|
Atlanta Consultation III
The Carter Center
Atlanta , Georgia
January 22, 2010
(transcript)
Thank you very much and thank you for selecting our group, I know it’s a privilege to have you here, and I’ve been thinking that the subject of security doctrines and deterrence are actually a very challenging one because there is a lot of changes happening and we need to adjust to a changing world. Clearly, we all can see that in the 20 years since the end of the Cold War, the world has changed dramatically and it stands to reason that it is necessary to look at the concept of nuclear deterrence, and to see what remains and what should remain, and what should change, and we can all see that this process of adaptation is really going on a at a rather slow pace, but that at the moment it is indeed a very, very topical and we have a nuclear posture review going on in the United States, we have the perspective of a new strategic concept in NATO, and we are getting all sorts of word out of Moscow, where people there are also thinking along these lines. Now, we have been hearing, yesterday and this morning, about the very significant new element which has been brought into this discussion by President Obama and by the emerging, developing policies of his administration. So I think this is very auspicious moment to discuss and to reflect how this should really be brought into our concepts of deterrence, what can stand and what cannot.
We obviously have a very different security environment today from the situation of the Cold War, where it has been essentially one of a direct confrontation; whereas today, we have a much more differentiated number of security threats. Certainly and unfortunately Francis Fukayama’s ideas, or at least what has been portrayed as his ideas--I think in reality he has a bit more differentiated thoughts - but this story of the end of history and the end of problems has clearly not been fulfilling itself. But many of the problems we are having are presenting themselves quite differently from the challenges and security concerns we had during the Cold War. If you look to the places where NATO is engaged, and where allies and others have been engaged over the last couple of years and presently; if you look at the wars in Iraq, if you look at Afghanistan, if you look at the pirates around the coast of Somalia, these are very serious issues, very serious challenges, but I think we can all agree that the concepts of nuclear deterrence of our organizations are probably not appropriate to deal with them.
At the same time the dangers of nuclear proliferation have been increasing. This again had been much less of an issue during the time of the Cold War. We have been seeing and rather powerlessly experiencing how North Korea was flaunting all its obligations and has been exploding nuclear weapons in the last couple of years, and we have an ongoing, very serious case about Iran. It is much less clear cut than one in North Korea, but it is potentially of course, very, very serious because it is taking place in a rather unstable region and the consequences for proliferation—and I certainly do hope it does not come to that--if Iran one day would have nuclear weapons would be really a nightmare.
Obviously, we have not only President Obama, but we’ve had had also other serious people thinking about these issues, the famous four horsemen have been mentioned. In the meantime their ideas and their demands regarding the questions of what nuclear weapons are for, what they can do, what they cannot do, and obviously at the end, the safest way would be to eliminate them, have been echoed by many others. Also we have our own group of four—sages we call them in Germany—and the issue here is one which has been clearly presented by these groups. Let me make a quote from Kissinger and his partners where they say that “deterrence continues to be relevant consideration for many states with regard to the threats from other states, but reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.” I think this is an analysis which we very much share, but which we are only beginning of drawing any conclusions from, and that is what is necessary and what we would like to do.
I think it is very clear that in this new nuclear era we are having at the moment, there is simply no way of guarantee that nuclear deterrence will work reliably. Another, too often neglected, but very serious danger, is that the use of nuclear weapons, by design or accident, could certainly not be permanently exclude. You’ve heard Gareth Evans speaking yesterday making very, very clear allusion; he talked about “sheer damn luck,” but whatever it was, it certainly stems to reason that there is no guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used, and as this use is possible it needs to be factored in our thinking about nuclear weapons.
So, there are good reasons and good arguments for those who propose radical change of our strategies and to argue for a clear drive towards complete nuclear disarmament, that nuclear weapons no longer increase our security, but tend to become a liability. How to adapt our current approach towards deterrence? How can we make it adequate to the changing security environment? To be realistic, I do not see a radical or immediate change. As we all know, there is a very undesirable tendency to play it safe in matters of security. Nobody of course wants to take unnecessary risk; however ironically, it is possible just this sort of conservatism on nuclear strategies is causing the opposite of what we want so that by insisting on security, we might actually decrease our security, and that is why I believe that new approaches are very necessary.
So how do we rethink the current security doctrines, and how can we do that into a direction which would rebalance the obvious need for reduced role of nuclear weapons with our security concerns. I think NATO stated the obvious when it made clear at its Strasbourg Summit in April last year, that “deterrence based on an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities remains a core element of our old strategy.” So, now we have a mandate to develop a new NATO strategic concept on the basis of this basic given, and we will need to very thoroughly and very objectively try to examine and to analyze what role nuclear weapons still can and should play in such a concept. I think that at the moment, we are in a very critical phase, it has been mentioned a couple of time this morning that we are looking with some anxiety or a lot of anticipation to what the thinking in Washington will result in. What should be, what could be, concrete elements of such a concrete and pragmatic stepped approach towards the adjustment of our doctrines and our own strategy.
First, an unequivocal commitment by all nuclear weapon states to a nuclear weapon free world would help mobilize international support for disarmament and non-proliferation. Of course, total nuclear disarmament can only be reached if conventional imbalances are addressed and a working collective security architecture is put into place. I think that’s one of the reasons we have another breakout group dealing with the challenges of the Middle East that this is a very relevant topic also for our overall discussion. But first and foremost political commitment matters.
Part of the political commitment is that all nuclear weapon states should unilaterally declare non-first use. We believe that that would be a very important step and it is incidentally one proposed by our German group of elder statesmen: Schmidt, Genscher, Weizacker and Bahr. Then that also has already been mentioned this morning. Negative security assurances could be and should be made at some point in a legally binding form. They are an answer to a very legitimate concern of states that neither have nuclear weapons, nor profit from an extended nuclear deterrence, and are in good standing in non-proliferation obligations, and therefore should really be benefitting from such an improvement in their security.
Now, many of the arguments about extended deterrence are maybe sometimes misunderstood and I certainly do believe that a lot of so-called extended deterrence obligations can be fulfilled by conventional means of deterrence, and don’t require a nuclear element in the strategic toolbox. A special question of course, of one of particular relevance to my country, is whether sub-strategic nuclear weapons are still needed for NATO’s concept of deterrence, which already today talks of a “minimum sufficient level.” That’s the quote from the current strategic concept. These weapons today, are, in our opinion, militarily obsolete. So, in the double context in the new arms control dynamic of the global zero and the review of NATO strategic concept, we intend to work for a withdrawal of the remaining tactical nuclear weapons from Germany. Our foreign minister has made it very clear that this is a point on which we will engage in a serious debate with the United States and our other allies.
I believe that another very important step in the development and the adaptation of doctrines is the issue of transparency. To get more transparency, we need more dialogue, and to get more dialogue, of course, we have to be prepared to consider to change the existing situation. So, in my mind this is about where we stand, we have only started to consider where NATO should move to, so it’s the early days and I would imagine that at a future conference, we see that develop further. But to end my very short presentation, I firmly believe that the change in the situation around us requires a serious adaptation of these strategies and deterrence concepts we have today and I would be very interested in your comments and proposals on how to do that. Thank you.
|
 |
