Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear disarmament

  • UN Voting on Nuclear Disarmament Shows Abysmal US Record

    UN Voting on Nuclear Disarmament Shows Abysmal US Record

    Each year the United Nations considers resolutions that seek to limit, control or eliminate the dangers that nuclear weapons pose to the inhabitants of the planet. In general, these resolutions can be described as nuclear disarmament measures.*

    In 2007, in the 62nd General Assembly of the United Nations, 20 resolutions on nuclear disarmament were considered. Of these, five were not voted upon. Of the 15 resolutions that were voted upon by the UN General Assembly in 2007, only one country in the world, the United States, had a record of opposing all of them. It is an abysmal voting record, and the people of the United States should be aware of the dangerous and obstructionist role their government is playing in opposing a serious agenda for nuclear disarmament.

    The votes of the nine nuclear weapon states are listed in the chart below. Countries were given one point for each Yes vote, zero points for each abstention, and a point was taken away for each No vote:

    China Pakistan N. Korea India Russia UK Israel France US
    Yes (+1) 11 10 11 8 5 3 1 2 0
    No (-1) 0 0 2 3 1 9 8 10 15
    Abstain (0) 4 5 0 4 8 3 6 3 0
    Vote Tally 11 10 9 5 4 -6 -7 -8 -15

    United States

    In three of the votes, the United States was the only country in the world to vote against the resolutions. The resolutions called for:

    1. Giving security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states that nuclear weapons would not be used against them;
    2. Supporting the Treaty on the South-East Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone;
    3. Supporting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to permanently end all nuclear weapons testing.

    Four other resolutions had only three votes against, and in each case the US was one of the three. These resolutions called for:

    1. Supporting a nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere (US, France, UK opposed);
    2. Decreasing the operational readiness of nuclear weapons systems (US, France, UK opposed);
    3. A UN conference on eliminating nuclear dangers (US, France, UK opposed);
    4. Supporting renewed determination toward the elimination of nuclear weapons (US, India, North Korea opposed).

    France & United Kingdom

    The other nuclear weapons states had more positive voting records, although in the case of the UK and France, only slightly more so. Both France and the UK voted Yes on a resolution highlighting the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and on supporting for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The UK’s other Yes vote was on renewed determination towards elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Russia & China

    Russia’s sole No vote was on supporting the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Of the five principal nuclear weapons states, China had by far the best voting record, casting no negative votes.

    Israel, India, Pakistan & North Korea

    The other nuclear weapons states, those outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, are Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Israel cast only one Yes vote, on support of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. India, Pakistan and North Korea were more supportive of nuclear disarmament resolutions, voting Yes a majority of the time. North Korea did not vote on two resolutions.

    Weapons in Space

    One other aspect of UN voting on disarmament measures deserves comment, that of disarmament aspects of outer space. On the two measures on this subject, the countries of the world voted overwhelmingly in favor of keeping outer space free of weapons. The first vote was on prevention of an arms race in outer space. Out of 180 countries voting on this resolution, 179 voted in favor. Only the United States voted against and Israel abstained. On the second measure on transparency and confidence building in outer space, 181 countries voted. Again, only the US voted against the measure, and only Israel abstained.

    In the area of nuclear disarmament, as well as in keeping outer space free of weapons, the US has shown itself to be an obstacle to progress. In a time when the world badly needs leadership toward a saner and safer future, the US has chosen to oppose progress on nuclear disarmament in many ways, including its votes in the UN General Assembly.

    In many respects the US government has demonstrated by its votes in the UN General Assembly its disdain for the deep concerns of the vast majority of the rest of the international community as well as of the American people. Such behavior leaves the US and the world a more dangerous place and undoubtedly contributes to the extremely low level of respect in which the US is held throughout most of the world.

    * The voting records of countries on these resolutions can be found in the Winter 2007 issue of Disarmament Times, a publication of the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • We Cannot Afford to Neglect Nuclear Disarmament

    Originally appeared online at History News Service

    Russia’s plans for new nuclear weapons should serve as a wake-up call for the United States. The last thing Americans want to see are nuclear weapons popping up anywhere around the globe. We must regain the initiative toward nuclear disarmament by opening talks on additional bilateral nuclear arms reductions with Russia.

    During the Cold War, nuclear disarmament was a long-term goal of U.S. foreign policy. President Reagan called for “the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.”

    But Reagan’s great aspiration seems far off today. Both Russia and the United States hold thousands of nuclear weapons despite existing arms control treaties. China, India, Pakistan, Britain and France all possess smaller but sizable arsenals. North Korea has tested its first nuclear weapon. In the Middle East, Israel has the bomb, and Iran may be joining the nuclear club. When one thinks of the horrific scenarios that could emerge from all this proliferation, including nuclear terrorism, disarmament never looked so desirable.

    Ever since the end of the Cold War, there have been calls for aggressively moving forward on nuclear disarmament. In 1996 two retired generals, Lee Butler and Andrew Goodpaster, put forth a plan for the nuclear states to begin deep reductions in their arsenals, with an eye toward eventual nuclear disarmament. The United States and Russia would take the lead in these reductions, even down to the level of 100-200 nuclear weapons each. Other nuclear states would cap their arsenals at “very low levels.” Throughout this process, confidence- building and verification measures would be strengthened among the states to guarantee each step.

    The United States would be wise to follow the principles of the Goodpaster-Butler plan. Instead, like Russia, the United States has also expressed its desire for new nuclear weaponry. The U.S. refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to eliminate nuclear test explosions is a roadblock in the way of nuclear disarmament. The United States needs to partner with Russia in the elimination of nuclear weapons, not open the door for a new arms race. More nuclear disarmament talks could even ease Russian concerns over the U.S. plan to place a missile defense shield in Europe.

    Cooperation between Russia and the United States is essential in getting North Korea to disarm its nuclear capability and prevent Iran from obtaining one. Diplomacy among the United States, Russia, Japan, China, South Korea and North Korea is setting a path toward disarmament and peace on the Korean peninsula, although much work still needs to be done.

    The case of Iran is more difficult. Russia recently warned the United States not to launch a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities suspected of harboring weapons development. Russia and the United States aren’t on the same page when it comes to dealing with Iran.

    Great danger also exists in South Asia with nuclear weapons owned by rivals India and Pakistan. We must not forget China and its ever-increasing military strength. All this nuclear proliferation makes for an extremely dangerous world.

    Back in 1996, the Goodpaster-Butler plan was centered on President Eisenhower’s notion that “nuclear weapons are the only thing that can destroy the United States.” Indeed, Goodpaster and Butler were forward-thinking when they cited nuclear terrorism as among the reasons for disarmament. Nearly five years after their proposal, the world was awakened to the threat posed by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. People can now imagine what catastrophe would result should terrorists get hold of a nuclear weapon.

    Goodpaster and Butler cited nuclear accidents as another reason for taking disarmament steps. The recent fiasco of nuclear-armed missiles being accidentally transported over the United States on a B-52 shows the dangers of having these weapons around.

    Maintaining nuclear weapons is a major expense for nations to carry. This financial burden takes away from other national priorities including conventional military forces, intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism and homeland security. We should also remember Eisenhower’s philosophy that armaments represent “a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

    It is imperative for the United States to regain the initiative on nuclear disarmament. Gaining Russia’s full cooperation, beginning with further bilateral nuclear arms reductions, is an essential first step. Failure to do so leaves future generations exposed to the threat of nuclear terrorism and accidents, not to mention massive expenditures for unnecessary weapons. A nuclear-free world must not remain a distant hope but rather a goal vigorously pursued in a spirit of unprecedented international cooperation.

    William Lambers is the author of Nuclear Weapons (2002) and is a writer for the History News Service – www.hnn.us.

  • Laying the Foundations for Multilateral Disarmament

    Text of his address to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland on February 5, 2008

    I know it is rare for a defence Minister to address a conference on disarmament. That is precisely why I wanted to come here today. I want the fact that the British Secretary of State for Defence is addressing this Conference to send a strong message about the priority we give to our disarmament commitments.

    These are commitments not just theoretical obligations. They are priorities against which we have made real progress since we came to power in 1997. The UK has a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and, in partnership with everyone who shares that ambition, we intend to make further progress towards this vision in the coming years.

    Problem
    Over the past 15 years, we have seen some nations expanding their nuclear arsenals, some surreptitiously seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of a civil energy programme and others detonating nuclear test devices in the face of international condemnation.

    The proliferation of nuclear material, technology, know-how and weapons represents a grave threat to international security. There remain many thousands of nuclear warheads around the world. We must take action now to ensure such material is properly protected.

    We all want to see the world become a much safer place. International security architecture, in the form of Treaties and initiatives, exists to help us achieve that objective. The international community has been active in bolstering that architecture. It has not completely stopped proliferation. Nor is it yet strong enough to permit immediate unilateral disarmament by any recognised Nuclear Weapon State.

    We need to do more.

    But nuclear weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction are not the only concern, we must also maintain a focus on conventional weapons.

    Last month, Gordon Brown set out the key challenges facing the international community. He highlighted some of the ways international institutions need to reform to enable us all, collectively, to meet those challenges. He reminded us that one person is killed every minute by a conventional weapon. Kofi Annan famously called them “WMD in slow motion”.
    These weapons have an enormous effect in terms of lost human lives, in terms of broken communities, environmental impact and damage to economic prosperity and development. I have witnessed their devastating impact on the lives of people in Central Africa, Colombia, Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

    Consequently, I am proud support efforts such as the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons and the UK’s Arms Trade Treaty initiative. These efforts aim to contribute to a global control architecture which both meets the requirements of the 21st century and gives focus and coherence to existing measures.
    In addition, Gordon Brown and I have made clear our goal of securing an international instrument that bans those cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. Last year I withdrew from service the two types of cluster munitions for exactly this reason and only last week with my colleagues I met with NGOs and politicians concerned about the impact of cluster munitions to discuss both Oslo and CCW.

    Controlling and reducing the proliferation of conventional arms is important, but I have come here to focus on nuclear disarmament.

    As the preamble to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty makes clear, all States party to the Treaty should work towards “the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the elimination of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery…”

    This is not some “get out” clause for the five recognised Nuclear Weapon States. Rather it is recognition that all signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty already have agreed to strive for measures which provide an environment for all Nuclear Weapon States to eliminate their holdings. This is a joint commitment and it is a joint responsibility.

    As this Conference knows too well, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has not yet entered into force and there is an ongoing stalemate on a Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty. This hardly gives the impression that progress is being made.

    I commend this Conference for playing a crucial role in moving forward the debate and seeking solutions. And I encourage all experts and representatives engaged in this process to redouble their efforts.

    Solutions

    It may be a truism but global challenges require global solutions. The solutions must take us all towards an increase in the pace of multilateral disarmament as well as a reduction in proliferation.

    The international community needs a transparent, sustainable and credible plan for multilateral nuclear disarmament. A plan that also addresses proliferation, so that disarmament and counter-proliferation both move forward together, each supporting the other. Although, we all understand that there is no formal conditionality between progress on disarmament and non-proliferation, our goal should be a virtuous circle, where progress on one reinforces the other.

    Our chances of eliminating nuclear weapons will be enhanced immeasurably if the Non-Nuclear Weapon States can see forward planning, commitment and action toward multilateral nuclear disarmament by Nuclear Weapon States. Without this, we risk generating the perception that the Nuclear Weapon States are failing to fulfil their disarmament obligations and this will be used by some states as an excuse for their nuclear intransigence.

    What then should this plan comprise of?

    Let me start with the question of reductions to the major nuclear arsenals.

    There is little public acknowledgement of the vast cuts so far in US and Russian warheads, especially since the Cold War. Nor, for that matter, the cuts to the much smaller French and UK stocks.

    I welcome the recent news by the US that, by 2012, their stockpile will be at its lowest for 50 years – less than one quarter of the level at the end of the Cold War. We all need to maintain this effort but we also need to get better at publicising the fact that we are on this path.

    We must also welcome the ongoing bilateral discussions between the US and Russia for a follow-on arrangement after the current START treaty expires. Success would provide a powerful signal that the post Cold War disarmament trend towards zero will continue.

    States also need to explore whether there is scope to reduce further the number of nuclear weapons they need to maintain an effective deterrent. The UK set an example by reducing our operationally available warheads by a further 20% when we decided last year to maintain our own minimum nuclear deterrent beyond the life of the current Vanguard-class submarines ,

    The international climate must become one that gives all Nuclear Weapon States the confidence to continue to make similar changes.

    I welcome the discussions on how to deal with States who may leave the NPT. Leaving any treaty is always a sovereign decision, but the NPT Review Conference in 2010 should send a message to any States considering withdrawal that such a decision will have consequences.

    We must be resolute in tackling proliferation challenges. We must confront states who are looking to breach their obligations and undermine global security by developing WMD. And within the international community we must ensure there is no space for such proliferators.

    The UK is committed to supporting the universal right of access to safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technology. But this cannot be at the risk of further proliferation. It is in this context that we have developed the concept of an Enrichment Bond – whereby assistance is granted in return for demonstrable commitment to non-proliferation.

    We should also continue to strive for the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and progress in its verification system. I warmly welcome the ratification last week by Columbia – real evidence of progress on this key piece of our security architecture. Since 1991, the UK has not tested a nuclear weapon and I call on all states to ratify the CTBT as soon as possible, especially those so-called Annex II states whose ratification is required for the Treaty’s entry into force

    I believe a key milestone towards building this climate for disarmament is securing a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, which, in real ways, will limit the ability of signatory states to expand their nuclear arsenals and which will provide the necessary reassurance to their neighbours and the international community.

    Since 1995, the UK has had a moratorium on production of fissile material for nuclear weapons purposes and permanently placed excess defence material under international safeguards. The US, France and Russia have announced similar formal arrangements. But we want to see that political commitment transformed into a legal one through a treaty.

    In 2007, the International Community came very close to starting negotiations in 2007 and I commend all those states who were willing to take part. And I call on those three states that did not, to do so this year. As UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, said last month, we all have legitimate national security concerns, but without any preconditions, let’s at least get to negotiations of a Treaty, where these security concerns can then be addressed.

    Some commentators have raised the idea of taking the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty out of the Conference and negotiating a treaty amongst a smaller group of like-minded nations. Frankly this misses the very point of the Conference – it is the only body where all nuclear armed States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States sit together to discuss security issues of the highest sensitivity.
    Safeguarding fissile material is a crucial responsibility of those who possess nuclear weapons. So let us work together within this Conference to make real multilateral progress.

    But just as the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty is a high priority for the UK, I acknowledge other nations have other priorities, such as negotiating a new legal instrument on preventing an arms race in space.

    At the UN, the UK consistently has supported the annual resolution on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space. But there is no international consensus on the need to start negotiations on a new international legal instrument governing the military use of space. So rather than allowing this stalemate to continue, efforts should instead be focused on areas such as transparency and confidence building to allow us all to move forward.

    UK / Defence Contribution

    So what is the UK, and more specifically the Ministry of Defence, doing to help move this agenda along, and to help create an environment conducive to multilateral nuclear disarmament?

    Already we have contributed in the most tangible way through reducing the number of operationally available warheads to fewer than 160. This has now been achieved. And if we are able to reduce further, we will do that.

    With a contribution from the UK government, the International Institute for Strategic Studies is examining the political and technical requirements for a world free from nuclear weapons. And I look forward to the final report, which will be published later this year.

    However, one area on which I would like to focus is our work on verification of nuclear disarmament.

    Just as Margaret Beckett said last year, I too want the UK to be seen as a ‘disarmament laboratory’. By that I mean the UK becoming a role model and testing ground for measures that we and others can take on key aspects of disarmament. In particular, measures needed to determine the requirements for the verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Any verification regime will have to be robust, effective and mutually trusted and, crucially, one that doesn’t give away national security or proliferation-sensitive information.

    The more reductions states make, the more confidence they will require that no one is cheating and secretly retaining a “marginal nuclear weapon”. It is therefore of paramount importance that verification techniques are developed which enable us all – Nuclear Weapon States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States – to have confidence that when a state says it has fully and irrevocably dismantled a nuclear warhead, we all can be assured it is telling the truth.

    The UK is ready to lead the way on this. Research into how one technically verifies the dismantlement of a warhead continues at the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston.

    Developing such techniques will take time but it is very important it is not undertaken in ‘splendid isolation’. It must be built on the requirements of Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Weapon States alike. We need to consider not only what information we are willing to divulge but also what information a Non-Nuclear Weapon State will want to receive.

    With this in mind, over the last year AWE has developed a technical cooperation initiative with several Norwegian defence laboratories. The process of engaging with Norway must avoid breaching our mutual NPT obligations, which in itself serves as useful insight into how future multilateral discussions might proceed.

    The difficulty is in developing technologies which strike the right balance between protecting security and proliferation considerations and, at the same time, providing sufficient international access and verification. But this is a challenge we can overcome.

    If we are serious about doing our bit to create the conditions for complete nuclear disarmament, we must now also begin to build deeper technical relationships on disarmament between nuclear weapon states.

    So I come to this Conference with a proposal.

    As a next step, and following on from the AWE research, the UK is willing to host a technical conference of P5 nuclear laboratories on the verification of nuclear disarmament before the next NPT Review Conference in 2010. We hope such a conference will enable the five recognised nuclear weapons states to reinforce a process of mutual confidence building: working together to solve some of these difficult technical issues.

    As part of our global efforts, we also hope to engage with other P5 states in other confidence-building measures on nuclear disarmament throughout this NPT Review Cycle. The aim here is to promote greater trust and confidence as a catalyst for further reductions in warheads – but without undermining the credibility of our existing nuclear deterrents.

    So to summarise, we face serious threats. But we face them together – that is the nature of today’s globalised interdependent world. We need a transparent, sustainable and credible plan for multilateral nuclear disarmament. A plan shared by Nuclear Weapon States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States alike.

    I have suggested some of the elements of that plan. But the UK certainly does not have a monopoly on good ideas – others have put equally good proposals on the table, and I encourage states to suggest further initiatives.

    So, Conference, let us all work together with resolve and ambition to lay the foundations that will allow us to move towards that shared vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

    Thank you.

    Des Browne MP is the Secretary of Defense of the United Kingdom.

  • Toward a Nuclear-Free World

    The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear material has brought us to a nuclear tipping point. We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands.

    The steps we are taking now to address these threats are not adequate to the danger. With nuclear weapons more widely available, deterrence is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous.

    One year ago, in an essay in this paper, we called for a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, to prevent their spread into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately to end them as a threat to the world. The interest, momentum and growing political space that has been created to address these issues over the past year has been extraordinary, with strong positive responses from people all over the world.

    Mikhail Gorbachev wrote in January 2007 that, as someone who signed the first treaties on real reductions in nuclear weapons, he thought it his duty to support our call for urgent action: “It is becoming clearer that nuclear weapons are no longer a means of achieving security; in fact, with every passing year they make our security more precarious.”

    In June, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, signaled her government’s support, stating: “What we need is both a vision — a scenario for a world free of nuclear weapons — and action — progressive steps to reduce warhead numbers and to limit the role of nuclear weapons in security policy. These two strands are separate but they are mutually reinforcing. Both are necessary, but at the moment too weak.”

    We have also been encouraged by additional indications of general support for this project from other former U.S. officials with extensive experience as secretaries of state and defense and national security advisors. These include: Madeleine Albright, Richard V. Allen, James A. Baker III, Samuel R. Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci, Warren Christopher, William Cohen, Lawrence Eagleburger, Melvin Laird, Anthony Lake, Robert McFarlane, Robert McNamara and Colin Powell.

    Inspired by this reaction, in October 2007, we convened veterans of the past six administrations, along with a number of other experts on nuclear issues, for a conference at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. There was general agreement about the importance of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons as a guide to our thinking about nuclear policies, and about the importance of a series of steps that will pull us back from the nuclear precipice.

    The U.S. and Russia, which possess close to 95% of the world’s nuclear warheads, have a special responsibility, obligation and experience to demonstrate leadership, but other nations must join.

    Some steps are already in progress, such as the ongoing reductions in the number of nuclear warheads deployed on long-range, or strategic, bombers and missiles. Other near-term steps that the U.S. and Russia could take, beginning in 2008, can in and of themselves dramatically reduce nuclear dangers. They include:

    • Extend key provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991. Much has been learned about the vital task of verification from the application of these provisions. The treaty is scheduled to expire on Dec. 5, 2009. The key provisions of this treaty, including their essential monitoring and verification requirements, should be extended, and the further reductions agreed upon in the 2002 Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions should be completed as soon as possible.

    • Take steps to increase the warning and decision times for the launch of all nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, thereby reducing risks of accidental or unauthorized attacks. Reliance on launch procedures that deny command authorities sufficient time to make careful and prudent decisions is unnecessary and dangerous in today’s environment. Furthermore, developments in cyber-warfare pose new threats that could have disastrous consequences if the command-and-control systems of any nuclear-weapons state were compromised by mischievous or hostile hackers. Further steps could be implemented in time, as trust grows in the U.S.-Russian relationship, by introducing mutually agreed and verified physical barriers in the command-and-control sequence.

    • Discard any existing operational plans for massive attacks that still remain from the Cold War days. Interpreting deterrence as requiring mutual assured destruction (MAD) is an obsolete policy in today’s world, with the U.S. and Russia formally having declared that they are allied against terrorism and no longer perceive each other as enemies.

    • Undertake negotiations toward developing cooperative multilateral ballistic-missile defense and early warning systems, as proposed by Presidents Bush and Putin at their 2002 Moscow summit meeting. This should include agreement on plans for countering missile threats to Europe, Russia and the U.S. from the Middle East, along with completion of work to establish the Joint Data Exchange Center in Moscow. Reducing tensions over missile defense will enhance the possibility of progress on the broader range of nuclear issues so essential to our security. Failure to do so will make broader nuclear cooperation much more difficult.

    • Dramatically accelerate work to provide the highest possible standards of security for nuclear weapons, as well as for nuclear materials everywhere in the world, to prevent terrorists from acquiring a nuclear bomb. There are nuclear weapons materials in more than 40 countries around the world, and there are recent reports of alleged attempts to smuggle nuclear material in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. The U.S., Russia and other nations that have worked with the Nunn-Lugar programs, in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), should play a key role in helping to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 relating to improving nuclear security — by offering teams to assist jointly any nation in meeting its obligations under this resolution to provide for appropriate, effective security of these materials.

    As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put it in his address at our October conference, “Mistakes are made in every other human endeavor. Why should nuclear weapons be exempt?” To underline the governor’s point, on Aug. 29-30, 2007, six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads were loaded on a U.S. Air Force plane, flown across the country and unloaded. For 36 hours, no one knew where the warheads were, or even that they were missing.

    • Start a dialogue, including within NATO and with Russia, on consolidating the nuclear weapons designed for forward deployment to enhance their security, and as a first step toward careful accounting for them and their eventual elimination. These smaller and more portable nuclear weapons are, given their characteristics, inviting acquisition targets for terrorist groups.

    • Strengthen the means of monitoring compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a counter to the global spread of advanced technologies. More progress in this direction is urgent, and could be achieved through requiring the application of monitoring provisions (Additional Protocols) designed by the IAEA to all signatories of the NPT.

    • Adopt a process for bringing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into effect, which would strengthen the NPT and aid international monitoring of nuclear activities. This calls for a bipartisan review, first, to examine improvements over the past decade of the international monitoring system to identify and locate explosive underground nuclear tests in violation of the CTBT; and, second, to assess the technical progress made over the past decade in maintaining high confidence in the reliability, safety and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear arsenal under a test ban. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization is putting in place new monitoring stations to detect nuclear tests — an effort the U.S should urgently support even prior to ratification.

    In parallel with these steps by the U.S. and Russia, the dialogue must broaden on an international scale, including non-nuclear as well as nuclear nations.

    Key subjects include turning the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a practical enterprise among nations, by applying the necessary political will to build an international consensus on priorities. The government of Norway will sponsor a conference in February that will contribute to this process.

    Another subject: Developing an international system to manage the risks of the nuclear fuel cycle. With the growing global interest in developing nuclear energy and the potential proliferation of nuclear enrichment capabilities, an international program should be created by advanced nuclear countries and a strengthened IAEA. The purpose should be to provide for reliable supplies of nuclear fuel, reserves of enriched uranium, infrastructure assistance, financing, and spent fuel management — to ensure that the means to make nuclear weapons materials isn’t spread around the globe.

    There should also be an agreement to undertake further substantial reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear forces beyond those recorded in the U.S.-Russia Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty. As the reductions proceed, other nuclear nations would become involved.

    President Reagan’s maxim of “trust but verify” should be reaffirmed. Completing a verifiable treaty to prevent nations from producing nuclear materials for weapons would contribute to a more rigorous system of accounting and security for nuclear materials.

    We should also build an international consensus on ways to deter or, when required, to respond to, secret attempts by countries to break out of agreements.

    Progress must be facilitated by a clear statement of our ultimate goal. Indeed, this is the only way to build the kind of international trustandbroad cooperation that will be required to effectively address today’s threats. Without the vision of moving toward zero, we will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward spiral.

    In some respects, the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons is like the top of a very tall mountain. From the vantage point of our troubled world today, we can’t even see the top of the mountain, and it is tempting and easy to say we can’t get there from here. But the risks from continuing to go down the mountain or standing pat are too real to ignore. We must chart a course to higher ground where the mountaintop becomes more visible.

    The following participants in the Hoover-NTI conference also endorse the view in this statement: General John Abizaid, Graham Allison, Brooke Anderson, Martin Anderson, Steve Andreasen, Mike Armacost, Bruce Blair, Matt Bunn, Ashton Carter, Sidney Drell, General Vladimir Dvorkin, Bob Einhorn, Mark Fitzpatrick, James Goodby, Rose Gottemoeller, Tom Graham, David Hamburg, Siegfried Hecker, Tom Henriksen, David Holloway, Raymond Jeanloz, Ray Juzaitis, Max Kampelman, Jack Matlock, Michael McFaul, John McLaughlin, Don Oberdorfer, Pavel Podvig, William Potter, Richard Rhodes, Joan Rohlfing, Harry Rowen, Scott Sagan, Roald Sagdeev, Abe Sofaer, Richard Solomon, and Philip Zelikow.

    Originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal on January 15, 2008

    Click here to read the authors’ 2007 article

    Mr. Shultz was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Mr. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Mr. Nunn is former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

  • Required Reading for Assuring the Future

    Required Reading for Assuring the Future

    Few people have looked as deeply into the nuclear abyss, seen the monster of our own making and grappled with it as has the writer Jonathan Schell. But Schell is more than a writer. He is also a philosopher of the Nuclear Age and an ardent advocate of caging the beast and rendering it harmless. Schell’s first book on the subject, The Fate of the Earth, awakened many people to the breadth and depth of the nuclear danger and is now a classic. He has returned to the issue of nuclear dangers (nuclear insanity?) in several of his other books, always providing penetrating insights into the confrontation between humanity and its most deadly invention.

    His latest book, The Seventh Decade, The New Shape of Nuclear Danger, may be Schell’s most important book yet. In this book, he examines the roots of the Nuclear Age and its current manifestations. He unearths the truth, which once brought to light seems obvious, that the bomb began as a construct in the mind. “Well before any physical bomb had been built,” he says, “science had created the bomb in the mind, an intangible thing. Thereafter, the bomb would be as much a mental as a physical object.”

    One of the key concepts of the Nuclear Age is deterrence, the belief that the threat of nuclear retaliation can prevent nuclear attack. Schell takes a hard-headed look at deterrence, and finds the concept “half-sane and half-crazy.” While it seems sane to seek to forestall a nuclear attack, the half-crazy part (perhaps more than half), “consists of actually waging the war you must threaten, for in that event the result is suicide all around.” That suicide writ large becomes what philosopher John Somerville termed “omnicide,” the death of all. “In short,” Schell deduced, “to threaten seems wise, but to act is deranged.”

    In the post-Cold War period, deterrence has become even more complex and less certain, tilting toward the “deranged.” It is no longer the mental task of threat and counter threat aimed at keeping a fixed and powerful opponent at bay, as it was during the Cold War standoff between the US and USSR. Now, states must consider the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorist groups, not locatable and not subject to being deterred. In such circumstances, the rationality of deterrence is shattered and even great and powerful states are placed at risk of nuclear devastation by far weaker opponents. In such circumstances, overwhelming nuclear superiority is of no avail.

    The “bomb in the mind” can only do so much. It cannot deter those who cannot be located or are suicidal. Despite their devastating power, nuclear weapons in the hands of powerful states are actually a tepid threat. Yet, they stand as a major impediment to the post-Cold War imperial project of the United States, a project failing on many fronts, but poised to fail far more spectacularly if nuclear weapons find their way into the hands of terrorist groups.

    In today’s world, when deterrence has for nearly all sane thinkers lost its magical power in the mind (although in truth it was always a highly risky venture), it has become far harder to justify nuclear arsenals, and the United States has resorted to the vague possibility of a reemergent threat. In considering this, Schell finds, “In the last analysis, the target of the U.S. nuclear arsenal became history and whatever it might produce – not a foe but a tense, the future itself.”

    Schell correctly concluded that the George W. Bush administration had far more ambitious and sinister plans for the US nuclear arsenal. Although there was no clearly definable enemy, there was a strongly held vision and normative goal of US global dominance, set forth in the 2001 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Nuclear weapons were required, in Schell’s careful study of the NPR “to dissuade, deter, defeat or annihilate – preventively, preemptively, or in retaliation – any nation or other grouping of people on the face of the earth, large or small, that militarily opposed, or dreamed of opposing, the United States.”

    Schell examines the US imperial project under George W. Bush and its role in shaping US nuclear policy. He points out that the Bush administration ordered its nuclear threats in this way: Iraq, with whom it went to war; Iran, with whom it threatened war; North Korea, which withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and developed nuclear weapons; and Pakistan, which already had nuclear weapons and a chaotic political environment. Of course, Bush chose exactly the wrong order in terms of the actual security threats posed by these nations. Schell found, “In responding to the universal danger posed by nuclear proliferation, the United States therefore had two suitably universalist traditions that it could draw on, one based on consent and law, the other based on force. Bush chose force. It was the wrong choice. It increased the nuclear danger it was meant to prevent.”

    In the final section of his book, Schell, who is himself an ardent nuclear abolitionist, reviews earlier attempts to achieve abolition of these weapons. He goes into heartbreaking detail of the efforts of Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev to achieve the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. The two leaders, acting on their own initiative, without the advice or support of their aides (George Shultz is an exception), were incredibly close to agreement to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, but as we know faltered on the issue of missile defenses, which Reagan saw as key and which Gorbachev couldn’t accept. After coming so close to agreement on a plan for abolition, the world settled back to nuclear business as usual. As Schell pointed out, after the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit at Reykjavík, “Nuclear arsenals may remain not so much because anyone wants them as because a world without them is outside the imagination of the leadership class.”

    The possibilities of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism led Schell to the conclusion that “with each year that passes, nuclear weapons provide their possessors with less safety while provoking more danger. The walls dividing the nations of the two-tiered [nuclear] world are crumbling.” The Reagan-Gorbachev vision has new advocates in former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn. Their basic premise is that deterrence can no longer be the foundation for 21st century security.

    Schell suggests that should the will for nuclear abolition materialize – something already favored by the majority of Americans – the following principles could guide the effort:

    1. At the outset, adopt the abolition of nuclear arms as the organizing principle and goal of all activity in the nuclear field;
    2. Join all negotiations on nuclear weapons – on nuclear disarmament, on nonproliferation, and on nuclear terrorism – in a single forum;
    3. Think of abolition less as the endpoint of a long and weary path of disarmament and more as the starting point for addressing a new agenda of global action;
    4. Design a world free of nuclear weapons that is not just a destination to reach but a place to remain.

    Schell concludes that the “bomb in the mind,” with us from the outset of the Nuclear Age, will remain with us, but that this is not necessarily a detriment. He points out, “even in a world without nuclear weapons, deterrence would, precisely because the bomb in the mind would still be present, remain in effect. In that respect, the persisting know-how would be as much a source of reassurance as it would be a danger in a world without nuclear weapons.”

    Jonathan Schell has provided an essential book for our time. He peels back the layers of veils and myths surrounding nuclear dangers and strategies, and offers a sound set of guidelines for moving to a nuclear weapons-free world. This book can help to create the necessary political will to achieve this end. It is required reading for every person on the planet who cares about assuring the future.

    David Krieger is the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.

  • No Nukes, No Proliferation

    The rising anxieties about nuclear weapons are rooted in two major and parallel developments: a renaissance of nuclear power and a resurgence of old-fashioned national security threats that supposedly had ebbed with the end of the Cold War.

    After the well publicized accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, opposition to nuclear power was so strong that many reactor plants were shut down, plans for new ones were canceled and virtually no new reactor was built over the past decade. With the spiraling price of oil caused by a spike in demand and disruptions to supply, the economics of nuclear power has changed. With the accelerating threat of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the balance of environmental risk has shifted. Adding technological developments, the politics of constructing and operating nuclear power reactors has also altered.

    The net result is plans for building several reactors to add to the 435 reactors in 30 countries that provide 15 percent of the world’s electricity today. Asia will account for 18 of the 31 planned new reactors. The spurt in Chinese and Indian demand is a function of booming economic growth and population. In Japan and South Korea interest in nuclear power arises from lack of indigenous oil and gas resources and the desire for energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    This throws up three clusters of concern:

    • How do we ensure that the plants are operated with complete safety?
    • How do we secure the plants against theft, leakage and attacks of weapons-sensitive material, skills and knowledge?
    • How do we build firewalls between civilian and weapons-related use of nuclear power?

    These concerns extend also to the international trade in nuclear material, skills and equipment. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, observed in 2004 that “Nuclear components designed in one country could be manufactured in another, shipped through a third, and assembled in a fourth for use in a fifth.”

    The challenge on the national security front is fourfold. First, the five Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty-licit nuclear powers–Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States–have ignored their NPT obligation to disarm. Instead they are busy enlarging, modernizing and upgrading their nuclear arsenals and refining nuclear doctrines to indicate retention and expanded use of these weapons for several decades yet. The lesson to others? Nuclear weapons are indispensable in today’s world and becoming more useful for dealing with tomorrow’s threats.

    Second, three states outside the NPT–India, Israel and Pakistan–have been accepted, more or less, as de facto nuclear weapons powers.

    Third, as an intergovernmental agreement, the NPT doesn’t cover nonstate groups, including terrorists, who might be pursuing nuclear weapons. The turmoil in Pakistan, with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf playing the “loose nukes” card to retain U.S. backing, highlights the related danger of links between rogue elements of security forces and extremists.

    Fourth, some countries may be cheating on their NPT obligations and seeking nuclear weapons by stealth. The drumbeats of war being sounded in Washington on Iran bring back memories of 2002-03. This is a story we’ve heard before. We didn’t like the ending the first time and are unlikely to like it any better the next time round.

    The disquieting trend of a widening circle of NPT-illicit and extra-NPT nuclear weapons powers in turn has a self-generating effect in drawing other countries into the game of nuclear brinksmanship. The renaissance of nuclear power cannot be explained solely by the interest in nuclear energy for civilian uses.

    What might be the solution? Of the 27,000 nuclear weapons in existence today, 12,000 are deployed and ready for use, with 3,500 on hair-trigger alert. To begin with, some practical and concrete measures are long overdue: Bringing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force; negotiating a verifiable fissile materials treaty; retrenching from launch-on-warning postures, standing down nuclear forces. That is, reviving, implementing and building on agreements for reducing the role, readiness and numbers of nuclear weapons in defense doctrines and preparations.

    But these amount to tinkering, not a bold and comprehensive vision of the final destination. What we need are rules-based regimes on the principles of reciprocity of obligations, participatory decision-making and independent verification procedures and compliance mechanisms.

    U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., declared, “America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons.” In January, three former U.S. secretaries of defense and state–George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger–and Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, called on Washington to take the lead in the abolition of nuclear weapons. The national security benefits of nuclear weapons, they argued, are outweighed by the threats posed to U.S. security by uncontrolled proliferation.

    The symbiotic link between nonproliferation and disarmament is integral to the NPT, the most brilliant half-successful arms control agreement in history. The number of countries to sign it–188–embraces virtually the entire family of nations. But the nuclear arsenals of the five NPT nuclear powers expanded enormously. With almost four decades having elapsed since 1968, the five NPT nuclear powers are in violation of their solemn obligation to disarm, reinforced by the advisory opinion of the World Court in 1996 that the NPT’s Article 6 requires them to engage in and bring to a conclusion negotiations for nuclear abolition.

    Despite this history and background, a surprising number of arms control experts focus solely on the nonproliferation side to demand denial of technology and materiel to all who refuse to sign and abide by the NPT, and punishment of any who cross the threshold. The term “nonproliferation ayatollahs” is applied pejoratively to them. The latest episode in this long-running and tired serial is the United States, Britain and France threatening Iran with war to stop it from acquiring–not using, merely acquiring–nuclear weapons. From where do the leaders of nuclear-armed Britain and France derive the moral authority to declare that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable?

    Nuclear weapons could not proliferate if they did not exist. Because they do, they will. The policy implication of this logic is that the best guarantee of nuclear nonproliferation is nuclear disarmament through a nuclear weapons convention that bans the possession, acquisition, testing and use of nuclear weapons, by everyone. This would solve the problem of nonproliferation as well as disarmament. The focus on nonproliferation to the neglect of disarmament ensures that we get neither. If we want nonproliferation, therefore, we must prepare for disarmament.

    Too many, including the government of Japan, have paid lip service to this slogan, but not pursued a serious program of action to make it a reality. The elegant theorems, cogent logic and fluent reasoning of many authoritative international commissions, including the Tokyo Forum, have made no discernible dent on the old, new and aspiring nuclear powers. A coalition between nuclear-armed and nonnuclear countries, led perhaps by India–which has crossed the threshold from a disarmament leader to a hypocritical nuclear power–and Japan, the only country to have suffered an atomic attack, might break the stalemate and dispel the looming nuclear clouds.

    Time is running out for the hypocrisy and accumulated anomalies of global nuclear apartheid. Either we will achieve nuclear abolition or we will have to live with nuclear proliferation followed by nuclear war. Better the soft glow of satisfaction from the noble goal realized of nuclear weapons banned, than the harsh glare of the morning after of these weapons used.

    Ramesh Thakur, distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and professor of political science at the University of Waterloo in Canada, is the author of The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

  • Nuclear Disarmament Remarks

    Note: Governor Schwarzenegger was scheduled to deliver this speech at the Hoover Institution on Oct. 24, 2007 but was forced to cancel due to the wildfires in Southern California. Former Secretary of State George Shultz read the remarks in his place.

    Thank you, I’m delighted to be in such distinguished company. On behalf of the people of California, I welcome you to our Golden State.

    George Shultz is one of the people I admire most in the world, someone for whom I feel great affection. So when George asked me to speak tonight, I was eager to say yes. But since my expertise is in weights, not throwweights . . . I didn’t know what I could possibly say to an audience of such experts. Knowing that I like big issues, George slyly suggested that I just give some thought to the big issue of nuclear weapons. This has caused me to realize some things. So let me start at the beginning.

    As some of you may know, I grew up in Austria. As a boy, the Red Army loomed over us from its bases in central Europe. Even as children, we all knew about the threat of nuclear war. We knew the blinding power of its flash. We knew the shape of its cloud. Like here, we had nuclear drills in our schools. When I was 18, I went into the Austrian Army for my required service. I really, really wanted to be a tank driver. This was before I had a Hummer. Although you were supposed to be 21, I talked them into letting me drive a tank. I have to say I wasn’t much of a deterrent to a Soviet attack. During lunch one day on maneuvers, I forgot to put on the brakes and my tank rolled into the river. I can’t tell you what a sinking feeling I had as I watched that tank heading backward down the bank and then splashing into the water.

    A true, amusing story . . . but the reality of the times, of course, was quite serious. In 1956, the Soviets crushed the Hungarians. Then later, the Czechoslovakians.

    We Austrians had three basic fears. One, that Soviet tanks might roll into Vienna the way they did into Budapest. Two, a Soviet invasion of Austria or nearby countries might bring a U.S./Soviet confrontation—with Austria getting caught in the nuclear crossfire. And three, we feared mistakes. Mistakes are made in every other human endeavor. Why should nuclear weapons be exempt? I still remember the tensions of those times. I think Austrians, wedged between the West and the Soviet empire, may have felt the Cold War more intensely than Americans. I think I actually felt less tension here in America.
    After I became an American citizen, the thing that stands out so clearly in my mind is the Reagan/Gorbachev summit at Rejkjavik. The leaders of the two most powerful nations on earth were actually discussing the elimination of nuclear weapons. Such a breathtaking possibility. I still remember the thrill of it. I’ll never forget the photos of a grim President Reagan as he left the summit after the negotiations broke down. Even though the negotiations failed, I think the very talks themselves reassured the world. The world saw that both nations desired to be free of the nuclear curse. Then history began moving rapidly. The Berlin Wall fell. The Soviet Union collapsed. Russia began attending G-8 meetings. We even heard talk of it joining NATO. In spite of the nuclear differences between President Putin and President Bush, few today would believe that either nation seeks to attack the other. So, over the years, the intense, glaring threat of nuclear war faded. What also faded was the public’s awareness and concern. I include myself in that public. Today . . . the nuclear threat has returned with a vengeance, the vengeance of a terrorist. The Soviets had nuclear weapons and did not use them. Today, is there any doubt whether terrorists would use them?

    Even when Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the table at the UN, I don’t believe people felt the Soviet Union—no matter how ruthless—was devoid of reason. Today, the enemy is both ruthless and seemingly without reason. I don’t know whether it is ironic or frightening . . . but have we reached the point where we look back to Nikita Khrushchev and the Cold War as the good old days? Have the current dangers made us romantics, longing for the concepts of deterrence and mutually assured destruction? During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union also had the time and inclination to develop a living arrangement with their nuclear arsenals.

    As George and others have pointed out, the new nuclear states don’t have these safeguards of the Cold War, which increases the possibility of accidents and misjudgments. Furthermore, today those who would seek them can find the makings of nuclear weapons in hundreds of building spread over 40 countries. As we meet, terrorists are jiggling the door knobs of these buildings trying to get in, trying to get their hands on these materials. In your discussions, I would be interested whether you would rather live under the massive nuclear threat of the Cold War . . . or under the varied, erratic nuclear threat we face in the post 9-11 age? Senator Nunn has very insightfully raised the question—after a nuclear device explodes on our soil, what will we wish we had done to prevent it? And Secretary Perry has raised the question, what will we do when it does happen? Few people are addressing those questions with the immediacy of this distinguished gathering. After all, the consequences of a nuclear detonation are so horrific that it’s more comforting to put them out of mind. But I have realized some things as a result of thinking about what I should say tonight.
    For example, I have advocated—and continue to advocate—action against global warming. I genuinely believe we must take steps to stop the destruction of the planet’s environment. Looking at this logically, however—although we must address global warming now—its most dangerous consequences come decades down the road. The most dangerous consequences of nuclear weapons, however, are here and now. They are of this hour and time. A nuclear disaster will not hit at the speed of a glacier melting. It will hit with a blast. It will not hit with the speed of the atmosphere warming but of a city burning. Clearly, the attention focused on nuclear weapons should be as prominent as that of global climate change. After he left office, former Vice President Gore made a movie about the dangers of global warming. I have a movie idea for Vice President Cheney after he leaves—a movie about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. If you Google “global warming,” you will find 6,690,000 entries. If you Google “Britney Spears,” you will find 2,490,000. If you Google “nuclear disarmament,” you will get 116,000 entries. And if you Google “nuclear annihilation,” you will get 17,400. Something is wrong with that picture.

    The words that this audience knows so well, the words that President Kennedy spoke during the Cold War, have regained their urgency: “The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution.” Here in California we still have levees that were built a hundred years ago. These levees are an imminent threat to the well-being of this state and its people. It would be only a matter of time before disaster strikes. But we’re not waiting until such a disaster.

    We in California have taken action to protect our people and our economy from the devastation. Neither can this nation nor the world wait to act until there is a nuclear disaster. I am so thankful for the work of George, Bill Perry, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Max Kampelman, Sid Drell and so many of you at this conference. You have a big vision, a vision as big as humanity–to free the world of nuclear weapons.

    Ladies and gentlemen, I have come this evening to say that I want to help. Let me know how I can use my power and influence as governor to further your vision. Because my heart is with you. My support is firm. My door is open.

    On behalf of the people of California, thank you again for the work you are doing to lift the nuclear nightmare from our nation’s future.

     

    Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Governor of California.

  • New Zealand as a Disarmament Leader

    Thank you for the opportunity to address you this evening on the subject of New Zealand foreign policy in the 21st century.

    New Zealand is a small western democracy, located in the far south of the South Pacific. In strategic terms it is, as former Prime Minister David Lange once quipped, a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica.

    Our nearest neighbors are close to 1200 miles away, or as far away as Moscow from London. Our borders abut the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea. Our isolation from others gives us the world’s fifth biggest exclusive economic zone.

    It stands to reason therefore that our nation will seldom occupy world headlines. We are simply too small and too remote.

    But we do have values and interests which we seek to project internationally within a range of settings, not least of them our strong belief in nuclear disarmament. It was that issue which last brought a New Zealand Prime Minister to the Oxford Union in a celebrated debate with the Reverend Jerry Falwell. David Lange’s riposte to Falwell’s pro-nuclear position, that he could “smell the uranium on your breath,” still rates as a great line 22 years later.

    The New Zealand Parliament in the mid 1980s legislated to declare our country nuclear free. That move enjoyed strong public support then, and does to this day – to the extent that it has become an accepted part of New Zealand’s identity. Politicians tamper with it at their peril. It is a cornerstone of our independent foreign policy. But independence of mind was not something which came quickly to New Zealand.

    The journey of our modern nation began in 1840, when in the course of that year, Governor William Hobson signed the Treaty of Waitangi with representatives of many Maori tribes.

    British colonial rule was thus extended to New Zealand. For the rest of the century and beyond, settlers poured in from the British Isles, for the gold rushes of the 1860s, to buy land, or generally to seek a better life.

    The settlers retained a very strong bond with Britain as the mother country. New Zealand troops were at Britain’s side through the South African War, two World Wars, and in Malaya. In at least one World War, the vagaries of the International Date Line saw us declare war on Germany before Britain did. We also served together in the United Nations force in the Korean War.

    Just last week, we marked the centenary of long forgotten Dominion Day – the day on which New Zealand formally ceased being a colony of Britain and became a dominion within the British Empire.

    In 1931 Britain adopted the Statute of Westminster enabling the dominions to have full competence over their own affairs, including their foreign and defense policies. Through today’s eyes it seems extraordinary that New Zealand did not move to ratify that Statute till 1947.

    Yet perhaps it can be explained by New Zealand’s sense of insecurity. It was located 12,000 miles from the place which many still saw as home and on which it was trade dependent. By the 1930s also, there was growing concern about Japanese militarism and its projection in the region.

    The course of the War in the Pacific, however, brought proof that Britain could not be a guarantor of far away New Zealand’s security. The fall of Singapore shattered any remaining illusion. The tide could only be turned against Japan, when, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war. While difficult years still lay ahead, the American commitment in the Pacific, as in Europe, was decisive.

    At the founding of the United Nations at the end of the War, New Zealand found its voice as a spokesperson for small nations. We opposed the power of veto being given to permanent members of the Security Council – a position to which we adhere to this day. Indeed the existence of the veto has proved to be one of the barriers to Security Council reform and the creation of more permanent memberships.

    The post war period saw New Zealand still very much focused on its relationships with Britain, the United States, and Australia in security terms. That outlook took us to Korea, Malaya, and most controversially to Viet Nam. The commitment of troops to Viet Nam produced significant division at home, for the first time, over a military deployment, and a questioning of what New Zealand’s interests in the region really were.

    New Zealand’s role and interests in the Asia Pacific today are light years distant from what they were at the time of the Second World War. At best the Pacific had been a transit route to the Panama Canal, en route to Britain. Asia wasn’t on the route at all.

    But post war, new relationships were formed and diplomatic posts established in North and South East Asia. The Association of South East Asian Nations was formed, and New Zealand became a dialogue partner of it more than thirty years ago. This year marks our 35th year of diplomatic relations with China – our fourth biggest trade partner now, with Japan our third.

    In the Pacific too, relationships changed as its small nations became independent, beginning with Samoa in 1962. The founding of the South Pacific Forum (now the Pacific Islands Forum) in the early 1970s saw New Zealand become immersed in the affairs of its near region.

    And along the way New Zealand has changed too, from a population comprised until relatively recently of upwards of 85 per cent of people of predominantly British origin, around ten per cent Maori, and few others, to last year’s census count of 14.6 per cent Maori, 6.9 per cent Pacific peoples, and 9.2 per cent peoples of Asian descent. People of European descent now number under seventy per cent.

    We are thus a complex, multi-cultural society, but also one which by world standards lives relatively harmoniously. This too has a bearing on our foreign policy and how we project to the world. We are used to living with difference at home. We are located in a region where we and Australia are the only Western democracies, and where only New Zealand, Australia, and Japan are classified as developed countries. So we are used to dealing with difference and complexity in our region too.

    Let me now turn to the major themes of New Zealand foreign policy, before discussing regions of the world where we prioritize our engagement.

    As a small country, we place a great deal of store on multilateralism and on a rules based international order. In a world were might is right, small countries lose out. So the authority of the UN Security Council, the World Trade Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the myriad of other rules setting bodies matter to us.

    Our major preoccupations in the international arena are:

    Peace and security. This takes several forms. We continue to be very active on nuclear disarmament issues, working with colleagues in the New Agenda grouping of nations. In 2000 that grouping persuaded the membership of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty to agree to thirteen practical steps on nuclear disarmament and non proliferation.

    Since then nuclear disarmament has tended to take a back seat, as counter proliferation efforts have come to the fore. Yet while undoubtedly important, those efforts should not blind us to the risk nuclear weapons per se pose to global security.

    New Zealand has been increasingly concerned at the lack of action by nuclear weapons states to lower the alert status of their arsenals. It is not widely known, but it should be, that despite the end of the Cold War, thousands of nuclear weapons remain on “hair trigger” alert. This not only increases the probability of the use of nuclear weapons overall, but also heightens the possibility of them being used accidentally or unintentionally. That would be catastrophic.

    At this year’s UN General Assembly New Zealand will launch an initiative to de-alert nuclear weapons. Along with our partners, Sweden and other interested countries, we will be asking all other countries to join us in sending a clear message that this situation cannot persist. This is the first time that this objective will be put forward as a resolution of the General Assembly, and demonstrates again New Zealand’s willingness to stand up and be counted on key disarmament issues.

    Another key priority for us on disarmament is tackling the great harm being caused around the world by cluster munitions. New Zealand has learned through the work of our defense forces of the terrible effects unexploded cluster munitions can have on the lives of communities trying to rebuild after war. At this very moment our second team of ordnance experts is working in Southern Lebanon to help remove up to a million remnants of these weapons.

    Now we have joined a small group of countries, led by Norway, to push for the negotiation of a new international treaty on cluster munitions. Once concluded, we hope that such a treaty would provide clear rules on cluster munitions. We want to prevent communities suffering in future from the indiscriminate, unreliable, or inaccurate use of these weapons.

    Next February we will host an international negotiation conference in Wellington where we anticipate substantial progress being made towards the conclusion of a new treaty.

    New Zealand is committed to continuing its work on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control, as a contribution to a safer world.

    We are also active in peacekeeping deployments internationally – across United Nations and UN-sanctioned missions from the Middle East and Africa to Asia and the Pacific. Our multicultural armed forces relate well to diverse communities, and our country takes a lot of pride in their work.

    In Afghanistan, our primary role has been in Bamian province where we run a Provincial Reconstruction Team. We also deploy police and military trainers, and in earlier years have sent special forces.

    Iraq did not meet our criteria for intervention in 2003 and we did not participate in the war there. We did, for one year, send New Zealand Defense Force engineers to do civilian reconstruction work, believing that was consistent with the United Nations mandate established in the course of 2003.

    Trade policy. This looms very large on New Zealand’s agenda, as our major export goods are agricultural – and therefore the most discriminated against under current world trade rules.

    A successful WTO round is our top trade priority. For it to succeed it must deliver on opening up agricultural trade. That is also in the interests of the developing world. But New Zealand has strong interests in negotiations on industrials and services too, and is looking for an outcome which delivers more openness across the board. Meantime in our own region we are forging new trade links with APEC partner economies. Our first free trade agreement was with Australia over 24 years ago. Now we have FTAs with Singapore and Thailand, and a sub regional FTA with Chile, Singapore, and Brunei. We have completed fourteen rounds of FTA negotiations with China. Negotiations for an FTA are also going on between ASEAN and Australia and New Zealand.

    Environmental issues. The image of being clean and green is as strongly associated with New Zealand as is being nuclear free. Our country is passionate about the environment, and we take that passion into international organizations on everything from whaling and the Antarctic, to fishing quotas, sea bird protection, and the Kyoto Protocol.

    New Zealand has ratified the Kyoto Protocol; even though our unique greenhouse gas profile makes emissions reduction more challenging than for many nations. Fifty per cent of our emissions come from pastoral agriculture, which is also the source of tremendous wealth for our economy.

    In recent weeks we have announced the design of a cap and trade scheme which puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions in the economy. I believe it is a world first in covering all sectors and all greenhouse gases. It will be phased in over the next five years.

    We were also instrumental in getting climate change onto the agenda at APEC. This year’s Leaders Summit in Sydney agreed to a communiqué on climate change which takes the level of commitment from developing countries further than has been possible in other for a. That’s important – because while per capita the developed world is responsible for more emissions, it cannot solve the climate change problem on its own.

    Our aspiration is to see New Zealand move towards carbon neutrality over time. We can reach it across our electricity sector by 2025 and in our transport sector by 2040.

    Human rights. As one of the world’s oldest continuous democracies, with our first Parliament elected in 1854, we do stand up for the rule of law and the human rights upheld by the United Nations. Many of us in our current government cut our teeth in politics on the issue of South African apartheid. Sadly too few people around the world enjoy the personal freedoms we in western democracies take for granted.

    Intercivilisation and interfaith dialogue. There are a number of initiatives worldwide now which seek to bridge the divide which has become so apparent between the western world with its Judaeo-Christian ethos and the Islamic world.

    New Zealand believes it has something to contribute to this debate, given its own multicultural, multifaith population, and its reputation for peacekeeping in and relationship building with diverse nations.

    This year we have hosted the third Regional Asia Pacific Interfaith Dialogue, and also the first regional forum to be held anywhere in the world on the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilizations initiative. The latter is a direct challenge to Huntingdon’s bleak prophecy of the inevitability of a clash between civilizations – a notion we reject. Development assistance. In terms of the proportion of Gross National Income devoted to Official Development Assistance, New Zealand is at the lower end of Western nation contributions, although we are on track to boost what we give to 0.35 per cent by 2010/11.

    In terms of broader definitions of contributing, however, we rate highly, taking into account our very open markets for goods from developing countries; the labor mobility we provide for people from the South Pacific, and our contribution to peacekeeping. Without basic stability, all the ODA in the world can’t make a difference to development.

    This leads me to comment on regions of the world where New Zealand has particularly close engagement, beginning with our near neighbor Australia and the South Pacific.

    The New Zealand and Australian economies are closely integrated and our labor markets are open to each other. Our governments liaise on many issues, and our defense forces co-operate closely. While we do not agree on all international issues, nonetheless the ties which bind us make us like family members to each other. We are both very immersed in the affairs of the South Pacific, bilaterally and through the Pacific Islands Forum. The bulk of New Zealand’s development assistance goes there, focusing on poverty alleviation, sustainable rural livelihoods, health, education, and good governance.

    We have also been drawn into peacekeeping and stabilization work, in Bougainville in Papua New Guinea and in the Solomon Islands. Some support was required in Tonga after last November’s disastrous riots too.

    Fiji is a major issue of regional concern with the coup d’etat last December being the fourth in nineteen years. Fiji’s development has been severely impeded by its manifest coup culture. New Zealand and others have a wide range of sanctions on Fiji at present, while also endeavoring to work through the Pacific Islands Forum and with other partners on supporting Fiji to move back to constitutional government.

    The broader Asia Pacific is also a huge priority for us, working through the trans-Pacific APEC organization and the many bilateral and regional relationships we have in East Asia. The APEC nations account for seventy per cent of our total trade. Forty percent of our trade is with Asia alone.

    The summitry associated with the Asia-Pacific regional institutions has led to leaders, ministers, and officials all getting to know each other well. The regional parallel here in Europe would be with the European Union. Clearly integration is much more advanced here than in the Asia-Pacific but the relationship building which paves the way for more integration is well under way.

    On the agenda for discussion in the region now are proposals at APEC for a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, and at the East Asia Summit for a Closer Economic Partnership of East Asia.

    The East Asia Summit first convened in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005. It is associated with the annual ASEAN summit, and with ASEAN’s summits with the Plus Three grouping of China, Japan, and Korea.

    The East Asia Summit brings together all of ASEAN, the Plus Three nations, India, New Zealand, and Australia. From its first meeting focusing largely on form and structure, it has moved quickly to discuss issues of substance around energy security and trade. New Zealand also sees it as the logical regional forum for discussion of intercivilisational issues. Long term the vision is for an East Asian community to emerge. All this for New Zealand is a far cry from the days when Asia was circumvented en route to Europe.

    But I must emphasize that relationships with Europe remain exceedingly important to New Zealand. We see ourselves as members of a community of shared values and as natural partners in a globalizing world. Britain and Germany are significant trade partners for us in their own right and the European Union taken as one unit is our second biggest market.

    Rather than time and distance attenuating links, the reverse is happening as we formalize and deepen our relationship with Europe across education, science, and policy and security dialogue and co-operation.

    The same is true of our relationship with the United States. For more than twenty years, it came to be characterized by the issues which divided us, which given the overall commonality of views and values, was inappropriate. A lot of work has been done by both of us now to strengthen the relationship without either resiling from strongly held views, and we have made a lot of progress.

    As a small nation, New Zealand does not have the resources to conduct intense relationships with all the world’s regions. But where our interests have been more modest, we work strategically; as with Latin America, where we have focused on five key relationships and built governmental dialogue, trade and investment links, and education, cultural, and youth exchanges.

    In the Middle East, we have had a defense force presence on and off since the First World War deployment in Palestine, and then the North African campaign of World War Two. To this day, we are not only involved in Afghanistan but also in the UN Truce Supervision Organization, in the UN Mine Action Service in Lebanon, and in the Multinational Force (MFO) in the Sinai. We have also opened our first ever diplomatic post in Egypt to give us a wider window on the Arab world. The Commonwealth remains our main window on Africa and the Caribbean, and I look forward to this year’s Heads of Government in Uganda.

    From my comments today it will be apparent that New Zealand’s window on the world is rather different from that of European nations like Britain. While we share the same values and take up many of the same issues, each of us also tends to focus most directly on bilateral and regional relations in the areas closest to us.

    For New Zealand, that means the Asia Pacific. That is a huge reorientation from where we were at the outbreak of the Second World War, when we tended largely to ignore our own neighborhood.

    My foreign policy objective as Prime Minister has been to see New Zealand positioned as a principled, constructive, and engaged international citizen.

    Nothing therefore could have given me greater pleasure than seeing New Zealand ranked second, after Norway, in the Global Peace Index, compiled with support fro the Economist Intelligence Unit, and released a few months ago.

    The Index rated levels of peace for over 120 nations across 24 indicators, ranging from a nation’s level of military expenditure to its relations with neighboring countries, and its level of respect for human rights.

    It goes without saying that I take great pride in being Prime Minister of a country ranked so highly on indicators like these, and in being able to address you on the story behind those ratings this evening.

     

    Helen Clark is the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

  • Is Peace that Difficult?

    Reprinted from The Age, August 28, 2007 edition.

    At the end of the Cold War there was an opportunity for the world to create a new collective security order. In 1991, after decades of blockages in the Security Council, it authorized armed intervention to stop the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait. In the same period, Russia and the United States took steps to reduce the number of deployed non-strategic nuclear weapons: the Chemical Weapons Convention was adopted in 1993, the Non-Proliferation Treaty was prolonged indefinitely after renewed commitments by nuclear weapon states to take get serious about disarmament; a Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty was negotiated and adopted in 1996; and at the review conference of the NPT in 2000, countries agreed on 13 practical steps to disarmament.

    But the window of opportunity soon closed. The US embarked on unilateralism. In 2003, the UN Security Council was said to be irrelevant if it did not agree with the US and its coalition of the willing.

    By the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, US confidence and trust in international negotiations, particularly in dealing with disarmament issues, was at a record low. And tensions continue to grow. Instead of negotiations towards disarmament, nuclear weapon states are renewing and modernizing their nuclear arsenals.

    In 2006, North Korea tested a nuclear device. After a US decision to place components of its missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia declared its withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. China has demonstrated its space war capabilities by shooting down one of its own weather satellites.

    These developments are worrying and somewhat paradoxical. At a time when there are no longer any ideological differences between the main powers, when the economic and political interdependence between states and regions reaches new heights, and when the revolution in information technology brings the world into the living rooms of billions of people, we ought to be able to agree on steps to restrain our capacity for war and destruction.

    So, where do we go from here?

    There is some movement indicating that key actors may be moving back to multilateral approaches and diplomacy. The failure and vast human cost of the military adventures in Iraq and Lebanon may have demonstrated the limitations of military strategies to achieve foreign policy objectives. The shift in strategy towards North Korea in negotiations over its nuclear program and the resumption of the six-party talks is encouraging. Waving a big stick may be counterproductive. An alternative path, containing suitable carrots, needs to be offered. It remains to be seen if this approach will be taken also in the case of Iran.

    For the past few years, I have chaired the independent international Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, with 14 experts from different parts of the world. In June 2006, I presented our report, Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear Biological and Chemical Arms. We made 60 recommendations on how to revive disarmament and restore the confidence in the international disarmament and non-proliferation regime.

    The commission urged all states to return to the fundamental undertakings made under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty is based on a double bargain: the non-nuclear weapons states committed themselves not to develop nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapon states committed themselves to negotiate towards disarmament.

    So long as the nuclear weapon states maintain that they need nuclear weapons for their national security, why shouldn’t others? The commission concluded that one of the most important ways to curb weapons’ proliferation is working to avoid states feeling a need to obtain nuclear weapons.

    The co-operative approach needs to be complemented by the enforcement of the test-ban treaty, a cut-off treaty on the production of fissile material for weapons, and effective safeguards and international verification to prevent states as well as non-state actors from acquiring nuclear weapons.

    I hope the window of opportunity is not yet shut. There may still be time to wake up and turn back to co-operative solutions to contemporary security challenges.

    The new generation of political leaders has an unprecedented opportunity to achieve peace through co-operation. We do not have the threat of war between the military powers hanging over our heads. Admittedly, there are flashpoints that need to be dealt with constructively — such as Kashmir, the Middle East, Taiwan and so on. But the numbers of armed conflicts and victims of armed conflicts have decreased. Never before have nations been so interdependent and never before have peoples of the world cared so much for the wellbeing of each other. Prospects are great for a functioning world organization devoted to establishing peace, promoting respect for universal human rights and securing our environment for future generations.

    If all can agree that we need international co-operation and multilateral solutions to protect the earth against climate change and the destruction of our environment, to keep the world economy in balance and moving, and to prevent terrorism and organized crime, then should it be so difficult to conclude that we also need to co-operate to stop shooting at each other?

     

    Dr Hans Blix is president of the World Federation of United Nations Association and was director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997.

  • The Nuclear Threat

    The essay “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” published in this newspaper on Jan. 4, was signed by a bipartisan group of four influential Americans — George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn — not known for utopian thinking, and having unique experience in shaping the policies of previous administrations. It raises an issue of crucial importance for world affairs: the need for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    As someone who signed the first treaties on real reductions in nuclear weapons, I feel it is my duty to support their call for urgent action.

    The road to this goal began in November 1985 when Ronald Reagan and I met in Geneva. We declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” This was said at a time when many people in the military and among the political establishment regarded a war involving weapons of mass destruction as conceivable and even acceptable, and were developing various scenarios of nuclear escalation.

    It took political will to transcend the old thinking and attain a new vision. For if a nuclear war is inconceivable, then military doctrines, armed forces development plans and negotiating positions at arms-control talks must change accordingly. This began to happen, particularly after Reagan and I agreed in Reykjavik in October 1986 on the need ultimately to eliminate nuclear weapons. Concurrently, major positive changes were occurring in world affairs: A number of international conflicts were defused and democratic processes in many parts of the world gained momentum, leading to the end of the Cold War.

    As U.S.-Soviet arms negotiations got off the ground, a breakthrough was achieved — the treaty on the elimination of medium- and shorter-range missiles, followed by agreement on 50% reduction in strategic offensive weapons. If the negotiations had continued in the same vein and at the same pace, the world would have been rid of the greater part of the arsenals of deadly weapons. But this did not happen, and hopes for a new, more democratic world order were not fulfilled. In fact, we have seen a failure of political leadership, which proved incapable of seizing the opportunities opened by the end of the Cold War. This glaring failure has allowed nuclear weapons and their proliferation to pose a continuing, growing threat to mankind.

    The ABM Treaty has been abrogated; the requirements for effective verification and irreversibility of nuclear-arms reductions have been weakened; the treaty on comprehensive cessation of nuclear-weapons tests has not been ratified by all nuclear powers. The goal of the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons has been essentially forgotten. What is more, the military doctrines of major powers, first the U.S. and then, to some extent, Russia, have re-emphasized nuclear weapons as an acceptable means of war fighting, to be used in a first or even in a “pre-emptive” strike.

    All this is a blatant violation of the nuclear powers’ commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Its Article V is clear and unambiguous: Nations that are capable of making nuclear weapons shall forgo that possibility in exchange for the promise by the members of the nuclear club to reduce and eventually abolish their nuclear arsenals. If this reciprocity is not observed, then the entire structure of the treaty will collapse.

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty is already under considerable stress. The emergence of India and Pakistan as nuclear-weapon states, the North Korean nuclear program and the issue of Iran are just the harbingers of even more dangerous problems that we will have to face unless we overcome the present situation. A new threat, nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, is a challenge to our ability to work together internationally and to our technological ingenuity. But we should not delude ourselves: In the final analysis, this problem can only be solved through the abolition of nuclear weapons. So long as they continue to exist, the danger will be with us, like the famous “rifle on the wall” that will fire sooner or later.

    Last November the Forum of Nobel Peace Laureates, meeting in Rome, issued a special statement on this issue. The late Nobel laureate and world-renowned scientist, Joseph Rotblat, initiated a global awareness campaign on the nuclear danger, in which I participated. Ted Turner’s Nuclear Threat Initiative provides important support for specific measures to reduce weapons of mass destruction. With all of them we are united by a common understanding of the need to save the Non-Proliferation Treaty and of the primary responsibility of the members of the nuclear club.

    We must put the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons back on the agenda, not in a distant future but as soon as possible. It links the moral imperative — the rejection of such weapons from an ethical standpoint — with the imperative of assuring security. It is becoming clearer that nuclear weapons are no longer a means of achieving security; in fact, with every passing year they make our security more precarious.

    The irony — and a reproach to the current generation of world leaders — is that two decades after the end of the Cold War the world is still burdened with vast arsenals of nuclear weapons of which even a fraction would be enough to destroy civilization. As in the 1980s, we face the problem of political will — the responsibility of the leaders of major powers for bridging the gap between the rhetoric of peace and security and the real threat looming over the world. While agreeing with the Jan. 4 article that the U.S. should take the initiative and play an active role on this issue, I believe there is also a need for major efforts on the part of Russian and European leaders and for a responsible position and full involvement of all states that have nuclear weapons.

    I am calling for a dialogue to be launched within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, involving both nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states, to cover the full range of issues related to the elimination of those weapons. The goal is to develop a common concept for moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

    The key to success is reciprocity of obligations and actions. The members of the nuclear club should formally reiterate their commitment to reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons. As a token of their serious intent, they should without delay take two crucial steps: ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty and make changes in their military doctrines, removing nuclear weapons from the Cold War-era high alert status. At the same time, the states that have nuclear-power programs would pledge to terminate all elements of those programs that could have military use.

    The participants in the dialogue should report its progress and the results achieved to the United Nations Security Council, which must be given a key coordinating role in this process.

    Over the past 15 years, the goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons has been so much on the back burner that it will take a true political breakthrough and a major intellectual effort to achieve success in this endeavor. It will be a challenge to the current generation of leaders, a test of their maturity and ability to act that they must not fail. It is our duty to help them to meet this challenge.

    Originally published in the Wall Street Journal.

     

    Mr. Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991.