In January 2007 four veterans of the US strategic community, Messrs George Shultz, Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn co-authored an essay in the Wall Street Journal , (WSJ) which called for “reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally ……and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world”. The first three are former Secretaries of State and Defense of the US and Senator Nunn is a former Chairman of its powerful Senate Armed Services Committee They repeated their call in a second WSJ article in 2008, along with a list of key steps for achieving a nuclear weapon-free world.
Appeals for ridding the world of nuclear weapons are not new. Peace activists have been urging the same goal for decades, as have some responsible government leaders. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, along with the late Olaf Palme and others, attempted a major initiative towards this end two decades back.
Unfortunately none of these efforts could gather steam. However, this is far too important a goal for mankind to be given up in despair. As a very complex problem involving the inter-linked security of several nations, global disarmament will require repeated attempts before it can be achieved. It is important to pursue every opportunity that shows promise.
This latest call for global disarmament may have some chance of gathering steam. When a joint appeal is made by such senior statesmen of the strongest nuclear power, the world will take it seriously. It indicates that at least some influential sections of the American strategic community are ready to move towards complete disarmament. Besides, the world has changed since the days of the Cold Warrior. The utility of nuclear weapons as war-fighting instruments has been steadily discounted since then.
Some nations have already echoed the call for freeing the world of nuclear weapons. Last summer the then foreign secretary of the UK, Margaret Becket, gave a stirring speech to that effect. In recent weeks our foreign minister Pranab Mukherji has also re-iterated India’s long standing support for this vision.
Last week the Foreign Minister of Norway, Mr. Jonas Store convened a conference in Oslo under the heading “Achieving The Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons”. The invited participants included several who exercise considerable influence on strategic policy around the world, among them former Secretary of State George Shultz, Senator Nunn, IAEA chief Dr. El Baradei, Dr Hans Blix, the Russian expert Alexei Arbatov, and Pugwash president Jayanta Dhanapala. This writer was privileged to be invited to give a talk at the conference in his capacity as Co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.
The Oslo conference was very successful and ended with several heartening conclusions. Participants emphasized the need for Russia and the U.S. to substantially slash the number of their warheads. Right now they have about 10000 warheads each. It was felt that unless they show a strong commitment to quickly bring their arsenals down to about thousand weapons each, there is little prospect of other nuclear weapon states reducing their own nuclear forces.
There was a strong consensus, shared also by the U.S participants, that achieving a world free of nuclear weapons must necessarily be a joint enterprise involving all nations. This would not be an initiative directed by just the US or the five “official” weapons states under NPT. This is a very welcome departure from earlier attitudes.
The WSJ articles, although path breaking, should not be viewed as the defining bible of the new effort. Understandably, they motivate total disarmament by emphasizing US concerns, but not all these may be shared by others. For example the WSJ articles recommend “plans for countering missile threats to Europe, Russia and the U.S. from the Middle East…”, a suggestion which will turn many sections of the world against an otherwise worthy initiative. In fact at the Oslo conference Dr. El Baradei specifically referred to this recommendation as one that “would not necessarily lead to a viable solution” to the problems of the Middle East. Equally unhelpful are arguments urging disarmament because of fears that newer nuclear states may not be able to impose the necessary safeguards to prevent accidents, misjudgments or unauthorized launches. Worse still is the lament that the world may not be able to “successfully replicate the old Soviet American [strategy of] mutually agreed destruction” (sic !).
Similarly, although the threat of nuclear terrorism is grave, the extent of emphasis placed on it in Europe and the US as the most compelling of reasons for disarmament may not be universally shared. Some non-nuclear weapon states might view the existing state-owned nuclear arsenals as the bigger threat.
However, although their call for disarmament needs to be rendered more universal in appeal, there is little doubt that the WSJ articles have done an important service in reviving the vision of a nuclear free world – a process that must be pushed forward.
The Oslo conference also generated specific suggestions on reducing nuclear dangers in the meantime. These included removing weapons from being deployed on hair trigger alert (Indians weapons are not, but the thousands in Russia and the US are) and setting up non-discriminatory multilateral sources of safeguarded fuel supply for civil reactors, preferably under the aegis of the IAEA. Many speakers emphasized the need for the diplomatic community to work closely with the scientific community within and outside governments.
Finally, it was felt that this initiative can succeed only if there is a firm commitment at the very highest level in all countries. Political leaders must educate their countrymen on the urgency of nuclear dangers and obtain a strong popular mandate for a world free of nuclear weapons. One hopes they will do this vigorously and not let this latest initiative also to fritter away.
