To put it in a nutshell, we wanted to help politics to keep up with the pace of global change.
One of the Forum’s most important initiatives was a conference on ‘Overcoming Nuclear Dangers’, held in Rome on 16–17 April 2009. We organized it in collaboration with the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Participants included George Shultz, William Perry, Sam Nunn, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Ruud Lubbers, Alexander Bessmertnykh; such members of the US and Russian legislatures as Dianne Feinstein, Mikhail Margelov and Konstantin Kosachev; and leading scholars and experts. The conference gained momentum after the 5 April statement in Prague by Barack Obama, newly elected president of the United States, in which he called for a world without nuclear weapons. This aim was confirmed at a meeting of the presidents of the United States and Russia in London. These events made it all the more important to discuss practical ways of achieving this.
In my declaration at the opening of the conference, I said: ‘Nuclear weapons are an extreme manifestation of the militarization of international relations and political thinking. We have not successfully dealt with this burdensome legacy from the twentieth century.’ Decisive action was needed. The co-chairman, George Shultz, was in full agreement, declaring that eliminating nuclear weapons was an idea whose time had finally come, but that time was also against us. Prudent action was needed immediately.
This was true, but could it be considered realistic if, after ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction, one country would still be in possession of more conventional weapons than the combined arsenals of almost all the other countries in the world put together? If it were to have absolute global military superiority? In my speech, I warned that the answer could only be negative:
I will say frankly that such a prospect would be an insurmountable obstacle to ridding the world of nuclear weapons. If we do not address the issue of a general demilitarization of world politics, reduction of arms budgets, ceasing the development of new weapons, a ban on the militarization of space, all talk of a nuclear-free world will come to nothing.
I reminded the conference that when, in years gone by, we had proposed moving forward to a non-nuclear world, our Western partners had raised the issue of the Soviet Union’s superiority in conventional weapons. We had not tried to evade it and had entered negotiations that led to a mutual reduction of conventional arms in Europe. Today we needed the West to adopt a similar approach.
I returned regularly to the topic of nuclear disarmament, in October 2009 setting out my position in detail at the UN Office in Geneva. In the presence of representatives of dozens of countries and the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, I said it was essential that this global organization should play its part fully:
The UN is the framework within which we can and must address such questions as, for example, involving second-tier nuclear powers in the process of nuclear disarmament. After Russia and the United States conclude a treaty on a new, legally binding and verifiable major reduction of their nuclear arsenals and the United States ratifies the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, this question will become particularly pressing.
I believe, I said, that after that, the other nuclear powers, both official members of the nuclear club and others, should at the very least declare a freeze on their nuclear arsenals and express their readiness to enter into negotiations to limit and reduce them.
I also proposed discussing within the UN framework the military concepts and doctrines inherited from the Cold War era. I suggested the topic might be raised at the Security Council’s Military Staff Committee, which, as long ago as 1988, I had proposed in a speech to the UN General Assembly should be brought out of mothballs.
In April 2010, the presidents of Russia and the United States signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to replace START-1. Almost immediately the agreement came under attack and was criticized from both right and left. Some claimed the proposed reductions were dangerous, others that they did not go far enough and boiled down to no more than creative accountancy. In an article published in both the New York Times (22 April 2010) and Rossiyskaya Gazeta, I stoutly defended the treaty. I wrote that, although the reductions proposed really were modest compared with what had been achieved in the agreement, which President George Bush and I signed in 1991, it nevertheless represented a major breakthrough.
First, it resumes the process initiated in the second half of the 1980s, which made it possible to rid the world of thousands of nuclear warheads and hundreds of launchers.
Second, the strategic arsenals of the United States and Russia have once again been placed under a regime of mutual verification and inspections.
Third, the United States and Russia have demonstrated that they can solve the most complex problems of mutual security, which offers hope that they will work together more successfully to address global and regional issues.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, with the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the two biggest nuclear powers say to the world that they are serious about their Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligation to move toward eliminating nuclear weapons.
In connection with the signing of the treaty, the Obama administration proposed to Russia and China to initiate a dialogue on the issue of strategic stability. I commented that this should not be limited to strategic arms issues. ‘More general problems must also be addressed if we are to build a relationship of partnership and trust. Foremost is the problem of military superiority.’
I pointed out that the US National Security Strategy adopted in 2002 explicitly proclaimed the principle that the United States should enjoy global military superiority: ‘This principle has in effect become an integral part of America’s creed. It finds specific expression in the vast arsenals of conventional weapons, the colossal defense budget and the plans for weaponizing outer space. The proposed strategic dialogue must include all these issues.’
Consequences of NATO expansion
The correlation between reduction and elimination of weapons of mass destruction and the general state of international relations and security is something any sober-minded politician should be keeping in mind. The generation of politicians that replaced ours failed signally to improve security in Europe and the rest of the world. The worst blunder was the decision to expand NATO and turn it into a ‘guarantor’ of security not only in Europe but beyond its borders.
Speaking in October 2009 at the Council of Europe, I gave that organization its due in building a Greater Europe, but added: ‘Europe still has not resolved its major issue of providing a solid basis for peace, of creating a new security architecture.’ I recalled the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, signed in 1990, which was to lay the foundation for that architecture. Immediately after the end of the Cold War, we discussed how to create new security procedures for our continent. There was talk of a European Security Council, a kind of directorate with sweeping powers. The idea had the support of such major politicians as Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Brent Scowcroft and Roland Dumas, but events took a different course.
The leaders of NATO, with the United States taking the leading role, decided to expand the bloc to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, citing security considerations to justify the decision. Security, however, is needed only if there is a threat, so who was threatening whom? Who was threatening Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic, countries that rushed to be first in the queue to join NATO? If there was such a threat, why did they not sound the alarm, convene emergency meetings of the institutions of the then Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe or, come to that, the UN Security Council?