Archive for April, 2009

Peacekeepers or Warfighters?

Posted on: April 22nd, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

That was the debate question at a recent “wars with words” session at the Canadian War Museum.[i] The debaters were Major-General (ret’d) Lewis MacKenzie and myself. What follows is a slightly abbreviated version of my opening statement.

It’s clear that historically, Canada has been prominently and sacrificially engaged in both peacekeeping and warfighting. And it probably isn’t controversial to say that in Afghanistan today the men and women of the Canadian forces are again called on to serve in both roles – but saying that certainly implies an evolved and expansive definition of peacekeeping.

I take that term to include multilateral operations from consent based “peacekeeping” to “peace enforcement” in more hostile environments. The UN DPKO’s Principles and Guidelines Document describes the former as “a technique designed to preserve the peace, however fragile, where fighting has been halted,” and the latter as “the application, with the authorization of the Security Council, of a range of coercive measures, including the use of military force” to restore peace and security.[ii]

And, it is important to add, whatever the terminology or the mission, military contributions to peacekeeping are dangerous and always and ultimately dependent on the courage and willing service of skilled and dedicated men and women of national military forces.

A defining feature of peacekeeping, both as monitoring and enforcement,[iii] is that it is necessarily accompanied by a range of political, economic, and social measures,[iv] notably as institution-building efforts.[v] That is why, when Canada is deciding whether to participate in a particular Chapter VII mission, Foreign Affairs considers whether “the peacekeeping operation will take place alongside a process aimed at a political settlement to the conflict.”[vi] [vii]

The military element of peacekeeping is multilaterally authorized intervention designed to support the political settlement of conflict – it is not an alternative to political process. And that is a primary way in which it differs from “warfighting.” Rather than being designed to facilitate or support the political resolution of conflict, warfighting is designed to over-ride politics by dint of force and to impose, rather than negotiate, an outcome.

For example, when the international community forced Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991 it clearly set aside political process and negotiation and Security Council diplomacy in favor of war – and, in the process, it must be said, it upheld a key principle of international law and produced the primary desired outcome, one which has proven sustainable.

So that’s roughly how I understand the distinction between “peacekeeping and warfighting” – the former is an aid to political process, the latter over-rides it.

The salient question now is not which Canada has done more of, or which it is best at. Instead, the following argues that in the future Canada should focus particularly on peacekeeping as a model in its military contributions to international peace and security. Two basic considerations are invoked: a) the vital interests of Canada; and b) the very real limits to the utility of military efforts to impose sustainable peace and security outcomes.

The Canadian interest

I think it is widely agreed that the security and well-being of Canada are inextricably bound up with global stability and prosperity. We rely on an international order that respects Canadian sovereignty and territorial integrity; we want and need an order that functions according to broadly accepted rules or international laws. So Canada necessarily has a history of responding to security concerns beyond our borders, not only when our interests are directly threatened, but also when there are serious strains on the stability of the international system on which our security and prosperity ultimately depend.

Importantly, the Canadian interest is also shaped by a core value that commits us to coming to the aid of the world’s most vulnerable – partly because chronic human suffering undermines confidence in and respect for a rules based order and thus undermines our vital security interests, but also because we simply recognize ourselves as constituents of a common humanity.

Limits to force

The difficult question is when and how does the collective resort to force make an effective contribution to advancing those objectives?

The skilled use or threat of force can, on its own, achieve certain kinds of objectives efficiently and decisively – e.g. to depose a regime (Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003), to facilitate humanitarian assistance (Baidoa/Somalia 1992), and to reverse aggression (Iraq/Kuwait 1991).

But the successes also display the limits.

  • The destruction of the regime in Iraq could not be followed up with the timely creation of a new political order and effective protection of a vulnerable population.
  • The expulsion of the Taliban regime was followed by the early establishment of a new government, but military forces now are not managing to protect vulnerable people or entrench that new order throughout the country.
  • The delivery of humanitarian assistance in Somalia saved many lives but also dispersed insecurity to hitherto relatively safe parts of that country.
  • The 1991 Gulf War led to the disastrous Shia revolt in southern Iraq (on mistaken assumptions of a weakened Saddam and of American support), followed by brutal repression (many thousands killed, habitat destroyed, IDPs).

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Moreover, and this is the key point, there are conditions in which the limitations of force cannot be overcome simply by deploying more of it. To be effective in advancing political and institution-building objectives in intra-state settings, effective military force depends on the simultaneous attention to political process, along with governance, development, and other peacebuilding efforts. Indeed, if those accompanying measures are not actively pursued, the escalation of force is much more likely to lead to the escalation of violence without advancing the strategic or over-riding objectives.

There is a relevant parallel in domestic law enforcement – the operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, the DRC, and other places are after all substantially about restoring domestic order and law enforcement.

Even in our own stable societies, it is true that the domestic threat and use of force are a factor in generating confidence that the rule of law will prevail. But it is also critically important that law enforcement takes place in the context of strong public belief in the rightness of the law, broad confidence in the justice system overall, and acceptance of the legitimacy of the government. In such conditions, enforcement is largely directed toward the exceptions, the spoilers.

Take away confidence in the justice system and public institutions generally and voluntary consent erodes and society quickly becomes ungovernable. And when that happens, simply adding more police will not convert that society into a compliant and stable order – not if the people distrust both the law and the enforcers. When genuine grievance and utter distrust of the authorities are combined with ready access to guns, the inevitable result is the escalation of violence, well beyond isolated spoilers, and the disintegration of public order.

Peacekeeping

The relevance of all this for the peacekeeping-vs-warfighting discussion I think is found in the basic reality that the pursuit of stability and respect for the rule of law requires enforcement to be linked to the nurture of public trust – which in turn requires efforts to build political consensus, to build up the legitimacy of public institutions, and to meet the expectation that enforcement is driven by basic fairness.

I take that multi-dimensional approach to be the essence of peacekeeping – that is, the use of military forces in combination with political and economic measures to gradually build a stable and sustainable society and to deliver on the expectation that the spoilers will be dealt with.

In the many situations in which high levels of chaos and violence prevail, these political and economic measures are obviously extremely difficult to advance, but it is also not realistic to assume that military force alone will be able to force compliance. In such circumstances perhaps the best short-term hope is that key national institutions can be protected and the most egregious of emerging humanitarian needs can be met while political efforts are intensified to forge a new and inclusive political consensus. Any effort to substitute political engagement with intensified militarily action to defeat those outside the consensus is likely to be doomed to failure and entrenched warfare.

Indeed, that is the conclusion of a Rand study (Seth Jones)[viii] – “How Terrorist Groups End.” Of 268 groups that ended over a period of almost 40 years (1968-2006):

  • 40% “were penetrated and eliminated by local police and intelligence agencies”;
  • 43% “reached a peaceful political accommodation with their government” (in negotiations they moved to progressively narrower demands);
  • 10% won;
  • Only in 7% of the cases was military action the primary or decisive force in the ending of terrorist groups.

A University of Barcelona study[ix] looked at 80 civil and interstate armed conflicts, and of those that ended during that period (just over half):

  • 15% ended through victory of one side or the other; and
  • The rest through negotiations.

By the way, the proportionality calculus for the appropriate use of force is also bound to be different for peacekeeping and warfighting. If the mission objective is to destroy a regime, with the understanding that rebuilding belongs to a post-war agenda, there will be a different measure of acceptable collateral damage than if the immediate mission objective is to protect people and to defend public institutions and build public confidence in them.

Afghanistan:

If I can be allowed one concluding observation on Afghanistan, it is to note that international forces have obviously found it most challenging to maintain local security in those parts of the country that are most sharply outside the political consensus that was achieved in Bonn in late 2001 and early 2002. The insurgency is most active and advanced in those areas of the country, to put it another way, where confidence in public institutions and the government in Kabul is obviously the lowest.

The prominent military response to the insurgency has followed the warfighting model – that is, the assumption that the broad communal distrust in the south is not a matter for negotiation but can be over-ridden through counter-insurgency warfare.

Greater reliance on a peacekeeping/peace support framework would recognize that the insurgency is rooted in grievance, not only in extremism, and that building security requires more attention to negotiating political accommodation.  Indeed, that is being increasingly recognized.

Conclusion:

So, are we a nation of peacekeepers or warfighters? I’ve tried to make the point that both self-interest and effectiveness (and, one might add, the situations we are most likely to face in the future) counsel us to build on the peacekeeping model. That does mean maintaining a significant and complex military capacity; but it also and especially means the need to build up a much more dynamic political and diplomatic engagement capacity and to devote major resources to help build-up and refine the UN’s operational capacity.eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/whats-on/programs-activities/conference-wars-with-words.

[ii] United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines. United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Department of Field Support. 2008.

http://pbpu.unlb.org/PBPS/Library/Capstone_Doctrine_ENG.pdf

“Peacekeeping is a technique designed to preserve the peace, however fragile, where fighting has been halted, and to assist in implementing agreements achieved by the peacemakers. Over the years, peacekeeping has evolved from a primarily military model of observing cease-fires and the separation of forces after inter-state wars, to incorporate a complex model of many elements – military, police and civilian – working together to help lay the foundations for sustainable peace.

“Peace enforcement involves the application, with the authorization of the Security Council, of a range of coercive measures, including the use of military force. Such actions are authorized to restore international peace and security in situations where the Security Council has determined the existence of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. The Security Council may utilize, where appropriate, regional organizations and agencies for enforcement action under its authority.”

“United Nations peacekeeping operations may also use force at the tactical level, with the authorization of the Security Council, to defend themselves and their mandate, particularly in situations where the State is unable to provide security and maintain public order.”

[iii] Cedric de Coning, Julian Detzel, Petter Hojem, “UN Peacekeeping Operations Capstone Doctrine, Report of the Tfp Oslo Doctrine Seminar, 14 and 15 Ma7 2008, Oslo, Norway.

http://www.nupi.no/publikasjoner/boeker_rapporter/2008/un_peacekeeping_operations_capstone_doctrine_report_of_the_tfp_oslo_doctrine_seminar_14_15_may_2008_oslo_norway.

“The new doctrine makes a distinction between peace enforcement, which implies the use of force at the strategic level, i.e. where consent is lacking, and robust peacekeeping, where there is consent at the strategic level, but where force may have to be used at the tactical level to manage spoilers. The distinction between peace enforcement and robust peacekeeping is thus not about how much force is being used, but rather about the context within which force is being used. Examples for the tactical use of force could be military actions against breakaway factions, criminal elements or spoilers that are trying to hinder the execution of the mandate, or pose a risk to civilians, aid workers and UN personnel.”

“Some argued that a UN force, which is only mandated and capable of using force at the tactical level is doomed to fail if one of the main parties withdraws its consent, and may end up stuck in the middle of a new war without the capacity to even properly defend itself. Others argued that thewithdrawal of strategic consent requires a political solution. Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that significant military capability does not necessarily guarantee the maintenance of consent. The doctrine recognizes that the UN is not well-positioned to project force at the strategic level, and it notes that regional organizations or coalitions of the willing have been called upon to stabilize such cases, or to augment UN consent based missions when strategic force becomes necessary. In doing so, the doctrine may implicitly recognize the Secretariat’s preference for this division of labor given the operational limitations of UN peacekeeping operations and the importance of the UN having a legitimate and viable consent-based peace and security instrument at its disposable into the future.”

[iv] Aleisha Arnusch, “From Peacekeeping to PRTs,” 2007. Pearson Peacekeeing Centre.

[v] Security Council SC/9583, 23 January 2009. Thematic Debate.

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2009/sc9583.doc.htm.

[vi] DFAIT, “Canada and peace operations” site, modified 130608,

http://www.international.gc.ca/peace-paix/act_gov.aspx?lang=en.

[vii] François Grignon and Daniela Kroslak “The Problem with Peacekeeping”, in Current History, International Crisis Group, April 2008.http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5393.

“The military component of a peacekeeping mission is only as effective as the mission’s political masters make it. When asked last year if the 26,000-person force approved for UNAMID by the UN Security Council were sufficient, Salim Ahmed Salim, the AU’s Special Envoy forDarfur, rightly responded that what matters is “not how large a force it is but what they have come to defend,” since “without an agreement on peace, even a force of 50,000 can’t change the situation here radically.” A UN Security Council peacekeeping mandate with civilian protection provisions can only be implemented in the context of a political agreement. And the implementation of a mandate depends on the will to interpret it politically and to enforce it with the means provided.”

“In complex emergencies such as those facing the DRC, Sudan, and Somalia, the hostage population can only be sustainably protected if an effective political strategy accompanies the deployment of peacekeeping operations.”

[viii] Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libickihow, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qaida, RAND Corporation, 2008. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG741-1.pdf.

[ix] Vicenc Fisa, 2008 Peace Process Yearbook, School for a Culture of Peace, University of Barcelona,http://www.humansecuritygateway.info/showRecord.php?RecordId=26461.

A welcome US shift on Iran

Posted on: April 14th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

For now it remains a proverbial trial balloon, but a possible US switch from a single-minded focus on suspending Iran’s uranium enrichment to an emphasis on transparency would be a positive step – and it would be a demand that Iran would find much more difficult to resist.

The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration is contemplating a shift in Iran policy that would no longer demand suspension of all enrichment as a precondition to talks but would focus talks and political/economic pressures on Iranian acceptance of much more intrusive inspections. “Frankly,” it quotes on administration official as saying, “what’s most valuable to us now is having real freedom for the inspectors to pursue their suspicions around the country.”[i]

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) report on Iran[ii] confirms that none of Iran’s declared nuclear activity and that no nuclear materials have been diverted to military purposes. The problem is in developing confidence that there is no undeclared, or clandestine, nuclear program – and that will become possible only through significant increases in Iranian transparency.

Specifically, that means Iran must ratify the IAEA Additional Protocol, a special addition to IAEA safeguards agreements to facilitate more intrusive inspections. Indeed, the Additional Protocol should be compulsory for all states,[iii] but at a minimum the Security Council should make the Additional Protocol its chief demand on Iran.[iv] Before the current stalemate, Iran did allow inspections in line with the terms of the Additional Protocol (even though it did not ratify it), but “since early 2006,” the IAEA’s 2007 report notes, “the [IAEA] has not received the type of information that Iran had previously been providing, pursuant to the Additional Protocol and as a transparency measure. As a result, the Agency’s knowledge about Iran’s current nuclear programme is diminishing.” [v]

And that is the critical problem. Unfortunately, however, the Security Council’s has focused its attention and political capital on getting Iran to suspend the enrichment activity – declared activity that is now fully under IAEA inspections. The Security Council has always had to recognize suspension as a temporary, confidence-building measure, not an end in itself. The Council does not and could not credibly dispute Iran’s right to enrich, but it still demands suspension until the international community can be fully assured that there is no longer any clandestine nuclear activity.

But, in the meantime, while the dispute over enrichment has continued, at times giving rise to threats of military action against Iran, the enrichment program has only grown and there has been no progress on the transparency front.

In fact, Iran would be much more vulnerable to transparency pressures. Under international law and the Treaty it has signed, it has no right to secrecy when it comes to nuclear matters. Indeed, Iran has not challenged the fundamental principle of transparency or its legal obligation to be in full compliance with the IAEA safeguards that are mandated under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Two years ago Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator agreed that, “what should be important…is to have Iran’s activities within the framework of the IAEA and under the supervision of the inspectors of the Agency”.[vi] In other words, Iran’s long-term obligation under the NPT is not to forgo enrichment, but to allow the IAEA the access it needs to confirm that any enrichment is for peaceful purposes.

Iran’s refusal to make the goodwill gesture of suspending enrichment until the achievement of satisfactory IAEA access is not a trifling matter, of course. It represents defiance of the Security Council and is, at the very least, shortsighted. But the single-minded focus on suspension of enrichment has also been shortsighted. The real issue is not whether Iran has the capacity to enrich uranium, but that when it does enrich, the international community can have full confidence that none of its enrichment capability is steered toward the development of a nuclear weapon.

The core objective is to bring Iran into unambiguous, verified compliance with its obligations under the NPT and IAEA safeguards. And given its past venture into clandestine activity, compelling Iran to abide by the Additional Protocol, even though it is not compulsory for other states, would be a reasonable and principled demand.

As argued here before, it would, of course, be best if Iran neither pursued nor acquired any of the sensitive fuel cycle technologies that are potentially adaptable to weapons purposes. But restrictions on such technologies are unlikely to be successful if the strategy is to single out Iran. The IAEA has been exploring plans whereby enrichment and reprocessing for civilian purposes would be brought under international control to produce fuel for an IAEA fuel bank, from which the operators of civilian power plants anywhere in the world in need of such fuel would be supplied. Some two years ago, in fact, Iran offered to have an international consortium put in charge of its enrichment program[vii] — a gesture that falls well short of multilateral controls but is, nevertheless, a step in the right direction.

Until that happens, however, the Iran-specific restriction on uranium enrichment remains a confidence-building measure—a sign of cooperation rather than an essential element of compliance. Iran’s refusal to agree to this gesture should not be defined as a fundamental challenge to Security Council authority and thus grounds for military action. But on the universal principle of full disclosure and on Iran’s obligation to permit full and unfettered inspection of all its nuclear activity and facilities there can obviously be no compromise.

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eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes


[i] David E. Sanger, “US May Drop Key Condition for Talks With Iran,” The New York Times, 14 April 2009.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/middleeast/14diplo.html.

[ii] Report by the Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and 1835 (2008) in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 19 February 2009, International Atomic Energy Agency (GOV/2009/8).http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2009/gov2009-8.pdf.

[iii] For example, Canada urged the 2005 NPT Review Conference to make “the Additional Protocol, together with a comprehensive safeguards agreement, …the verification standard pursuant to Article III.1” for fulfilling “the obligations of that section of the Treaty.” Canadian statement to the 2004 NPT PrepCom on “Implementation of the Provisions of the Treaty Relating to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Safeguards and Nuclear Weapon Free Zones Issues” (http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/arms/2004nptcluster2-en.asp).

[iv] UN Security Council Resolution 1737 (2006) “calls upon Iran to ratify promptly the Additional Protocal,” but does not demand it in the same way that it demands that Iran suspend proliferation sensitive nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment. (http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/681/42/PDF/N0668142.pdf?OpenElement)

[v] Report by the Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006) and 1747 (2007) in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” 15 November 2007, International Atomic Energy Agency (GOV/2007/58).http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2007/gov2007-58.pdf.

[vi] Aljazeera.net. 2007. Iran nuclear report due. 21 February 21.http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/420AE469-30CB-4F06-8C7E-F549318B58D6.htm.

[vii] “Last autumn, Iran’s Ali Laijani told European Union negotiator Javier Solana that Iran could accept the Russian-E.U. proposal for an international consortium to enrich and reprocess nuclear fuel for Iran—if the enrichment and reprocessing were done on Iranian soil.” [Hoagland, Jim. 2007. Fighting Iran—with patience. The Washington Post, 25 February. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301701.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns.]

Is the bomb really here to stay?

Posted on: April 7th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

Todays Globe and Mail responded to President Barack Obama’s Prague speech on nuclear disarmament with an editorial entitled, “The bomb is here to stay.” Mr. Obama, the editorial declares, “cannot seriously believe that a world without nuclear weapons is possible.” The following was sent to the G&M as a letter to the editor.

The American commitment to “a world without nuclear weapons” is not the invention of President Obama (The bomb is here to stay, April 6); it predates his Prague speech by a full four decades.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiated in 1968, mandates the elimination of nuclear weapons. In 2000 the US and other nuclear weapon states again pledged “the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

Rather than “Obamaian Utopiansim,” detailed measures to reduce and eliminate nuclear arsenals are a belated nod to hard core realism. For there can be no credible expectation that the measures your editorial applauds – a test ban, an end to the production of weapons-grade fissile materials, effective controls over existing nuclear materials – could be sustained in a world where some states continue to refine and deploy nuclear arsenals.

It is not Wilsonian idealism but “Kissingerian realism” that your editorialist should invoke. A year ago Henry Kissinger, with such icons of mainstream American security thinking as George Shultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn, concluded that “without the vision of moving toward zero, we will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward spiral” toward greater insecurity.

You welcome a plan to strengthen the NPT, but it is utopianism of the worst order to believe this can be achieved while ignoring Article VI of the treaty – that is, the disarmament article.

That is why, for example, the UK Government has undertaken a major 6-step initiative “to accelerate disarmament amongst possessor states, to prevent proliferation to new states and to ultimately achieve a world that is free from nuclear weapons.” Among the steps is a full examination of the verification measures and institutions required for complete nuclear disarmament – that is, for nuclear weapons to be subject to the same prohibitions as chemical and biological weapons. Would that the Canadian Government would join the effort (Halting Nuclear Madness: Where’s Canada?, April 6).

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NATO’s chance to join the new nuclear realism

Posted on: April 5th, 2009 by Ernie Regehr

As anticipated,[i] the just concluded 60thAnniversary NATO Summit in France and Germany launched a process to review the Alliance’s Strategic Concept, including its nuclear weapons doctrine, with a view to adopting a new strategy at the next Summit.

The final paragraph of the declaration on Alliance Security[ii] speaks of “renovating the Alliance,” which begs the obvious question of why further renovate a house whose original design has long given way to a series of unwieldy lean-tos and whose function has little relevance to a dramatically changed neighborhood. But in the meantime and until that basic questioned is addressed, NATO’s nuclear chamber certainly needs some serious attention.

“A broad-based group of qualified experts” is to assist the Secretary-General who, in turn and in consultations with NATO states, is to develop the new Strategic Concept for approval at the Portugal summit a year from now.

The much longer Summit Declaration,[iii] which also promises a new Strategic Concept, devotes only one of its 62 paragraphs (para 55) to nuclear issues, but it does include a welcome repetition of earlier declarations that “arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation will continue to make an important contribution to peace, security, and stability” (para 54). The nuclear paragraph reaffirms the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and calls on NATO members to work constructively toward a successful outcome for the 2010 Review Conference. The NATO leaders point out that the arsenals of member states have been “dramatically reduced” and they promise an ongoing commitment “to all objectives enshrined in the Treaty.” They also call for universal adherence to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s “Additional Protocol” – an agreement to allow more intrusive and effective inspections of nuclear facilities. Both Iran and North Korea are called on to adhere to all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.

A re-reading of the current Strategic Concept, adopted by the Washington NATO Summit in 1999,[iv] leaves little doubt of the need for major nuclear renovation. Eight of its paragraphs include substantive references to nuclear weapons, all reflecting an architectural style firmly rooted in the 1980s.

The 1999 document argues (para 46) that, due to “the diversity of risks with which the Alliance could be faced, it must maintain the forces necessary to ensure credible deterrence and to provide a wide range of conventional response options.” It then goes on to say, “the Alliance’s conventional forces alone cannot ensure credible deterrence. Nuclear weapons make a unique contribution in rendering the risks of aggression against the Alliance incalculable and unacceptable. Thus, they remain essential to preserve peace.”

Deterrence is presented as a broad, essentially open-ended, threat to use nuclear weapons against any aggressor – including, by implication, non-nuclear weapon states. The ultimate deterrent, i.e., “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies,” is described as being “provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States” (para 62) – which, in the context of NATO expansion to the east, means the post-Cold War era has been one of the steady geographic expansion of the American nuclear “umbrella.”

The 1999 Strategic Concept sets out a commitment to the indefinite retention of nuclear weapons in Europe (para 46): “To protect peace and to prevent war or any kind of coercion, the Alliance will maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces based in Europe and kept up to date where necessary, although at a minimum sufficient level.”[v]

Current NATO strategy also holds that “nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provide an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the Alliance. The Alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe” (para 63).

The recent Obama-Medvedev statement[vi] is a measure of the extent to which NATO’s current retentionist nuclear doctrine is a serious security anachronism – out of date and out of place in the new security environment. Among other things, the American and Russian leaders declared the commitment of their “two countries to achieving a nuclear free world.” They also emphasized their support for the NPT, and called for negotiations toward “a verifiable[vii] treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.” They emphasized the importance of the entry into force of the nuclear test ban treaty and US President Obama promised to work for American ratification.[viii] They also agreed to begin negotiations on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with a view to reaching record low levels of legally binding limits on strategic nuclear weapons.

Language for a new NATO approach to nuclear weapons is available in the Obama-Medvedev statement, in the burgeoning anthology of nuclear abolition statements, and the logic on which the NPT itself was originally constructed – namely, that nuclear weapons, far from being “essential to preserve peace”, are ultimately an unacceptable risk to humanity, and that their elimination, not their retention, is essential to security.

Rather than asserting that the “strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance” are “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies,” NATO’s new Strategic Concept would do well to reflect the new reality articulated by Mikhail Gorbachev’s warning that “with every passing year [nuclear weapons] make our security more precarious.”[ix] Indeed, a new NATO statement could borrow from the 2008 statement by Henry Kissinger and his colleagues[x] and thus also acknowledge that “without the vision of moving toward zero, we will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward spiral” toward greater insecurity.

Over the course of the next year NATO states will have the opportunity to restate the vision and to make major efforts towards its realization.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] “NATO summit: a chance to kick the nuclear habit,” Disarmingconflict post, 18 February 2009. http://disarmingconflict.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html [ii] Declaration on Alliance Security, Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Strasbourg/Kehl on 4 April 2009. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_52838.htm [iii] Strasbourg/Kehl Summit Declaration, Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Strasbourg/Kehl on 4 April 2009. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_52837.htm [iv] NATO. 1999. The Alliance’s Strategic Concept, Approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. on 23rd and 24th April 1999. http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm. [v] There are currently estimated to be between 150 and 240 nuclear weapons, all US B61 gravity bombs, held in five countries in Europe – Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey. All of the European countries hosting US nuclear weapons are non-nuclear weapon state parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). [vi] Available at CBS News “Political Hotsheet.” 1 April 2009. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04/01/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4909175.shtml [vii] Obama’s support for a “verifiable” treaty is a reversal of the Bush policy. [viii] Also a reversal of Bush policy. [ix] Gorbachev, Mikhail. 2007. The nuclear threat. The Wall Street Journal, January 31. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117021711101593402.html#. [x] Shultz, George P., William J. Perry, Henry A Kissinger, and Sam Nunn. 2008. Toward a nuclear-free world. The Wall Street Journal, January 15. http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120036422673589947.html.

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