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By Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C.
Chairman Emeritus, Middle Powers Initiative
Address to Atlanta Consultation III
Atlanta , January 21, 2010
Ten years ago this month, I had the privilege of speaking to the first Middle Powers Initiative Atlanta Consultation in the presence of President Jimmy Carter. Mr. President, here we are again. We’re not getting older, we’re getting better!
I said at the time, and I repeat today: I speak as a Canadian, which almost by definition means a friend of the United States. Moreover, I had the good fortune to live in this country for ten years; three of my children were born here. I know, from first-hand experience, the greatness of the U.S. The human energy and creativity, so abundant here, have animated me.
Now that greatness is called upon once again as we consider the role of the United States in fulfilling its responsibilities to work with the international community in resolving the over-arching issue of our time: the elimination of nuclear weapons.
A lot has happened in these ten years. We went from the high point of the “unequivocal undertaking” to total elimination of nuclear weapons made by all States Parties to the NPT in 2000 to the breakdown of the Review Conference in 2005. Today, new hope has emerged as a result of President Obama’s “ commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” and his convening of the unprecedented Summit of the United Nations Security Council anf unanimous adoption of Resolution 1887. With both U.S. and Russian leadership seriously committed to nuclear disarmament negotiations, a new opportunity exists to make substantive reductions in existing nuclear arsenals, halt proliferation and set the world on an irreversible path to zero nuclear weapons. For the first time, key States are actually collaborating on how to implement the vision of a nuclear weapons free world. Work towards elimination of nuclear weapons can no longer be called “idealistic.” It is the stuff of practical politics. This is a historic shift in policy-making.
The climate is indeed bright in which to solidify progress at the 2010 NPT Review Conference. But the world risks falling into a trap – and it is that trap that I wish to address.
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The argument now being advanced in the U.S. by opponents of nuclear disarmament that the U.S. must maintain nuclear weapons to protect the “credibility” of its nuclear umbrella so that allied nations do not have to obtain their own nuclear weapons is particularly insidious and will undermine President Obama’s efforts to work for a nuclear weapons-free world. It is particularly important that U.S. allies convey the idea that “extended deterrence” cannot masquerade as justification for the continuing, expansive role of nuclear weapons. Canada belongs to a military alliance, NATO, still operating under the Cold War mentality that nuclear weapons are “essential.” Thus, in Canada we live under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” extended to all NATO members. I do not want to live under such an umbrella any longer. Alliances do not have to depend on nuclear weapons for deterring aggression; non-nuclear military power is already far more than needed.
Similarly, the argument that the U.S. Senate must not ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty absent a guarantee that U.S. laboratories can ensure the modernization of nuclear weapons through lab work will nullify the gains of ratifying the CTBT. Those who claim that nuclear weapons are still necessary do not usually oppose “eventual” nuclear disarmament, but they are so insistent on the modernization of nuclear weapons for “security” purposes today that they drive forward the nuclear arms race.
We can see the trap ready to ensnare us: the elimination of nuclear weapons supposedly must always remain an “eventual” goal, meaning that the goal is so far over the horizon as to be meaningless. In retaining "eventual," nuclear defenders will so solidify the justification for nuclear weapons that proliferation is bound to occur, and the more proliferation in the years and decades ahead the harder it will be to even claim that nuclear disarmament has legitimacy. The nuclear weapons cycle, 65 years old, must be broken now before a new and exceedingly dangerous spurt of nuclear proliferation takes place.
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The idea that it will be satisfactory just to have fewer nuclear weapons must be discarded. It was not sufficient just to have a little slavery or to improve somewhat the conditions of life for slaves. Apartheid for only a few blacks was not acceptable. Colonial domination by outside rulers, as long as they were friendly, could not be tolerated. Slavery, apartheid and colonialism were social evils that had to be completely eliminated. So too, nuclear weapons are a social evil, inffact the ultimate evil.
The doctrinists throw up all sorts of false arguments: nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented, we cannot stop cheaters, nuclear disarmament will pave the way to conventional wars. All these arguments have been rejected by numerous commissions. No one is talking about “unilateral” nuclear disarmament. Nor can mutual disarmament be done overnight. What is required is an irreversible commitment by all states to achieve a world free from nuclear weapons. Were the nuclear weapons states to make such a commitment, they would not only save the Non-Proliferation Treaty from further erosion but gain the moral authority to call on the rest of the world to curb the proliferation of these inhumane weapons.
How should such a commitment be evidenced?
The answer lies in starting specific work now on a Nuclear Weapons Convention. This would be a global treaty banning the production as well as deployment of nuclear weapons. A global treaty exists banning chemical weapons; a similar treaty prohibits biological weapons. Why should there not be a global ban on nuclear weapons?
A Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, written by leaders in the nuclear disarmament movement, has been circulating as a U.N. document for several years. The support of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for comprehensive work towards a Nuclear Weapons Convention, the votes in the First Committee, and the call by Mayors for Peace and the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament are well known to this audience.
I must emphatically disagree with those who say that it is “premature” to start work on a Nuclear Weapons Convention. The International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament’s 2009 report stated, “It is not too early to start now on further refining and developing the concepts in the model NWC…”.
The U.S. should send a powerful signal to the NPT Review Conference that it is willing to join such efforts. The U.S. should take this positive action for two sets of reasons. First, it is in its own direct security interest to head off the breakdown of the non-proliferation regime. Second, it is the right thing to do in the interests of humanity.
A U.S. president once said: Let us not negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. The world will benefit from the start of comprehensive nuclear weapons negotiations.
The world, it seems, has stopped loving the bomb -- that much progress has been made. Now we must summon up the will to finally end the long love affair.
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