|
Henrik Salander, Chairman, Middle Powers Initiative
Atlanta Consultation III, 21-22 January 2010
The Carter Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
President Carter, dear friends, former colleagues,
It’s an honor for me to lead off the third Middle Powers Initiative Consultation in the city of Atlanta and the inspiring Carter Center, home not only of a great President but also a Nobel Peace Price winner – two lifetime accomplishments, miraculously emanating from the same physical person, with a level of integrity and wisdom that might almost scare us mere mortals, but which also encourages and challenges us. Thank you, Mr. President, for inviting the Middle Powers Initiative here.
Ten years ago I was sitting here as a Swedish diplomat, preparing to take over the coordinating position of the New Agenda Coalition, which at the time was little more than a year old. The coalition was sweating over its input into the upcoming 2000 NPT Review Conference, in rather low spirits. A few years earlier there had been an almost optimistic outlook towards the conference: the NPT had been extended indefinitely and seemed to hold up reasonably well. No nuclear tests had taken place for a while. An entry-into-force of the test-ban seemed possible. And the fissile material negotiations were almost starting.
But the optimism had changed completely in less than two years. India and Pakistan had tested nuclear weapons, the CTBT had been defeated in the United States senate, and the fissile negotiations had drowned in the Geneva quagmire. So when we sat here ten years ago, most of us were worried.
But then the situation changed unexpectedly again: the Review Conference ended successfully and was in fact one of the few occasions in the latest fifteen years where nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states did not speak in monologues but actually tried to enter into a dialogue, creating mutual benefit.
My point is: this happened not least because of the first Atlanta Consultation in January 2000. In that session in the Carter Center the first seeds were sown to what became direct negotiations months later between the five nuclear-weapon states and the New Agenda Coalition, resulting in the thirteen practical steps in the direction of nuclear disarmament. Admittedly, the success turned out to be short-lived, because of changed positions in some capitals, especially Washington and Paris – but the agreement is still valid, and the steps are still benchmarks.
Let’s hope that something similar will happen again, even that a seed will be sown in this Consultation. But we must assume that events do not repeat themselves, at least not exactly. Therefore we must constantly look for opportunities and unexpected chances, like we did ten years ago.
* * *
Today, there is a feeling that the upcoming Review Conference is extremely important. We thought so also in 2005. For about a year now, many of us have alternated between hope and despair when looking ahead at May. 2005 was a dramatic failure by States Parties, and it has been widely assumed that this year’s Review Conference must succeed (in relative terms) if the non-proliferation regime is to stay alive. And perhaps that’s correct.
I don’t have to go into any descriptive detail, before an audience like this, regarding the notable milestones that we have passed during the latest couple of years. Starting with the Wall Street Journal articles by the four statesmen, they include the UN Secretary-General’s speech on October 24 th, 2008, with his five-point plan, President Obama’s Prague speech last April, the Security Council meeting and resolution in September, and the Evans-Kawaguchi Commission report, just to mention some of the most significant. So something has happened, and some signs are good – some even better than in decades. But what is happening under the surface?
I venture to suggest that today’s situation is similar to 1995; the difference being that instead of standing before an all-or-nothing decision regarding the indefinite extension of the NPT, States Parties now stand before a fork in the road – one direction leads towards elimination (or prohibition, as I prefer to say) of nuclear weapons. The other road represents “business as usual”, which means sleepwalking into something that may well be a nightmare.
The compass point in 1995 was indefinite extension – the compass point now is elimination. The difference is that in 1995 a decision was mandatory, formally necessary, because of the Treaty; whereas today the regime may still limp forward even if the nuclear-weapon states succeed in postponing agreement on steps towards elimination, which they can be expected to try to do.
The indefinite extension would not have taken place without specific pledges in 1995 from the nuclear-weapon states regarding both systematic and progressive efforts in the direction of disarmament, and regarding the Middle East. Five years went by, with backward steps on the CTBT and nothing much on the rest of the bargain. Then in 2000, concessions were again made by the nuclear-weapon states, but after that nothing substantive has happened to make good on the promises. The CTBT and the FMCT have yielded nothing so far, literally nothing, whereas progress on disarmament is debatable, at best. Cuts in numbers have certainly been made, but for most non-nuclear-weapon states it doesn’t really matter much whether the nuclear five have 6000 or 400 warheads each, as long as the role of nuclear weapons in security policies remains the same, in essence.
Within these areas, some kinds of agreements will be necessary in May, making it clearer than today what kind of multilateral process the nuclear five are willing to undertake.
But not only that: in a similar way (although less formally mandatory) as when promises about a CTBT and an FMCT were necessary in 1995 to make the NPT sustainable, it is today necessary to start preparing for a nuclear weapons convention in order to obtain the benefits of non-proliferation and of a sustainable NPT. This holds true not only for non-nuclear-weapon states, wanting disarmament, but also for nuclear-weapon states, which may not want to disarm.
Why? Because in order for nuclear-weapon states to realize the goal they themselves have set up as the most important – that no more states obtain nuclear weapons – they must be seen to start preparing for a convention, since that is the only credible way of fulfilling the NPT in the very long run. In other words, they must start preparations, taking tangible practical steps, in order to show a true commitment to the NPT and be able to enjoy continued benefits from it.
But wouldn’t “business as usual” be sufficient? Some reductions? Some efforts to get the CTBT and FMCT into place?
No, it wouldn’t, not for the longer run. Such efforts alone, important and necessary as they are, may buy time, but in the longer run real steps towards prohibition are indispensable also to the security of nuclear-weapon states. Otherwise there will be many more nuclear-armed states in a few decades from now, and everybody’s security will be diminished.
John F. Kennedy pressed a similar point already before the NPT became reality, one could argue, and we still have only eight nuclear arsenals in the world. Yes. But today everybody understands that in, say, 2050, there will definitely not still be eight nuclear-weapon states around. There will be either many more – or fewer. It is completely inconceivable – impossible – that all other states will let eight states have a monopoly on ultra-violent weapons, for a hundred years or more, denying all other states what they themselves regard as security-enhancing arsenals. It will simply not happen. That’s why the only long-term and effective alternative to proliferation is elimination.
This is also why the continued policies of the nuclear-weapon states are puzzling, and in fact self-defeating. (I am talking about actual policies here, not declarations, or President Obama’s Prague speech.) They counteract and obstruct the stated goals of the governments themselves. They perpetuate a world which is not in the nuclear-weapon states’ own interests. Therefore those policies are, simply and frankly, not very smart. That was the underlying and implicitly self-critical message of the Wall Street Journal articles.
So in addition to the moral imperative and the military zero-sum game, we have here a third strong argument for elimination: possessing nuclear weapons is counterproductive and therefore unintelligent. It creates a vicious circle which increases risks indefinitely and therefore doesn’t offer security.
We all know the immediate counterarguments: one, every state must agree on elimination and act accordingly, in a verifiable manner, and one can never be convinced of that. Two, nuclear weapons cannot be un-invented. Three, a world government is needed before nuclear weapons can be eliminated.
My own views on these three perennials are, in brief: one – exactly, that’s why we must start working on an airtight convention. Two – of course the scientific and technical knowledge cannot be undone, but the weapons can be controlled and prohibited, and after that, breakout capacity can also be controlled – not easy, but definitely possible. And three – no, the weapons will not be eliminated by a utopian all-powerful world government; but by key states with responsible leaders, after they recognize irreversibly, in their self-interest, that continued so-called “deterrence”, generating new threats and new nuclear-armed states, is much riskier for them than it is to leave reliance on nuclear weapons behind.
The fourth frequent reasoning, the uncertainty argument, has been officially forwarded by nuclear-weapon states, and is quite self-defeating. It maintains that the long-term uncertainties of the future require continued reliance on nuclear weapons. But any country can argue that, some perhaps more convincingly, and it is anyway false.
* * *
The big challenge now is how to integrate the steps, which are necessary but not sufficient, with the vision of a nuclear-weapon-free world and the start of preparations for work towards its realization.
The four statesmen called steps “actions” and stated that without them, the vision will not be seen as possible – and without the vision, actions will not be seen as fair or urgent. That’s very well defined. And the good news now, the difference, is that we have got what most of us asked for: US leadership.
But as we all know, from President Obama down to frustrated Geneva negotiators: it is relatively easy to talk about a nuclear-weapons-free world, but it’s very difficult to get work started on even one of the many steps towards it, like the FMCT.
Among the steps, some meet with consensus, at least in principle: verified deep reductions of the two largest arsenals, including stored weapons and legally binding instruments; a fissile material production stop; and the test-ban in force. These are agreed, but not realized by NPT parties, since around fifteen years.
There are further steps that are equally necessary but also not sufficient, and which do not yet meet with consensus. Like the first three, they have been described and analyzed in Middle Powers Initiative Briefing Papers and identified as priorities in our Article VI Forums, after the review breakdown in 2005. Among them are: security assurances – multilateral regulation of the fuel cycle – de-alerting of launch-ready weapons – no-first use pledges – and improved governance of the NPT itself.
These too, as you know, have been around for decades and proposed in countless UN resolutions, the thirteen steps, by the Canberra Commission and the Blix Commission, the Wall Street Journal articles, and by the UN Secretary-General and President Obama. But please note that the Secretary-General’s package differs somewhat from the others. He held up the possibility of a strongly verified nuclear weapons convention – either that, or a framework of interlocking instruments. He lifted the debate, and the nuclear weapons convention has now stepped forward, from a slightly utopian idea to a fully pragmatic and even logical instrument for strengthening the security of nations. It represents the combination of the vision and the steps.
It is often said that work on a nuclear weapons convention is premature. But much more seldom is added what would make time ripe for such work. I believe that preparation for, and even negotiation of, a convention can proceed in parallel with, and in fact stimulate, preparation and negotiation of other measures. The ICNND puts it well when it says that it is not too early to start now on further refining and developing the concepts in the model convention, making its provisions as workable and realistic as possible.
* * *
If elimination of nuclear weapons is a compass point, and a direction to go, how can governments take out the right compass bearing? MPI’s answer is: only in cooperation. Governments must start to cooperate more deeply, about both steps and vision, and a way of doing that, MPI believes, is to be urged on by the compass bearing of a nuclear weapons convention.
That said, the MPI will not push positions of its own in this regard, only try to help non-nuclear-weapon states push theirs. Governments have difficult analyses and decisions in front of them. One of our aims in the Middle Powers Initiative is to point to options for those decisions, especially for influential countries without nuclear weapons. We try to do that in our Briefing Papers and through our Article VI Forums.
Even at best, MPI can only be a pathfinder, who can be of some assistance in illuminating the path. But governments must of course walk the path themselves. I hope that we have helped illuminate the path somewhat through our two latest Briefing Papers, from October and two weeks ago. We can also assist more directly in the start of preparatory work leading towards realization of the vision. We can arrange consultations, and we can be of assistance in establishing contact groups or other forms of preparatory processes. But the actual processes must be driven by governments.
Although we have different roles, governments and NGO’s may now finally be able to embark together upon the greatest project in the history of mankind: the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Thank you.
|
