – and not a moment too soon. A groundswell of new international initiatives will soon emerge to move this agenda forward.
    The Cold War’s end, twenty years ago this autumn, was supposed to provide a peace dividend. Instead, we find ourselves still facing serious nuclear threats. Some stem from the persistence of more than 20,000 nuclear weapons and the contagious doctrine of nuclear deterrence. Others relate to nuclear tests—more than a dozen in the post-Cold War era, aggravated by the constant testing of long-range missiles. Still others arise from concerns that more countries or even terrorists might be seeking the bomb.
    For decades, we believed that the terrible effects of nuclear weapons would be sufficient to prevent their use. The superpowers were likened to a pair of scorpions in a bottle, each knowing a first strike would be suicidal. Today’s expanding nest of scorpions, however, means that no one is safe. The Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States—holders of the largest nuclear arsenals—recognize this. They have endorsed the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, most recently at their Moscow summit, and are seeking new reductions.
    Many efforts are underway worldwide to achieve this goal. Earlier this year, the 65-member Conference on Disarmament—the forum that produces multilateral disarmament treaties—broke a deadlock and agreed to negotiations on a fissile material treaty. Other issues it will discuss include nuclear disarmament and security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states.
    In addition, Australia and Japan have launched a major international commission on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. My own multimedia “WMD—WeMustDisarm!” campaign, which will culminate on the International Day of Peace (21 September), will reinforce growing calls for disarmament by former statesmen and grassroots campaigns, such as “Global Zero.” These calls will get a further boost in September when civil society groups gather in Mexico City for a UN-sponsored conference on disarmament and development.
    Though the UN has been working on disarmament since 1946, two treaties negotiated under UN auspices are now commanding the world’s attention. Also in September, countries that have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) will meet at the UN to consider ways to promote its early entry into force. North Korea’s nuclear tests, its missile launches and its threats of further provocation lend new urgency to this cause.
    Next May, the UN will also host a major five-year review conference involving the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which will examine the state of the treaty’s “grand bargain” of disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. If the CTBT can enter into force, and if the NPT review conference makes progress, the world would be off to a good start on its journey to a world free of nuclear weapons.
    My own five-point plan to achieve this goal begins with a call for the NPT Parties to pursue negotiations in good faith—as required by the treaty—on nuclear disarmament, either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification. Disarmament must be reliably verified.
    Second, I urged the Security Council to consider other ways to strengthen security in the disarmament process, and to assure non-nuclear-weapon states against nuclear weapons threats. I proposed to the Council that it convene a summit on nuclear disarmament, and I urged non-NPT states to freeze their own weapon capabilities and make their own disarmament commitments. Disarmament must enhance security.
    My third proposal relates to the rule of law. Universal membership in multilateral treaties is key, as are regional nuclear-weapon-free zones and a new treaty on fissile materials. President Barack Obama’s support for US ratification of the CTBT is welcome — the treaty only needs a few more ratifications to enter into force. Disarmament must be rooted in legal obligations.
    My fourth point addresses accountability and transparency. Countries with nuclear weapons should publish more information about what they are doing to fulfill their disarmament commitments. While most of these countries have revealed some details about their weapons programs, we still do not know how many nuclear weapons exist worldwide. The UN Secretariat could serve as a repository for such data. Disarmament must be visible to the public.
    Finally, I am urging progress in eliminating other weapons of mass destruction and limiting missiles, space weapons and conventional arms — all of which are needed for a nuclear-weapon-free world. Disarmament must anticipate emerging dangers from other weapons.
    This, then, is my plan to drop the bomb. Global security challenges are serious enough without the risks from nuclear weapons or their acquisition by additional states or non-state actors. Of course, strategic stability, trust among nations, and the settlement of regional conflicts would all help to advance the process of disarmament. Yet disarmament has its own contributions to make in serving these goals and should not be postponed.
    It will restore hope for a more peaceful, secure and prosperous future. It deserves everybody’s support.

    Ban Ki-moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations.

  • Remarks to the Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 NPT Review Conference

    Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen,

    I am pleased to welcome you to the United Nations as we open this important third session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

    For too long, the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agenda has been stagnating in a Cold War mentality.

    In 2005, the world experienced what might be called a disarmament depression. The NPT Review Conference that year ended in disappointment. The UN World Summit outcome contained not even a single line on weapons of mass destruction.

    Today, we seem to be emerging from that low point. The change has come in recent weeks. But it is unfolding against a backdrop of multiple threats that, while urgent, tend to obscure the urgency of the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda.

    The global economic crisis, climate change and the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus are all reminders that we live in an interdependent world. They demand a full and forceful multilateral response. At the same time, nuclear weapons remain an apocalyptic threat. We cannot afford to place disarmament and non-proliferation on a backburner. Let us not be lulled into complacency. Let us not miss the opportunity to make our societies safer and more prosperous.

    Excellencies,

    I have been using every opportunity to push for progress. I discussed non-proliferation and disarmament with Russian President Medvedev and U.S. President Obama. I welcome the joint commitment they announced last month to fulfill their obligations under article VI of the NPT.

    I am particularly encouraged that both countries are committed to rapidly pursuing verifiable reductions in their strategic offensive arsenals by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding pact. I hope their example will serve as a catalyst in inspiring other nuclear powers to follow suit.

    Other developments also merit attention.

    On Iran, I encourage the country’s leaders to continue their cooperation with the IAEA with a view to demonstrating the entirely peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

    I also encourage them to re-engage in the negotiating process with the EU 3+3 and the EU High Representative on the basis of the relevant Security Council resolutions, and in line with the package of proposals for cooperation with Iran.

    With respect to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, despite the current serious challenges, I continue to believe that the Six-Party process is the best mechanism to achieve the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.

    I therefore urge the DPRK to return to these talks so that everybody can resolve their respective concerns through dialogue and cooperation, based on the relevant Security Council resolutions as well as multilateral and bilateral agreements.

    I also urge all states to end the stalemate that has marked the international disarmament machinery for too long. To strengthen the NPT regime, it is essential that the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty enters into force without further delay, and that the Conference on Disarmament begins negotiations on a verifiable fissile material treaty. I commend President Obama’s commitment to ratify the CTBT, and urge all countries that have not done so to ratify the Treaty without conditions.

    Hopes for a breakthrough on the deadlocked disarmament agenda have been building. We have seen a cascade of proposals. Elder statesmen, leaders of nuclear-weapon states, regional groups, various commissions and civil society representatives have elaborated proposals for slaying the nuclear monster.

    Their voices may be varied, but they are all part of the same rising chorus demanding action on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Concerns about nuclear terrorism, a new rush by some to possess nuclear arms, and renewed interest in nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels have only heightened the need for urgent action.

    Excellencies,

    The work you do in the next two weeks will be critical. You must seize the moment and show your seriousness.

    This preparatory session must generate agreements on key procedural issues and substantive recommendations to the Review Conference.

    The Review Conference must produce a clear commitment by all NPT states parties to comply fully with all of their obligations under this vital Treaty.

    I urge you to work in a spirit of compromise and flexibility. I hope you will avoid taking absolute positions that have no chance of generating consensus. Instead, build bridges, and be part of a new multilateralism. People understand intuitively that nuclear weapons will never make us more secure.

    They know that real security lies in responding to poverty, climate change, armed conflict and instability.

    They want governments to invest in plans for growth and development, not weapons of mass destruction.

    If you can set us on a course towards achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world, you will send a message of hope to the world.

    We desperately need this message at this time. I am counting on you, and I am supporting all of your efforts to succeed, now and at the Review Conference in 2010.

    Thank you.

    Ban Ki-moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations. This address was delivered at the opening session of the Third Preparatory Committee of the 2010 NPT Review Conference at the United Nations in New York.

  • Not a Weapon of Choice

    This article was originally published in the Times of India

    On Sunday, North Korea launched a long-range missile which Pyongyang described as a success but US experts said had been a failure. Of greater historical significance was the speech delivered the same day in Prague by US president Barack Obama. During the Democratic primary campaign last year, Hillary Clinton famously declared that both Senator John McCain and she had actual job experience to qualify to be commander-in-chief. All that Obama had done, by contrast, was to deliver one speech in Chicago opposing the Iraq war.

    As we know, Clinton fatally underestimated the power of speech. Obama at his best combines linguistic eloquence and powerful oratory with substance and gravitas. On Sunday, he addressed one of the most critically important topics of our day that literally has life and death implications for all of us, wherever we may be.

    The dream of a world free of nuclear weapons is an old one. It is written into the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which balances the prohibition on non-nuclear states acquiring these weapons with the demand on the five NPT-licit nuclear powers Britain, China, France, Russia and the US (N5) to eliminate their nuclear arsenals through good-faith negotiations. Considering that the NPT was signed in 1968 and came into effect in 1970, the N5 have not lived up to their bargain.

    The dream has been kept alive by many NGOs, a coalition of like-minded countries and a plethora of international blue ribbon commissions. A major difficulty is that the abundant “zero nuclear weapons” initiatives have been stillborn because of zero follow-up and a failure to address real security concerns.

    If we examine the geostrategic circumstances of the existing nuclear powers, the two with the least zero security justification for holding on to any nuclear weapons are Britain and France. Nor can North Korea justify nuclear weapons on national security grounds. It seems to play a nuclear hand as a bargaining chip, the only one it has. Israel’s security environment is harsh enough with many in its neighbourhood committed to its destruction to make its reliance on nuclear weapons understandable. Pakistan will not give up its nuclear weapons while India still has them. India’s main security benchmark is not Pakistan but China. Neither China nor Russia will contemplate giving them up for fear of the US. This is why the circuit-breaker in the global nuclear weapons chain is the US.

    Obama’s speech acknowledged this. The US cannot achieve the dream on its own, he said, but it is prepared to lead based on the acknowledgement of its special moral responsibility flowing from being the only power to have used atomic weapons. He thus lays down the challenge to others to follow. And he outlines concrete follow-up steps that are practical, measurable and achievable.

    Obama’s strategy is to map out a vision and then outline the roadmap to achieve it. These include ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiated way back in 1997; a new treaty banning fissile material; reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy; and a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia that is bold and legally binding. Washington will also host a global summit on nuclear security within one year.

    Such measures by the N5 must be matched by robust action against the proliferation threat. At the very least, Obama reclaims the moral high ground for Washington to pursue a vigorous and robust non- and counter-proliferation strategy. More resources and authority for institutions like the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Proliferation Security Initiative will be provided. Countries leaving or breaking the NPT must face real and immediate consequences. An international fuel bank could be created to assure supply to countries whose interest is limited to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. All vulnerable nuclear material around the world for example, loose nukes in Russia will be secured within four years. Black markets like A Q Khan’s will be broken up, trade in nuclear materials detected and intercepted in transit, and financial tools used to disrupt dangerous trade.

    Obama is right in saying that reaching the goal will require patience and persistence. But he may be wrong in saying that it may not be achieved in his lifetime. He should set down the marker for achieving it by the end of his second term if re-elected. Without a deadline, no one will work to make it happen; rather, they will retreat into the vague formula of “yes, some day, eventually”.

    Obama may also be mistaken in pinning faith on the global regime centred on the NPT which, he said, “could reach the point where the centre cannot hold”. The NPT is already a broken reed, with far too many flaws, anomalies, gaps and outright contradictions. For example, the promise that those who break the rules must be punished cannot be enforced against India. The India-US civil nuclear agreement, however justified and necessary, breaks NPT rules. A new clean nuclear weapons convention might be a better goal to pursue.

    That’s a minor quibble. More important is the broad sweep of Obama’s commitment, based on national interest and personal conviction, to freeing us from the fear of nuclear weapons.

    Ramesh Thakur is founding director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada.

  • Joint Statement by President Dmitriy Medvedev of the Russian Federation and President Barack Obama of the United States ofAmerica

    Reaffirming that the era when our countries viewed each other as enemies is long over, and recognizing our many common interests, we today established a substantive agenda for Russia and the United States to be developed over the coming months and years.  We are resolved to work together to strengthen strategic stability, international security, and jointly meet contemporary global challenges, while also addressing disagreements openly and honestly in a spirit of mutual respect and acknowledgement of each other’s perspective.

    We discussed measures to overcome the effects of the global economic crisis, strengthen the international monetary and financial system, restore economic growth, and advance regulatory efforts to ensure that such a crisis does not happen again.

    We also discussed nuclear arms control and reduction.  As leaders of the two largest nuclear weapons states, we agreed to work together to fulfill our obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and demonstrate leadership in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world.  We committed our two countries to achieving a nuclear free world, while recognizing that this long-term goal will require a new emphasis on arms control and conflict resolution measures, and their full implementation by all concerned nations.  We agreed to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding treaty. We are instructing our negotiators to start talks immediately on this new treaty and to report on results achieved in working out the new agreement by July.

    While acknowledging that differences remain over the purposes of deployment of missile defense assets in Europe, we discussed new possibilities for mutual international cooperation in the field of missile defense, taking into account joint assessments of missile challenges and threats,  aimed at enhancing the security of our countries, and that of our allies and partners.

    The relationship between offensive and defensive arms will be discussed by the two governments.

    We intend to carry out joint efforts to strengthen the international regime for nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. In this regard we strongly support the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and are committed to its further strengthening. Together, we seek to secure nuclear weapons and materials, while promoting the safe use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. We support the activities of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and stress the importance of the IAEA Safeguards system. We seek universal adherence to IAEA comprehensive safeguards, as provided for in Article III of the NPT, and to the Additional Protocol and urge the ratification and implementation of these agreements. We will deepen cooperation to combat nuclear terrorism.  We will seek to further promote the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, which now unites 75 countries. We also support international negotiations for a verifiable treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons. As a key measure of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, we underscored the importance of the entering into force the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.  In this respect, President Obama confirmed his commitment to work for American ratification of this Treaty. We applaud the achievements made through the Nuclear Security Initiative launched in Bratislava in 2005, including to minimize the civilian use of Highly Enriched Uranium, and we seek to continue bilateral collaboration to improve and sustain nuclear security. We agreed to examine possible new initiatives to promote international cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy while strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime. We welcome the work of the IAEA on multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle and encourage efforts to develop mutually beneficial approaches with states considering nuclear energy or considering expansion of existing nuclear energy programs in conformity with their rights and obligations under the NPT. To facilitate cooperation in the safe use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, both sides will work to bring into force the bilateral Agreement for Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. To strengthen non-proliferation efforts, we also declare our intent to give new impetus to implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540 on preventing non-state actors from obtaining WMD-related materials and technologies.

    We agreed to work on a bilateral basis and at international forums to resolve regional conflicts.

    We agreed that al-Qaida and other terrorist and insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan pose a common threat to many nations, including the United States and Russia.  We agreed to work toward and support a coordinated internationalresponse with the UN playing a key role. We also agreed that a similar coordinated and international approach should be applied to counter the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan, as well as illegal supplies of precursors to this country. Both sides agreed to work out new ways of cooperation to facilitate international efforts of stabilization, reconstruction and development in Afghanistan, including in the regional context.

    We support the continuation of the Six-Party Talks at an early date and agreed to continue to pursue the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in accordance with purposes and principles of the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement and subsequent consensus documents. We also expressed concern that a North Korean ballistic missile launch would be damaging to peace and stability in the region and agreed to urge the DPRK to exercise restraint and observe relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

    While we recognize that under the NPT Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program, Iran needs to restore confidence in its exclusively peaceful nature.  We underline that Iran, as any other Non-Nuclear Weapons State – Party to the NPT, has assumed the obligation under Article II of that Treaty in relation to its non-nuclear weapon status.  We call on Iran to fully implement the relevant U.N. Security Council and the IAEA Board of Governors resolutions including provision of required cooperation with the IAEA. We reiterated their commitment to pursue a comprehensive diplomatic solution, including direct diplomacy and through P5+1 negotiations, and urged Iran to seize this opportunity to address the international community’s concerns.

    We also started a dialogue on security and stability in Europe.  Although we disagree about the causes and sequence of the military actions of last August, we agreed that we must continue efforts toward a peaceful and lasting solution to the unstable situation today. Bearing in mind that significant differences remain between us, we nonetheless stress the importance of last year’s six-point accord of August 12, the September 8 agreement, and other relevant agreements, and pursuing effective cooperation in theGeneva discussions to bring stability to the region.

    We agreed that the resumption of activities of the NATO-Russia Council is a positive step.  We welcomed the participation of an American delegation at the special Conference on Afghanistan convened under the auspices of Shanghai Cooperation Organization last month.

    We discussed our interest in exploring a comprehensive dialogue on strengthening
    Euro-Atlantic and European security, including existing commitments and President Medvedev’s June 2008 proposals on these issues. The OSCE is one of the key multilateral venues for this dialogue, as is the NATO-Russia Council.

    We also agreed that our future meetings must include discussions of transnational threats such as terrorism, organized crime, corruption and narcotics, with the aim of enhancing our cooperation in countering these threats and strengthening international efforts in these fields, including through joint actions and initiatives.

    We will strive to give rise to a new dynamic in our economic links including the launch of an intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation and the intensification of our business dialogue. Especially during these difficult economic times, our business leaders must pursue all opportunities for generating economic activity. We both pledged to instruct our governments to make efforts to finalize as soon as possible Russia’s accession into the World Trade Organization and continue working towards the creation of favorable conditions for the development of Russia-U.S. economic ties.

    We also pledge to promote cooperation in implementing Global Energy Security Principles, adopted at the G-8 summit inSaint Petersburg in 2006, including improving energy efficiency and the development of clean energy technologies.

    Today we have outlined a comprehensive and ambitious work plan for our two governments.  We both affirmed a mutual desire to organize contacts between our two governments in a more structured and regular way. Greater institutionalized interactions between our ministries and departments make success more likely in meeting the ambitious goals that we have established today.

    At the same time, we also discussed the desire for greater cooperation not only between our governments, but also between our societies ‑‑ more scientific cooperation, more students studying in each other’s country, more cultural exchanges, and more cooperation between our nongovernmental organizations.  In our relations with each other, we also seek to be guided by the rule of law, respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights, and tolerance for different views.

    We, the leaders of Russia and the United States, are ready to move beyond Cold War mentalities and chart a fresh start in relations between our two countries.  In just a few months we have worked hard to establish a new tone in our relations.  Now it is time to get down to business and translate our warm words into actual achievements of benefit to Russia, the United States, and all those around the world interested in peace and prosperity.

  • The UN and NATO: Which Security and for Whom?

    The world the UN advocates looks good on paper. (1)
    In June 1945, the Charter of the United Nations was signed by 51 member states. Several years later, the two great conventions for civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights came into being, and in subsequent years, important conventions on torture, genocide, women’s and children’s rights followed. After long negotiations, the UN member states came to a consensus at the end of 2008 on a cluster bomb treaty – unfortunately containing limitations – on which several countries insisted, including Germany.
    The existence of extensive international law shows that governments in all parts of the world know what is important for human security and what must be protected.
    And yet, since 1945 international law has been continuously broken. Basic rights to food, health, housing, education, work, freedom of opinion have remained unattainable for many. Wars have been (and are) carried on, in utter violation of the United Nations Charter, e.g. against Yugoslavia, Iraq and in Palestine.
    Torture is practiced, genocide carried out, weapons treaties ignored, the environment robbed of irreplaceable treasures. Uncontrolled financial transactions and economic activities and greed have given rise to an unprecedented crisis of worldwide dimensions.
    Pragmatism flourishes while moral principles are shunted aside. “Ethics” has become a foreign word. Political lying prevails. The gap between the rich and the poor grows wider. The life and survival chances of people have become yet more unequal. Behind all this lie such significant causes as the lack of political will to speak out in defense of the community of the majority as opposed to the welfare of the few and the resulting neglect of rights and the rule of law. The United Nations strains to carrying out its mandate.
    21st century born under the sign of worldwide hypocritical denial
    It should thus come as no surprise that the twenty-first century was born under the sign of confrontation and of worldwide, hypocritical denial.
    Western alliances such as NATO are being challenged by new alliances with weighty members such as Russia, China and India. The key word here is “rearrangement”. Dag Hammarskjoeld, the great man of the United Nations (2), in 1964 shortly before his death expressed his great concern that “ways out of the narrow, matted jungle in the struggle for honor, power and advantage” must be found. Looking back at the beginning of 2009, one can see that since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, two systems, communism and capitalism have collapsed. Maximization of profit hand-in-hand with dishonesty and ethnocentrism are among the causes.
    The UN at a crossroads
    The world of the 192 UN member states has come to a fork in the road. One way leads to a world focused on the well being of society, conflict resolution and peace, i.e. to a life of dignity and human security with social and economic progress for all, wherever they may be – as stated in the United Nations Charter. Down the other road is where the nineteenth century “Great Game” for power will be further played out, a course which, in the twenty-first century, will become more extensive and dangerously more aggressive than ever. This road supposedly leads to democracy, but in truth it is all about power, control and exploitation.
    The peace dividend never existed
    Nothing has ever been seen of the peace dividend that was expected from the end of the Cold War. The aggregate military budgets of all United Nations member states set a new record in 2007, reaching $1,200 billion. The United States military alone represents some 50% of this; the NATO countries 70%. (3) In the same year, development aid was $103 billion. (4) or 8.3% of the amount spent on the military!
    Since 1969, the United Nations has requested that every year the tiny amount of 0.7% of the GDP of the industrialized countries be allocated to development aid. In fact, the figure for 2008 is around 0.3%. (5) This extreme inequality between military and development spending shows that the current emphasis is not on human security as envisioned in the United Nations Millennium Goals (6} but on countries’ military security. Those who point out how ludicrous such a comparison is willingly misunderstand that strengthening personal human security constitutes a decisive contribution to reducing the root causes of worldwide conflict. They refuse to accept that military security through alliances and the self-interest of governments encourages and deepens international conflicts.
    UN and NATO: bonum commune or western interests
    A comparison of the mandates of the United Nations and of NATO shows clearly how opposed the purposes of these two institutions are. In the 63 years of its existence, the United Nations mandate has remained the same.
    The United Nations was created to promote and maintain worldwide peace. NATO exists to assure the self-interest of a group of 26 UN member countries. Its mandate, grounded in the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, originally dealt with the defense of its member states. At the end of the Cold War, in 1989, its mandate appeared to have been fulfilled. Nevertheless, the NATO members wanted to maintain this Western alliance. This launched the search for a new role for NATO.
    21st century NATO incompatible with UN Charter
    In 1999, NATO acknowledged that it was seeking to orient itself according to a new fundamental strategic concept. From a narrow military defense alliance it was to become a broad based alliance for the protection of the vital resources’ needs of its members. Besides the defense of member states’ borders, it set itself new purposes such as assured access to energy sources and the right to intervene in “movements of large numbers of persons” and in conflicts far from the boarders of NATO countries. The readiness of the new alliance to include other countries, particularly those that had previously been part of the Soviet Union, shows how the character of this military alliance has altered.
    In the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, the Charter of the United Nations was declared to be NATO’s legally binding framework. However, the United Nations monopoly of the use of force, especially as specified in Article 51 of the Charter, was no longer accepted according to the 1999 NATO doctrine.
    NATO’s territorial scope, until then limited to the Euro-Atlantic region, was expanded by its member to encompass the whole world in keeping with a strategic context that was global in its sweep. At the Budapest summit, on 3 April 2008, NATO declared that it intended to meet the emerging challenges of the twenty-first century “with all the possible means of its mission.”
    It added that the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty of the founding countries had been ratified by the current parliaments and thereby had become international law. This did not hold for later NATO strategies and doctrines.
    UN-NATO-accord: serious threat to peace
    In spite of this NATO declaration, which, officially, would serve only the interests of a small minority of United Nations member states, on 23 September 2008, an accord was signed between the United Nations and NATO Secretaries General, Ban Ki-moon, and Jaap de Hoop-Scheffer. This took place without any reference to the United Nations Security Council.
    In the generally accepted agreement of stated purposes, one reads of a “broader council” and “operative cooperation”, for example in “peace keeping” in the Balkans and in Afghanistan. Both secretaries general committed themselves to acting in common to meet threats and challenges.
    In these current times of confrontation, one expects from the United Nations secretariat an especially high level of political neutrality. The UN/NATO accord is anything but neutral and will thus not remain without serious consequences. The Russian representative to NATO in Brussels, Dmitry Rogozin, has characterized the United Nations agreement with NATO, a politico-military structure, as “illegal”; Serge Lavrov, former Russian ambassador to the United Nations in New York and current Russian foreign minister has declared himself “shocked” that such a pact has been ratified in secret and without consultation.
    UN-NATO-accord: incompatible with UN Charter
    Several important questions thus arise:
    Is the United Nations accord with NATO – a military alliance with nuclear weapons – in contradiction with Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, which requires that conflicts be resolved by peaceful means? Can UN and NATO actions be distinguished when three of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are also NATO members? How can future violations of international law by NATO be legally prosecuted? Is an institution like NATO, which in 1999, without a UN mandate, unlawfully bombed Serbia and Kosovo, a suitable partner for the United Nations?
    UN mandate makes NATO obsolete
    Any evaluation of the UN/NATO pact must take into account that NATO is a relic of the Cold War; that NATO, as a Western alliance, is regarded with considerable mistrust by the other 166 United Nations member states; that a primary NATO aim is to assert, by military means, its energy and power interests in opposition to other United Nations member states and that the United States, a founding member of the NATO community, in the most unscrupulous ways, has disparaged the United Nations and broken international law. (7)
    Finally, it must be pointed out that the Charter of the United Nations provides for a Military Staff Committee, whose mandate is to advise and assist the United Nations Security Council “on all questions relating to the Security Council’s military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security.” (8) If it is thus a matter of NATO countries looking after the well-being of the international community and not the interests of small group of states, then the United Nations mandate makes NATO obsolete!
    It is urgent that one or several member states petition the International Court of Justice to rule on the interpretation of the UN/NATO pact of 23 September 2008, in conformity with the Courts statutes. (9)
    The people of the world have a right to request such a ruling and a right to expect an answer. It will be recalled that the preamble to the Charter of the United Nations Charter states, “We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined […] to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained,” and not “We, the governments”! (10)
    Thus, the question of what road the peoples of the world should take would be answered. Whoever seeks to serve the cause of peace and conflict resolution must take the rough road of United Nations multilateralism and eschew the smooth road of the NATO alliance. As the Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy said to the Security Council in 1998: “We must find our way to multilateralism, which exists for the benefit of the world community and not for the self-interest of the few.” The way to it will be a long one, for there has never yet been a multilateralism of this kind.
    In 1994, the United Nations began promoting the concept of “human security”. In so doing, it wished to emphasize how important it is to see human rights as part of the daily lives of individual persons – freedom from fear and freedom from want. In 2000, for the first time in the history of the United Nations, development goals were quantified. This represents real progress for the strengthening of human security. Eight so-called Millennium Development Goals in the fight against poverty, child and mother mortality, primary education etc. are to be reached between 2000 and 2015. “Military humanism” – deception for self-interests
    In this way, the United Nations seeks to make clear that besides country-related (national/military) security, there is also human-related security. Advocates of national security, for example governments, whose goal is military security through the strengthening of alliances such as NATO, know this.
    They openly speak of “military humanism”. They pursue their legitimate interests. From this comes their interpretation of the new concept of “responsibility to protect”. (11)
    This is a sham, for it is a matter of advancing specific, individual interests and not of simply protecting the innocent. Were this really the case, it would be obvious in Afghanistan, Darfur, Gaza, Goma, Somalia, Zimbabwe and elsewhere.
    In all areas of human security, there has been progress. Yet it improbable that the Millennium Goals will become reality by 2015. A sum of $135 billion will be needed for the attainment of these goals in the remaining time of 2009–2015. This comes to $ 22.5 billion per year. Those who claim that this is a huge sum probably do not realize that the United States spends $ 180 billion per year for its military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan – or that in late 2008 the countries affected by the economic and financial crisis made available at a few days’ notice some $ 3,000 billion (!) for the bailout of mismanaged institutions in need of reform within their borders.
    The possibilities are available – the political will is required

    The success of the United Nations Millennium Goals is not a question of money even in the context of the present economically critical times. Progress in the area of increased human security requires political will for such a transformation. Over the previous decades of international discussion about financing international cooperation, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that it would be easy to create innovative financing alternatives. (12) Plausible suggestions are ignored or rejected. Many governments fear that the independence of international institutions such as the United Nations might become too great.
    Those who in the twenty-first century want to live in peace will encounter no difficulty in choosing the road to follow. Access to this road is open. The Charter of the United Nations, which is to be the means by which we beat swords into ploughshares and not ploughshares into swords, remains the basis for human progress and security.
    Endnotes:
    1. The new alliances include i) the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), founded in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its main objective is security in Central Asia. India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia enjoy observer status with the SCO. ii) Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) created a political and commercial community in 2001, and iii) Brazil, India and South Africa, a combination that has on several occasions brought about the downfall of the WTO Doha trade round on the grounds of a dispute on tariffs. 2. Dag Hammerskjoeld, born near Lund (Sweden) in 1905. He was the second UN Secretary General from 1953 to 1961, when he was killed in a mysterious air crash near the Congo border in Rhodesia. 3. See: Swedish International Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI), 2008 Almanac, 9 June 2008. 4. See: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Aid Targets Slippage out of Reach? DAC 1 Official and Private (Aid) Flows. 5. According to a 1969 UN guideline, donor countries should provide 0.7% of their GNP each year for international development cooperation. Only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have so far achieved this target. 6. In 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted eight development objectives for the period 2000–2015. These include reducing hunger and poverty by 50%, basic schooling for all children, equality of men and women, reducing child mortality by 66% and mortality rates for women in connection with childbirth by 75%. 7. The keywords are the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and torture flights. 8. Chapter VII Article 47 of the UN Charter provides for a Military Staff Committee consisting of the chiefs of staff of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Although it has never been convened since 1945, the Article has remained in effect. 9. The statute of the International Court of Justice is given jurisdiction for the interpretation of treaties by Chapter XII, Article 36. 10. See Preamble to the UN Charter. 11. This concept is mentioned in the UN Document 2005 World Summit Outcome (A/60/L.1 – 15 September 2005), paras. 138 and 139, see also para. 79). In this document, the UN General Assembly clearly states that only the Security Council has the right to use Chapter VII of the Charter to protect populations against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, if necessary using force. 12. The innovatory proposals for financing also include the “Tobin tax” named after James Tobin, an American economist, who in 1972 proposed that a tax (0.05-1.00%) should be levied on international currency transactions that could be used inter alia to finance development aid.
    Seven challenges for the present:
    1) Progress towards a fundamental reform of the UN as a global objective. Multilateralism in the interests of humanity can be achieved; 2) Return to the principles of the UN Charter. The UN must no longer simply be a political toolbox; 3) Recognition and furtherance of human security as the priority for dignified survival. Military security cannot substitute for human security; 4) Compliance with international law. Political responsibility without having to render accounts for the consequences of actions must not be permitted; 5) Abandonment of the free (and anarchic) market economy. Order, supervision and control of the economy and of the finance industry are a guarantee and not a threat to democracy; 6) Urgency of a UN declaration against double standards. The elimination of special rights for alliances is a precondition for settling conflicts and serves peace; 7) Development of ethical principles for state and governmental information and media standards. Organized untruths must be punished. Finally, an appeal to the general public to continue to make demands of the body politic and to take a more active role in contemporary events. Dag Hammerskjoeld used the term “negotiations with oneself.”

    Hans von Sponeck is former UN Assistant Secretary General and Chairman of the Centre for the UN Millenium Development Goals in Basel, Switzerland. He is a Councilor of the World Future Council.

  • An Unecessary War

    This article first appeared in the Washington Post

    I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

    After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

    Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

    We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

    Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens.

    After extended discussions with those from Gaza, these Hamas leaders also agreed to accept any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.

    Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel’s withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).

    We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel’s unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.

    On another visit to Syria in mid-December, I made an effort for the impending six-month deadline to be extended. It was clear that the preeminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza. Representatives from the Carter Center visited Jerusalem, met with Israeli officials and asked if this was possible in exchange for a cessation of rocket fire. The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 percent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas, and hostilities erupted.

    After 12 days of “combat,” the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed. During that time, Israel rejected international efforts to obtain a cease-fire, with full support from Washington. Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations, as the fortunate ones operate on the wounded by light from diesel-powered generators.

    The hope is that when further hostilities are no longer productive, Israel, Hamas and the United States will accept another cease-fire, at which time the rockets will again stop and an adequate level of humanitarian supplies will be permitted to the surviving Palestinians, with the publicized agreement monitored by the international community. The next possible step: a permanent and comprehensive peace.

     

    Jimmy Carter was President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. He founded the Carter Center, a non-governmental organization advocating peace and health worldwide, in 1982.

  • Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe

    For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel’s 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.

    Israel also refused exit permits to students with foreign fellowship awards and to Gazan journalists and respected NGO representatives. At the same time, it made it increasingly difficult for journalists to enter, and I was myself expelled from Israel a couple of weeks ago when I tried to enter to carry out my UN job of monitoring respect for human rights in occupied Palestine, that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza. Clearly, prior to the current crisis, Israel used its authority to prevent credible observers from giving accurate and truthful accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that had been already documented as producing severe declines in the physical condition and mental health of the Gazan population, especially noting malnutrition among children and the absence of treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety of diseases. The Israeli attacks were directed against a society already in grave condition after a blockade maintained during the prior 18 months.

    As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some facts bearing on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the American public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through an exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens. Hamas is blamed for the breakdown of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the alleged increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more clouded. There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed at what it claimed were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several Palestinians. It was at this point that rocket fire from Gaza intensified. Also, it was Hamas that on numerous public occasions called for extending the truce, with its calls never acknowledged, much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom. Beyond this, attributing all the rockets to Hamas is not convincing either. A variety of independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the Fatah-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be sending rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well confirmed that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza’s governing structure it was unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted effort to do so.

    What this background suggests strongly is that Israel launched its devastating attacks, starting on December 27, not simply to stop the rockets or in retaliation, but also for a series of unacknowledged reasons. It was evident for several weeks prior to the Israeli attacks that the Israeli military and political leaders were preparing the public for large-scale military operations against the Hamas. The timing of the attacks seemed prompted by a series of considerations: most of all, the interest of political contenders, the Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in demonstrating their toughness prior to national elections scheduled for February, but now possibly postponed until military operations cease. Such Israeli shows of force have been a feature of past Israeli election campaigns, and on this occasion especially, the current government was being successfully challenged by Israel’s notoriously militarist politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, for its supposed failures to uphold security. Reinforcing these electoral motivations was the little concealed pressure from the Israeli military commanders to seize the opportunity in Gaza to erase the memories of their failure to destroy Hezbollah in the devastating Lebanon War of 2006 that both tarnished Israel’s reputation as a military power and led to widespread international condemnation of Israel for the heavy bombardment of undefended Lebanese villages, disproportionate force, and extensive use of cluster bombs against heavily populated areas.

    Respected and conservative Israeli commentators go further. For instance, the prominent historian, Benny Morris writing in the New York Times a few days ago, relates the campaign in Gaza to a deeper set of forebodings in Israel that he compares to the dark mood of the public that preceded the 1967 War when Israelis felt deeply threatened by Arab mobilizations on their borders. Morris insists that despite Israeli prosperity of recent years, and relative security, several factors have led Israel to act boldly in Gaza: the perceived continuing refusal of the Arab world to accept the existence of Israel as an established reality; the inflammatory threats voiced by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad together with Iran’s supposed push to acquire nuclear weapons, the fading memory of the Holocaust combined with growing sympathy in the West with the Palestinian plight, and the radicalization of political movements on Israel’s borders in the form of Hezbollah and Hamas. In effect, Morris argues that Israel is trying via the crushing of Hamas in Gaza to send a wider message to the region that it will stop at nothing to uphold its claims of sovereignty and security.

    There are two conclusions that emerge: the people of Gaza are being severely victimized for reasons remote from the rockets and border security concerns, but seemingly to improve election prospects of current leaders now facing defeat, and to warn others in the region that Israel will use overwhelming force whenever its interests are at stake.

    That such a human catastrophe can happen with minimal outside interference also shows the weakness of international law and the United Nations, as well as the geopolitical priorities of the important players. The passive support of the United States government for whatever Israel does is again the critical factor, as it was in 2006 when it launched its aggressive war against Lebanon. What is less evident is that the main Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, with their extreme hostility toward Hamas that is viewed as backed by Iran, their main regional rival, were also willing to stand aside while Gaza was being so brutally attacked, with some Arab diplomats even blaming the attacks on Palestinian disunity or on the refusal of Hamas to accept the leadership of Mamoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority.

    The people of Gaza are victims of geopolitics at its inhumane worst: producing what Israel itself calls a ‘total war’ against an essentially defenseless society that lacks any defensive military capability whatsoever and is completely vulnerable to Israeli attacks mounted by F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters. What this also means is that the flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as set forth in the Geneva Conventions, is quietly set aside while the carnage continues and the bodies pile up. It additionally means that the UN is once more revealed to be impotent when its main members deprive it of the political will to protect a people subject to unlawful uses of force on a large scale. Finally, this means that the public can shriek and march all over the world, but that the killing will go on as if nothing is happening. The picture being painted day by day in Gaza is one that begs for renewed commitment to international law and the authority of the UN Charter, starting here in the United States, especially with a new leadership that promised its citizens change, including a less militarist approach to diplomatic leadership.

     

    Richard Falk is Chair of the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories.

  • Statement of Costa Rican President on Reducing Military Spending

    This speech was delivered to the United Nations Security Council on November 19, 2008

    A curious tale from Scandinavian mythology tells of two kings condemned to fight one another for eternity. If one succeeded in killing the other, the victim would rise again to continue their struggle until the last day of the world. The story has several versions, but, in all of them, the kings and their armies are revived each morning with new weapons, ready to take to the field of battle once more. This fantasy, product of a warrior culture, became a painful premonition of the events that would mark, with blood, the history of the twentieth century: an escalation of weapons, enemies, threats and war that ended the lives of hundreds of millions of people and forced us into the trenches of international insecurity.

    There lies the reason for the creation of this Security Council: in the search for solutions to the endless battle within the human species, fed by the frenzy of the arms race. It is unlikely that any organization has ever been set a more ambitious task than that. And it is unlikely that any organization has faced more difficult choices. Many of those dilemmas remain to be resolved but their answer can be found, without a doubt, in the content of the Charter of the United Nations. In 1945, with the smoke still clearing after the worst war in human memory, the founders of this Organization wrote in Article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations:

    “In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating, with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee referred to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments.”

    The wording of that Article is no accident. It makes a statement of which this Council must take note, to the fullest extent of its meaning: spending on arms is a diversion of human and economic resources; that is to say, a use that is not correct. As a minimum, the Charter asks us to accept that excessive military spending exacts an infinite cost in opportunity.

    These are not the delusions of a citizen of the first country in history to abolish its army and declare peace on the world. They are not the dreams of a Nobel Peace laureate. This is the text that holds up this building. It is the text that justifies any action of this Security Council. Article 26 has been, until now, a dead letter in the vast cemetery of intentions for world peace. But in that place there also rests the possibility of reviving that intention; of giving it the meaning intended by those who precede us in this struggle.

    “The least diversion of resources” means, first and foremost, finding alternatives to excessive military spending that do not damage security. One of those alternatives is to strengthen multilateralism. As long as nations do not feel protected by strong regional organizations with real powers to act, they will continue to arm themselves at the expense of their peoples’ development — of the poorest, in particular — and at the expense of international security. The Security Council must support, as a guarantor of collective security, multilateral accords adopted in our various regional organisms. Costa Rica will work along these lines during the coming year as a way to generate an environment that allows for the gradual reduction of military spending.

    Ours is an unarmed nation but it is not a naïve nation. We have not come here to lobby for the abolition of all armies. We have not even come to urge the drastic reduction of world military spending, which has now reached $3.3 billion a day — which is shameful. But a gradual reduction is not only possible, but also imperative, in particular for developing nations.

    I am well aware that neither this Organization nor this Council nor any of its Members can decide how much other countries spend on arms and soldiers. But we can decide how much international aid they receive and on which principles such aid is based. With the money that some developing nations spend on a single combat plane, they could buy 200,000 MIT Media Lab computers for students with limited resources. With the money they spend on a single helicopter, they could pay $100 monthly grants for a whole year to 5,000 students at risk of dropping out of school. The perverse logic that impels a poor nation to spend excessive sums on its armies and not on meeting the needs of its people is exactly the antithesis of human security and is ultimately a serious threat to international security.

    That is why my Government has presented the Costa Rica Consensus, an initiative to create mechanisms to forgive debts and support with international financial resources those developing countries which increase spending on environmental protection, education, healthcare and housing for their people and decrease spending on weapons and soldiers.

    In other words, this initiative seeks to reward developing countries, whether poor or middle-income, that divert increasingly fewer of their economic and human resources to the purchase of arms, just as stipulated in Article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations. Today, I ask members for their support in making the Consensus of Costa Rica a reality.

    I also ask members for their support for the arms trade treaty that Costa Rica, along with other nations, presented to the United Nations in 2006. This treaty seeks to prohibit the sale of arms to States, groups or individuals, when there is sufficient reason to believe that they will be used to violate human rights or international law. I do not know how much longer we can survive unless we realize that it is just as terrible to kill many people, little by little, every day, as it is to kill many people in a single day. The destructive power of the 640 million small arms and light weapons that exist in the world, 74 per cent of which are in the hands of civilians, has proven to be more lethal than that of nuclear weapons and constitutes one of the principal motors of national and international insecurity.

    Costa Rica knows that the members of this Council include some of the countries that top the list for the sale and purchase of small arms and light weapons in the world. But my country also knows that those nations have recognized terrorism and drug trafficking as serious threats to international security.

    International organized crime depends on arms trafficking, which until now has flowed with terrifying freedom across our borders, with the result that these same powerful nations suffer the consequences. Although the treaty would not eliminate the existence of such criminal groups, it would certainly limit their operations.

    If we do not succeed with these measures, if the Costa Rica Consensus does not win the support of developed nations and if the arms trade treaty sinks in the waters of this organization, our pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals will become nothing more than the impossible dream of a world that, like Sisyphus, labors without rest towards an unattainable goal.

    We are working to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and, yet, armed conflicts constitute the principal cause of hunger in our world. We are working to improve health care, particularly maternal health and the fight against AIDS and malaria. Yet, military spending drains millions of dollars from the health-care budgets of poor countries. The Millennium Development Goals were brave words, but they will never be more than words if we do not regulate arms or devise incentives to reduce global military spending.

    Humanity can break the chain that, until now, has forced us to spend our centuries in an incessant and fratricidal struggle. That was the belief of those who founded this Organization. The enormous mission entrusted to this Council is not a failed expectation, but it is a rocky path. Maintaining peace will never be a simple task, nor will it ever be completed. But, I assure you that strengthening multilateralism, reducing military spending in favor of human development and regulating the international arms trade are steps in the right direction, the same as that marked out 63 years ago by those who, having survived atrocities, were nonetheless able to hope.

    Oscar Arias is a Nobel Peace laureate and President of Costa Rica.

  • Barack Obama’s Historic Victory

    This historic victory by Barack Obama is the first truly global election that has been celebrated by people around the world as if they had been voting participants. The reelection of George W. Bush in 2004 was also a national election with global reverberations, but it only aroused widespread feelings of fear and resentment around the world, and no sense of participation. What we are slowly learning is that the United States is the first global state, and as such, its elections become a global, as well as a national, event. From this perspective it is not surprising that peoples throughout the world follow American presidential campaigns and either cheer or lament their outcome. What may be still unappreciated is that for many societies these American elections seem to generate more interest and enthusiasm than do elections in their own country. Barack Obama’s landslide victory in the United States was without doubt an impressive achievement. It also restored international confidence in the health of the American body politic. It is worth noting that if peoples throughout the world had been enfranchised to vote in the American elections, the outcome would have been far more one-sided in Obama’s favor. Perhaps, someday the realities of political globalization will extend worldwide American voting rights, conferring actual rights as the foundation of an emergent ‘global democracy,’ but such a moment seems far off.

    There are many reasons for most Americans to affirm Obama’s victory. It does represent a remarkable threshold of achievement for African Americans who have long borne the cruel burdens of racism. Beyond this Obama’s signature claim to lead the United States derived initially from his principled opposition to the Iraq War from its onset. His unconditional commitment to end American combat involvement in Iraq was extremely popular with voters, and will be tested in the months ahead as the politics of disengagement and withdrawal unfolds. Obama’s campaign effectively championed the theme of change and hope countering the mood of despair associated with the disillusionment after eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency as recently intensified by the sharp economic downturn. The Obama victory, above all, signaled to the world an American willingness to repudiate Bush militarist and unilateralist approaches to global policy. It also clearly expressed a willingness to address the financial meltdown and its economic fallout with policies helpful to the mass of Americans, and not just to Wall Street. This meant a long overdue reassertion of regulatory authority over markets and banks. There will be broad support among the American people for moving in these reformist directions, but the path will also be blocked at every stage by special interests that benefit from keeping things as they are. The joy of the moment risks becoming the disappointment of the hour as the pain, tensions, and intractability of this economic crisis become clear to the citizenrty. The opportunities for this new president are exciting, and seem attainable given his inspirational qualities of leadership. And yet we must realize that the challenges are daunting, perhaps beyond the capacity of any leader to meet successfully, at least in the short run. Time will tell, but what now prevails is an unprecedented mood of high and happy expectations. This will certainly bring a reformist resolve to Washington, but such a mood is fraught with peril. It can quickly give way to a sense of bitter disappointment, and can even give rise to charges of betrayal.

    The most immediate foreign policy issues concern the war on terror, how to withdraw from Iraq and achieve stability in Afghanistan. Obama will undoubtedly do his best to end the American combat role in Iraq as soon as possible, more or less in accord with his promise of completing the process in 16 months. The success of this effort will depend heavily upon what recently semi-dormant Iraqi insurgent forces do during the initial stages of this withdrawal process, and this is impossible to foresee. Withdrawal is likely to go relatively smoothly if the contending forces in Iraq realize that the alternative to power-sharing accommodations and compromises would be a long and bloody civil war, but such an optimistic outlook may never materialize, and then what. The rapid removal of American troops is quite likely to lead to an immediate escalation of Iraqi violence as anti-government forces are tempted to test the will and capability of the Maliki government in circumstances where it is losing American support. If this latter scenario unfolds, it would exert considerable pressure on Obama to halt further withdrawals, or even reverse course. Under these conditions Obama would likely seek to avoid being charged with responsibility for a costly defeat in Iraq. Republican critics will undoubtedly will allege that such regression in Iraq would have been averted had the Bush/McCain policy of indefinitely prolonging the military engagement continued to guide American policy. As is always the case with foreign intervention in an unresolved struggle for national self-determination, uncertainty pervades any policy choice. Obama’s opposition to the undertaking of the Iraq War has long been vindicated, but whether his advocacy of rapid extrication is feasible under current conditions will remain uncertain during the months ahead. In light of these risks, Obama advisors may be tempted to pursue a more ambiguous policy path in Iraq by appearing to withdraw, but actually redeploying most of the American troops in the region, including the retention of a large military presence in Iraq. If Obama opts for such caution it may temporarily calm some conservative critics in Washington and the media but he will encounter sharp criticism from his legions of young supporters who did so much to elect him. How Obama decides to walk this tightrope between the political mainstream and his grassroots movement will shape the early months of his presidency, especially in foreign affairs.

    Obama is simultaneously being challenged by a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan that includes the revival of the Taliban, a weak central government in Kabul, and the mounting political difficulties of dealing with hostile cross border forces located in Pakistan. During the presidential campaign Obama pursued a centrist line on the war on terror by advocating an enhanced involvement of American military forces in Afghanistan without ever questioning whether this underlying ‘war’ should be ‘undeclared,’ and terrorism treated as elsewhere in the world, as a matter for law enforcement and intelligence operations, and taking full advantage of inter-governmental cooperation. Both Obama and McCain favored augmenting American troops on the ground in Afghanistan by at least 32,000. Obama contended that such a shift could be achieved without further straining the overstretched military by assigning some of the departing American forces from Iraq to Afghanistan. What is at stake here is Obama’s double view of the two wars, that the Iraq War was a wrong turn, whereas the Afghanistan War was a correct response to 9/11 but was not properly carried to completion primarily due to the diversion of attention and resources to Iraq. Obama wants to correct both mistakes of the Bush presidency, but at the same time he appears to subscribe to the major premise that declaring “a war on terror,” at least on al Qaeda, was the right thing to do, and that Afghanistan is a necessary theater of military engagement, including insisting upon and managing Afghan regime change. Obama has also made some threats about carrying out attacks in Pakistan, even without the consent of Islamabad, if reliable intelligence locates Osama Bin Laden or al Qaeda sancturaries.

    What is most troublesome about according renewed attention to Afghanistan is its seemingly uncritical reliance on counterinsurgency doctrine to promote American interests in a distant foreign country. General David Petraeus has reformed counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in intelligent ways that exhibit a more sensitive appreciation of the need of American military forces to win over the population and be respectful toward the indigenous culture and religion, but it is still counterinsurgency. That is, it remains an intervention in internal political life by foreign military forces, which is inevitably an affront to sovereign rights in a post-colonial era of international relations. In practical terms, this means that a substantial portion of the Afghan people will probably view the American undertaking in their country with suspicion and hostility, and are likely to be supportive of resistance efforts. There is no doubt that the former Taliban regime was oppressive, as was Saddam Hussein’s regime, but it still remains highly questionable whether a sustainable politics of emancipation can be achieved by military means, and the effort to do so is at best extremely costly and destructive, and often lands intervening forces in a quagmire. This is the overriding lesson of the American defeat in Vietnam, which has yet to be learned by the foreign policy establishment. What has been attempted over and over again is to tweak counterinsurgency thinking and practice so as to make it succeed. It will be tragic if the Obama presidency traps itself on the counterinsurgency battlefields of Afghanistan. It would be far more understandable to mount a limited challenge to the al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but quite another to undertake the political restructuring of a foreign state. It should be chastening to reflect upon the fact that the British Empire, and even the Soviet state with its common border, failed in their determined attempts to control the political destiny of Afghanistan. It will be so sad if the promise of the Obama presidency is squandered as a result of a misguided and unwise escalation of American ambitions in Afghanistan.

    The other immediate concern for the Obama presidency will be Iran. Obama was much criticized during the presidential campaign for his announced readiness to meet with leaders of hostile states, including Iran, without preconditions. It remains to be seen whether Obama will risk his currently strong international reputation by arranging an early meeting with President Ahmadinejad, especially devoted to ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program does not end up producing nuclear weapons. Such diplomacy would represent a gamble by both parties. If successful, it will demonstrate the wisdom of Obama’s approach, and could be the start of an encouraging regional approach to peace and security in the Middle East, especially if the Iraq withdrawal goes forward successfully, and even more so, if it comes that Iran helps to keep Iraq stable during the removal of American forces. But if such an initiative falters, as seems far more probable, then it will erode Obama’s capacity to bring about an overall change in American foreign policy, and it could even lead to heightened regional tensions, risking a widening of the war zone.

    One golden opportunity for the Obama presidency is to reopen the question of nuclear disarmament. The atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 frightened world leaders about the future and created a momentary resolve to find ways to ensure that these weapons would never be developed further or used again. This resolve was soon dissipated by the Cold War rivalry, which expressed itself in part by a superpower arms race, as well as by the gradual acquisition of nuclear weaponry by additional countries. Not since the end of World War II has there been such a realization as at present that the future of world order is severely threatened by the existence and spread of these ultimate weapons of mass destruction. Favoring nuclear disarmament in the early 21st century is no longer just a peace movement demand that is not taken seriously in governmental circles. Nuclear disarmament has been recently endorsed by several eminent and conservative American political figures: Henry Kissinger, former Republican Secretary of State George Shultz, former Democratic Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former chair of the Senate Armed Forces Committee Sam Nunn. Their reasoning is set forth in two jointly authored articles published in the Wall Street Journal that are premised on realist approach to global security and shaped by a preoccupation with fulfilling American national interests. They argue that the gradual erosion of the Nonproliferation Regime makes the possession and existence of nuclear weapons by the United States far more dangerous than are the risks associated with their elimination by way of negotiated and monitored reductions. Both Obama and McCain expressed general support for a world free from nuclear weapons, but without proposing any specifics. Many observers of the international scene since the Soviet collapse have worried about such weapons falling into the hands of political extremists via the black market or through theft, especially given the ‘loose nukes’ contained in Russia’s poorly guarded arsenal of nuclear weapons. Similar worries have accompanied speculations that the government of nuclear Pakistan might be taken over by political elements with strong links to extremists. There is little doubt that an Obama call for a major conference of nuclear weapons states for the purpose of achieving total nuclear disarmament over a period of one or two decades would generate strong endorsements from most governments and great enthusiasm at the grassroots. Of course, achieving a consensus among the nine nuclear weapons states will not be easy, but the effort to do so if genuinely promoted by the United States, would be worthwhile. It would at the same time help Obama sustain his footing on the moral high ground of world affairs even should the effort become bogged down by disagreements. Putting nuclear disarmament high on the American policy agenda would also provide global civil society with an activist cause with wide transnational appeal.

    There is at present lots of commentary acknowledging the changing geopolitical landscape: the rise of China and India, a resurgent Russia, the collective force of the European Union, and the leftward tilt of Latin America. Clearly the unipolar moment of the 1990s has passed, and it seems likely that the Obama presidency will go out of its way to affirm its recognition of a multipolar world. It will also exhibit a far more active reliance on the mechanisms of international cooperation than has been the case in recent years. The Obama leadership will also hopefully do its best to avoid pressures to revive the Cold War, as were evident in the neoconservative call for the defense of Georgia last August, or in its warning of the start of a new phase of international relations based on great power rivalry. A generally hopeful trend in world affairs, pioneered by Europe, is the rise of regionalism in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, which could produce new forms of cooperation and peacekeeping that might encourage Washington to accept a more modest global presence, which in turn would begin the difficult process of acknowledging that America’s existing overseas commitments had so far outrun its capabilities that it could no longer meet the domestic needs of its own population.

    It is likely that this renewal of multilateralism will express itself in a more constructive approach to the United Nations as well as a determined effort to achieve a shared global strategy on climate change. Here, too, rhetorical promise may not be accompanied by corresponding action. The Obama presidency is likely to give an immediate priority to domestic issues, especially in view of the sharply falling economy that has already caused a credit crisis, housing foreclosures, widespread unemployment, huge fiscal deficits, and a declining national product. As a result, it would be almost currently impossible for any political leader to summon the political will needed to commit sufficient resources to deal effectively longer range global challenges. The overall American situation increasingly requires some serious structural moves, as well as crucial readjustments of policy. At present, there is no indication that either Obama or his advisors are thinking along these lines. There is no way that the United States can live up to the Obama promise, or more modestly, free itself from its current difficulties without at least taking the following fundamental steps: reducing its military expenditures by 50%, which means closing many foreign military bases, reducing drastically its global naval presence, and ending its program of nuclear defense and the militarization of space; it also means going all out for nuclear disarmament and the abandonment of counterinsurgency and preemptive/preventive war doctrines; and it would require an abrupt shift in economic policy from a reliance on capital-oriented neoliberalism to a people-oriented return to Keynesianism. Given the unlikelihood of moving decisively in these directions during this first Obama presidential term, it will be important to lower expectations so as to avoid cynicism and despair. At the same time critical independent voices must continue to call attention to these deeper challenges.

    Richard Falk is Chair of the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).