Foreign Minister John Baird’s welcome entry into Libyan diplomacy is marred by Canada’s assumption, shared by most, but not all, NATO states, that military engagement in Libya somehow includes the prerogative to select winners and losers.
There was all-party agreement in March on the House of Commons motion[i] in support of Canadian participation, for three months, in the UN-mandated protection mission in Libya, and while there are not sufficient grounds for withdrawing that support now, there is an urgent need to shift from bombing to talking.
The new Strategic Concept of NATO is certainly no nuclear abolitionist document, nevertheless it does, as Canadian NGOs urged a year ago, situate NATO nuclear policy unambiguously under the disarmament imperative of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
In January 2010 a group of Canadian civil society organizations[i] hosted an Ottawa conference of 65 experts, including academics and civil society representatives, and officials, from the UN, NATO, and the US and Canadian governments, to explore “Practical Steps to Zero Nuclear Weapons.” The sponsoring organizations, taking into account the deliberations at the conference, followed up with a set of recommendations directed at the Canadian Government.[ii]
Several of the recommendations dealt with the new Strategic Concept (SC) that NATO was then in the process of developing. Each of the recommendations is repeated below, and is followed by references to the new Strategic Concept[iii] and an assessment of the extent to which the recommended action is addressed. The recommendations were formulated as a message to Canada, but were focused on the changes to the NATO Strategic Concept.
1. The Canadian Government should…encourage a NATO Strategic Concept that: welcomes and affirms the groundswell of calls for a world without nuclear weapons; confirms NATO’s commitment to the objectives of the NPT; and declares that the intent of Article VI is a world free of nuclear weapons.
While not referring to the groundswell of calls for nuclear zero, the new SC does state unambiguously that NATO States “are resolved to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons…” (para 26). That is a new collective statement for NATO and the previous Strategic Concept lacked even basic references to arms control.
Also new is the added statement that a world without nuclear weapons is “in accordance with the goals of the NPT” (para 26). That essentially meets the second and third demands of the above recommendation, namely, that NATO confirm its commitment to the NPT and that the intent of Article VI is a world free of nuclear weapons. The 1999 SC[iv] had only one reference to the NPT (para 19) which acknowledged its indefinite extension and the accession to it of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.
In line with the last part of the above recommendation, the new SC includes a new commitment to arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation – and that includes the statement that “NATO seeks its security at the lowest possible level of forces” (para 26 – a welcome allusion to Article 26 of the UN charter).[v]
Two of the civil society recommendations focused on removing US nuclear weapons from the territories of European NATO states:
2. The Canadian Government should…encourage a NATO Strategic Concept that: commits NATO to security and arms control policies that ensure full conformity to Articles I and II of the NPT [by eliminating nuclear sharing], and that are designed to achieve the nuclear disarmament promised in Article VI).
3. Support new initiatives within Europe and publicly indicate its support for the removal of all remaining non-strategic nuclear weapons from European soil, in support of longstanding international calls that all nuclear weapons be returned to the territories of the states that own them.
Articles I and II prohibit the transfer of weapons to non-nuclear weapons states and prohibit the receipt of such weapons – and thus the reference to these Articles in the recommendation is a call for the US to remove all nuclear weapons from the territories of non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) in Europe.
NATO clearly lost a major opportunity in rejecting that move, but there has been a welcome movement away from NATO’s earlier claim that nuclear weapons in Europe are essential to security and to North Atlantic solidarity. Thus the new SC says the Alliance will “maintain an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces” (para 19), but it drops the earlier reference to such forces being based in Europe.
NATO claims credit for already having “dramatically reduced the number of nuclear weapons stationed in Europe” (para 26) and then promises to “seek to create the conditions for further reductions in the future” (para 26). It then says any decision on future reductions “should take into account the disparity with the greater Russian stockpiles of short-range nuclear weapons” (para 26).
None of this supports the NGO proposal that the elimination of all NATO weapons from Europe, weapons that have no military or deterrent utility, should be undertaken unilaterally as a required action to conform to Articles I and II of the NPT. It is worth noting that the refusal to take such action is undoubtedly related at least in part to domestic US politics and the struggle to get the START treaty through Senate ratification. Part of the Republican opposition to START is premised on the Treaty’s failure to address Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons – so the formulation in the SC is in part an effort to provide evidence that Russian non-strategic weapons are on the radar.
In short, the removal of nuclear weapons from Europe would have been a significant step toward conformity with the NPT and would have signalled a major change in NATO. As it is, the new SC makes a modest but discernable shift. By removing language about the necessity of nuclear weapons in Europe it allows for at least the possibility of withdrawal – but the position taken is rather less than bold, or, more to the point, less than what full compliance with the NPT requires.
Another recommendation addressed relations with Russia.
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4. Support the development of an improved strategic relationship with Russia including initiatives such as upgrading the NATO-Russia Council; promoting continuing strategic dialogue between the US and Russia in support of a new nuclear disarmament treaty; and follow-on measures that engage other states with nuclear weapons, including China.
The new Strategic Concept offers a welcome posture toward Russia along the lines called for. It promises to “use the full potential of the NATO-Russia Council for dialogue and joint action with Russia” (para 34). Two paragraphs (33 and 34) emphasize the importance of cooperation with Russia and NATO declares: “we want to see a true strategic partnership between NATO and Russia” (para 33). There is no reference to China in the Strategic Concept.
There were two additional, broadly formulated, recommendations:
5. Work to forge a consensus within NATO and its NWS member states in support of the global norm, which has existed since 1945, against the use of nuclear weapons; and
6. Encourage the Alliance to take advantage of the present climate of global support for nuclear disarmament to phase out any role for nuclear weapons in its security policies.
Contrary to these recommendations, the new Strategic Concept reaffirms the role of nuclear weapons in the alliance. That said, it also says, as did the earlier version, that “the circumstances in which any use of nuclear weapons might have to be contemplated are extremely remote” (para 17). It claims to “have dramatically reduced the number of nuclear weapon stationed in Europe and our reliance on nuclear weapons in NATO strategy” (para 26).
The 2010 SC adds a reference to ballistic missile defence in one significant sub-paragraph (para 19), a link to the 1999 reference (para 64) to the need for future changes that respond to the changing security environment. the new SC says the Alliance will “develop the capability to defend our populations and territories against ballistic missile attack as a core element of our collective defence, which contributes to the indivisible security of the Alliance.” That reference is at least tempered by the added promise that “we will actively seek cooperation on missile defence with Russia and other Euro-Atlantic partners.”
The declaratory policy of NATO has improved. It is not yet fully in line with the NPT, and NATO continues to be out of step with the global support for zero nuclear weapons. But policy and intention have changed, now its time for civil society to convert intention into implementation.
Notes
[i] The Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Canadian Pugwash Group, Physicians for Global Survival, Project Ploughshares, and World Federalist Movement – Canada.
[ii] Practical Steps to Zero Nuclear Weapons: Conference Report, January 25-26, 2010, Ottawa, Canada. http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Abolish/ZeroNukesConfReptJan2010.pdf.
[iii] Active Engagement, Modern Defence: Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of The Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation adopted by Heads of State and Government in Lisbon, November 19, 2010. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_68580.htm.
[iv] 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. 24 Apr. 1999. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm.
[v] Article 26 of the UN Charter reads: “In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating, with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee referred to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments.”
The new Strategic Concept certainly doesn’t cure NATO’s addiction to nuclear weapons, but there are some encouraging moves towards a 12-step program.
Evaluated from a global zero perspective, the Strategic Concept (SC) approved at the 2010 NATO Summit (in Lisbon)[i] represents classic denial – not only are nuclear weapons not acknowledged as a problem, dependence on them as the ultimate cure to security ailments is reaffirmed: “The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance…” (para 18).
Evaluated from the perspective of where NATO has been (as reflected in the 1999 SC),[ii] the new strategy takes some early steps toward a new security approach — albeit with the substantive and difficult steps yet to be taken. Put another way, while still under the spell of demon booze, there is at least a declared intention to pursue sobriety: “We are resolved to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons in accordance with the goals of the NPT” (para 26).
Perhaps the most significant change from the 1999 to the 2010 version of the SC is in the prominent references to disarmament and arms control in 2010.[iii] In 1999, the only such references were in self-congratulatory descriptions of the advances made in the immediate post-Cold War years (para 21, 1999). In 2010, arms control and disarmament is put forward as a means toward “enhanced international security…” (para 4, 2010).
In addition to the promised pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons, the 2010 SC affirms disarmament with the declaration that “NATO seeks its security at the lowest possible level of forces (an indirect but welcome reference to Article 26 of UN Charter), and that “arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation contribute to peace, security and stability” (para 26, 2010).
These commitments are all qualified by the insistence that disarmament must be “based on the principle of undiminished security for all.” In one sense that is obviously an appropriate objective, especially given that disarmament is acknowledged as an important contributor to security. But, of course, in another sense, that formulation can also be read as saying that if insecurities abound, then nuclear disarmament will be jettisoned – stated, again, in terms of the addiction metaphor, if things really start to look bad, we’re definitely going to be having another drink. While the 2010 SC no longer describes nuclear weapons as “essential to preserve peace,” as did the 1999 SC (para 46), it does say that “deterrence, based on an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities, remains a core element of our overall strategy” (para 17, 2010)
Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the 2010 SC is the failure to end the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe. But there is some modest movement in the right direction. In the 1999 SC, the nuclear forces in Europe were described as “vital to the security of Europe” (para 42). The 1999 document then went on to a fulsome defence of the continued deployment of US tactical weapons in Western Europe: “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….The Alliance will maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces based in Europe” (para 46, 1999 – emphasis added).
The 2010 SC no longer insists on those European deployments. While it says the Alliance will “maintain an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces,” it drops the earlier reference to such forces being based in Europe (para 19, 2010).
In 1999, the SC insisted that for the broad nuclear deterrent to be credible in the European context, European Allies must “be involved in collective defence planning in nuclear roles” and must maintain nuclear forces on European territory. Indeed, according to the previous SC, “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, 1999). In 2010 the references to nuclear forces in Europe and to them linking North America and Europe are dropped, but the reference to collective planning for nuclear roles is repeated and presented as “the broadest possible participation of Allies in collective defence planning on nuclear roles, in peacetime basing of nuclear forces, and in command, control and consultation arrangements” (para 19, 2010). But the language here is not specific (calling only for the “broadest possible participation”), and one possible implication is that NATO could accept that such participation could be confined to the UK and France and their European-based arsenals.
The new SC links further reductions of non-strategic nuclear weapons stationed in Europe to the “disparity” (para 26) that exists between Russia’s large arsenal (which could be about 5,000) and European-based US nuclear weapons (around 200). This linkage is especially unfortunate and makes the same mistake the defenders of US nuclear weapons in Europe have frequently made – namely, ignoring the reality that Russian tactical nuclear weapons are a response to NATO’s massive conventional superiority rather than to its tactical nuclear forces.
On the overall purpose of nuclear weapons, the 2010 version of the SC is more vague, but, implicitly at least, also more limited. In the 1999 SC the purpose of nuclear weapons was to “prevent coercion and any kind of war,” and, to accomplish that, nuclear forces are given the “essential role” of “ensuring uncertainty in the mind of any aggressor about the nature of the Allies’ response to military aggression”. Ultimately, as already noted, “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). The “supreme guarantee,” as also noted, is maintained in 2010 (para 18), but the other broad purposes are not included. In both cases, the circumstances under which any use of nuclear weapons might be contemplated are described as “extremely remote” (para 64, 1999 and para 17, 2010).
The 2010 version of the SC retains a basic affirmation of deterrence: “as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance” (para17, preface). But that should not come as a surprise. There was no chance that NATO would reject nuclear deterrence while the world still hosts more than 20,000 nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the commitment to deterrence is simply a restatement of what President Obama said in his landmark speech in Prague on nuclear disarmament: “Make no mistake, as long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies.”[iv] That is really just another way of saying that nuclear disarmament must be mutual – and must be pursued to the point of making deterrence irrelevant.
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NATO’s new Strategic Concept can be taken as a genuine step toward breaking the nuclear addition and nuclear disarmament – a step that is far too modest for some of us, to be sure, but a step.
Notes
[i] Active Engagement, Modern Defence: Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of The Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation adopted by Heads of State and Government in Lisbon, November 19, 2010. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_68580.htm.
[ii] 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. 24 Apr. 1999.
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm.
[iii] The following are three early, critical, and helpful responses to the new Strategic Concept:
Martin Butcher, “Nuclear Weapons Aspects of the Strategic Concept,” The NATO Monitor, 20 November 2010. http://natomonitor.blogspot.com/2010/11/nuclear-weapons-aspects-of-strategic.html.
“Experts Call NATO Strategic Concept ‘Missed Opportunity to Reduce Role of Obsolete Tactical Nukes from Europe’,” Arms Control Association, 19 November 2010. http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/NATOMissedOp.
Hans M. Kristensen, “NATO Strategic Concept: One Step Forward and a Half Step Back,” Federation of American Scientists, 19 November 2010. http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2010/11/nato2010.php.
[iv] Remarks by President Barack Obama, Hradcany Square, Prague, Czech Republic. 5 April 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered.
NATO Foreign Ministers met in Estonia last week, and the opportunity they missed was the one to rethink the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe.
It was an opportunity occasioned by a somewhat guarded joint letter from the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Norway,[i] calling on the surface for little more than a NATO discussion on nuclear disarmament. It welcomed President Obama’s disarmament initiatives and then suggested that the Tallin meeting explore what the Alliance might do in Europe “to move closer to [the] overall political objective” of “reducing the role of nuclear weapons and seek[ing] peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons.”[ii]
But the context – growing European support for the withdrawal of US non-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe – was more interesting than the content. Germany’s new Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, had explicitly supported the removal of US nuclear weapons from German soil.[iii] “We want to send a signal and fulfill our commitments under the NPT 100 percent,” is how a German Government spokesperson put it.[iv]
Beyond that, reports had Turkey accepting the idea that US extended deterrence does not necessarily require forward deployed nuclear weapons in Europe. Italy had indicated openness on the question. And even Poland, generally regarded as fiercely committed to a European-based deterrent, was reported to be less adamant, with elements of Poland’s security establishment suggesting nuclear capabilities are not the only or even most significant indications of Alliance solidarity. Then, of course, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway all publicly and explicitly oriented themselves toward the German view.[v]
But then came the meeting. The Obama Administration’s formal approach was, as expected, to defer the question of tactical US nuclear weapons in Europe to the fall summit that is intended to approve a new NATO Strategic Concept. The signals sent by US Secretary of State Clinton were, however, more pointed. She insisted that while cuts in US battlefield nuclear weapons still in Europe were possible, they should not all be removed until Russia agrees to cut its arsenals. “We should recognize that as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance,” she said. Adding that, “as a nuclear alliance, sharing nuclear risks and responsibilities widely is fundamental.”[vi]
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen took a similar line, emphasizing Alliance unity and that “decisions on nuclear policy will be made by the Alliance together,” also reinforcing the Clinton point about nuclear sharing.
These are the hard the line voices. They equate North Atlantic extended deterrence and defence cooperation with the physical presence of nuclear weapons in Europe, and they are out of sync with, not only the sentiments of central Europeans, but also the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).[vii]
The NPR, to no one’s surprise, reinforces US extended deterrence, but it goes on to explain that this “nuclear umbrella” comes in different guises, including “the strategic forces of the U.S. Triad, non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed forward in key regions, and U.S.-based nuclear weapons that could be deployed forward quickly to meet regional contingencies.” The point is there is no intrinsic requirement that extended deterrence, whatever one thinks of it, requires the presence of nuclear weapons throughout the geography of the American nuclear umbrella. The NPR also acknowledges that “the risk of nuclear attack against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members is at an historic low.” It is thus non-prescriptive on the fate of US nuclear weapons in Europe, noting only that “any changes in NATO’s nuclear posture should only be taken after a thorough review within – and decision by – the Alliance.”[viii]
The west European States behind the call for change have emphasized that they are looking for a collective decision in NATO and are not contemplating unilateral action, and, notably, that they do not equate the removal of weapons from Europe with either the “denuclearization of NATO” or with an end to US extended deterrence covering Europe.[ix] Their stance essentially follows the model of the US nuclear umbrella over North-East Asia. The latter is a region that is rather less stable than Europe, and yet there are no US nuclear weapons deployed to any states under its nuclear umbrella there.[x] In fact, Japan, while continuing to claim the American nuclear deterrent for itself, insists, through its three nuclear principles,[xi] that no nuclear weapons be on its territory.
Furthermore, progress in reducing Russian stocks of tactical nuclear weapons does not depend on the fate of US nuclear bombs in Europe.[xii] In fact, even the late Michael Quinlan, a British security analyst and former Permanent Secretary of Defence who generally resisted changes to the nuclear elements of NATO’s Strategic Concept, argued that the unilateral removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe would “have the effect of depriving Russia of a pretext she has sometimes sought to exploit both for opposing NATO’s wider development and for evading the question of whether and why Russia herself need continue to maintain a non-strategic nuclear armoury that is now far larger than that of anyone else.”[xiii]
What will be essential to Russian nuclear disarmament will be a new kind of strategic relationship with the US and Europe. The huge imbalance in conventional forces between Russia and NATO is a particular challenge. Russia accounts for well under 5 per cent of world military spending while NATO states collectively account for roughly two-thirds.[xiv] As long as Russia regards this overwhelming conventional force as, if not necessarily an overt enemy, a challenge to its regional interests, it is unlikely to be amenable to significant further reductions to its substantial arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons.[xv]
NATO Foreign Ministers missed this latest opportunity to move disarmament forward, but their bosses will get another chance this fall when they are scheduled to set a new strategic direction for NATO – it will be their opportunity to pursue a more imaginative, and practical, approach to NATO’s contribution to “peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons.”
Notes
[i] Available from Vrede en Veiligheid: Weblog van Radio Nederland Wereldomroephttp://blogs.rnw.nl/vredeenveiligheid/2010/02/26/letter-on-nuclear-disarmament-of-5-nato-member-states/.
[ii] 26 February Letter to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, from Fopreign Ministes Steven Vanackere (Belgium), Guido Westerwelle (GermanY), Jean Asselborn (Luxembourg), Maxime Verhagen (Netherlands), and Jonas Gahr Store (Norway).
[iii] Martin Butcher, “The Latest Word on NATO Nukes,” The NATO Monitor, 10 December 2009,http://natomonitor.blogspot.com.
[iv] Oliver Meier, “German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate,” Arms Control Today, December 2009,http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/GermanNuclearStance.
[v] Martin Butcher, “The Latest Word on NATO Nukes,” 10 December 2009; “No Public Statements on Nuclear Weapons and the Strategic Concept,” 5 December 2009; “Former Dutch Prime Minister Lubbers Calls for Withdrawal of US Nukes from Europe,” 4 December 2009, The NATO Monitor,http://natomonitor.blogspot.com.
[vi] Mark Landler, “US Resists Push by Allies for Tactical Nuclear Cuts,” New York Times, 22 April 2010.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/world/europe/23diplo.html?sq=NATO&st=cse&scp=3&pagewanted=print.
[vii] Chris Lindborg. “Considering NATO’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons after the US Nucleaqr Posture Review,”BASIC Backgrounder, 7 April 2010. http://www.basicint.org/pubs/BASIC-USNPR-TNW.pdf.
[viii] Nuclear Posture Review Report, April 2010, US Department of Defense, 49 pp.http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010%20Nuclear%20Posture%20Review%20Report.pdf.
[ix] “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpile,” Agence France Press, 20 February 2010.http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hKwgmbMz92w-InsAzjQo0EX-NS0w.
[x] Martin Butcher, Roundtable on Nuclear Weapons Policies and the NATO Strategic
Concept Review, House of Commons, London, 13 January 2010, Rapporteur’s Report.http://www.pugwash.org/reports/nw/NWP-NATO-Jan2010/NW_NATO_Roundtable_Report_Final1.pdf.
[xi] The three principles being, no possession, no production, and no introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website. http://www.mofa.go.jp/POLICY/un/disarmament/nnp/index.html.
[xii] ‘Extended deterrence will remain, but US nukes could leave Europe,” Disarming Conflict, 27 February 2010. http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/2/extended-deterrence-will-remain-us-nukes-could-leave-europe.
[xiii] Michael Quinlan, “The Nuclear Proliferation Scene: Implications for NATO,” in Joseph F. Pilat and David S. Yost, eds. NATO and the Future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NATO Defense College, Academic Research Branch, Rome, May 2007), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&lng=en&id=31221.
[xiv] International Institute of Strategic Studies. The Military Balance 2008. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008.
[xv] Ernie Regehr, “NATO’s Strategic Concept, the NPT, and Global Zero,” Ploughshares Briefing 10/1, February 2010. http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf101.pdf.
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The signs are growing that over the next year there could be an agreement to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from Europe.
Both the forthcoming US Nuclear Posture Review and the current NATO Strategic Concept Review could set the stage for dispatching at least one Cold War relic — namely, the ongoing positioning of US nuclear gravity bombs in Europe. It is a policy defended till now as confirming US extended nuclear deterrence and cementing the transatlantic security relationship.
Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy provides a very helpful update on the oft-delayed US nuclear posture review – initially it was scheduled for release in late 2009, then early February of 2010, then early March, and now mid to late March. He reports on inside-the-beltway speculation that while “the document will not call for nuclear withdrawal, …it may say it’s up for discussion or even go so far to say that NATO no longer requires nukes in Europe.”[i] He suggests that the US Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review also seems to point in that direction when it refers to the development of new “regional deterrence architectures” that will “make possible a reduced role for nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”[ii]
At the same time, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Norway are calling for all American warheads in Europe to be returned to the US. Their initiative is pursued within the context of NATO’s review of its strategic doctrine. [iii]
Earlier, under its new Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, had taken up the same call, characterizing it as both a disarmament nonproliferation measure.[iv] The NATO Monitor blog has also reported that Turkey has made it known it “would not insist” that NATO maintain forward deployed nuclear weapons in Europe, and also that Italy would be open to reconsidering NATO’s nuclear posture.[v]
The west European States behind the coming call have emphasized that they are looking for a collective decision in NATO and are not contemplating unilateral action, and, notably, that they do not equate the removal of weapons from Europe with either the “denuclearization of NTAO” or with an end to US extended deterrence covering Europe.[vi] Their stance essentially follows the model of the US nuclear umbrella over North-East Asia It is a region that is rather less stable than Europe, and yet there are no US nuclear weapons deployed in any states there.[vii] In fact, Japan, while continuing to claim the American nuclear deterrent for itself, insists, through its three nuclear principles,[viii] that no nuclear weapons be on its territory.
The point is obviously not to champion extended nuclear deterrence, but is to recognize that extended deterrence is not a credible argument, or excuse, for the continued physical placement of nuclear weapons in Europe or on the territories of any States claimed under a nuclear umbrella.
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada wrote to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton late last year, reasserting the relevance of US extended nuclear deterrence while at the same time welcoming US nuclear arms reductions. He did ask for the US to explain its plans to retire the nuclear armed Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAM/N), which are in storage in the US but nevertheless linked to deterrence in the North-East Asia region. The Arms Control Wonk blog elaborates with its usual detail and verve. It also debunks the myth that if the US fails to maintain its current nuclear arsenal, extended deterrence will be weakened and Japan will be driven to acquire its own nuclear deterrent.[ix] The Japan Times made the same point in its report in late February that the US had already informed Japan that the Nuclear Posture Review will confirm the retirement of the sea-based TLAM/N – adding that this would not affect the nuclear umbrella.[x]
Now the obvious question is, where’s Canada in all this? Will Ottawa be championing the new European initiative?
There are currently estimated to be between 150 and 200 nuclear weapons, all US B61 gravity bombs, held in five countries in Europe – Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.[xi] All of the European countries hosting these US nuclear weapons are non-nuclear weapon states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a fact, it is worth noting, that puts those countries and the US, the nuclear weapon state that owns those bombs, in violation of Articles I and II of the NPT.[xii]
Notes
[i] Josh Rogin, “Nuclear Posture Review delayed until mid to late March,” The Cable, Foreign Policy, 25 February 2010.http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/25/nuclear_posture_review_delayed_until_mid_to_late_march.
[ii] Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 2010, Department of Defense.
http://www.defense.gov/QDR/images/QDR_as_of_12Feb10_1000.pdf.
[iii] “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpile,” Agence France Press, 20 February 2010.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100219/wl_afp/usnuclearnatodefenceeurope. Their letter to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was made public on Feb 26.
[iv] Meier, Oliver. 2009. German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate. Arms Control Today, December.http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/GermanNuclearStance.
[v] Butcher, Martin. 2009a. Former Dutch Prime Minister Lubbers Calls for Withdrawal of US Nukes from Europe. The NATO Monitor, December 4; 2009b. No Public Statements on Nuclear Weapons and the Strategic Concept. The NATO Monitor, December 5. http://natomonitor.blogspot.com.
[vi] “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpile,” Agence France Press, 20 February 2010.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100219/wl_afp/usnuclearnatodefenceeurope.
[vii] Martin Butcher, Roundtable on Nuclear Weapons Policies and the NATO Strategic
Concept Review, House of Commons, London, 13 January 2010, Rapporteur’s Report.http://www.pugwash.org/reports/nw/NWP-NATO-Jan2010/NW_NATO_Roundtable_Report_Final1.pdf.
[viii] The three principles being, no possession, no production, and no introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website. http://www.mofa.go.jp/POLICY/un/disarmament/nnp/index.html.
[ix] “The Strategic Posture Commission Report [a Congress-mandated study which is a forerunner to the coming nuclear posture review] contains at least one outright howler — the claim that the deployment of nuclear-armed cruise missiles is essential to extended deterrence in Asia: ‘In Asia, extended deterrence relies heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles class attack submarines—the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile/Nuclear (TLAM/N). This capability will be retired in 2013 unless steps are taken to maintain it. U.S. allies in Asia are not integrated in the same way into nuclear planning and have not been asked to make commitments to delivery systems. In our work as a Commission it has become clear to us that some U.S. allies in Asia would be very concerned by TLAM/N retirement. Let’s be very, very clear that as a result of the President’s 1991 Nuclear Initiatives, all TLAM/N nuclear weapons have been removed from U.S. Navy vessels. So, if extended deterrence to Japan relied heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles-class attack submarines, we would be hosed….[L]et’s not pretend these useless relics of the Cold War sitting in a climate-controlled warehouse are all that stand between us and nuclear-armed Japan. Because they aren’t.” [Jeffrey Lewis, Arms Control Wonk (8 May 2009).http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2284/japan-tlamn.]
[x] “US to retire nuclear Tomahawk missiles,” The Japan Times, 23 February 2010.http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100223a2.html.
[xi] Kristensen, Hans, “Status of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe 2010,” Federation of American Scientists.http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/images/euronukes2010.pdf.
[xii] See, “Reshaping NATO’s Nuclear Declarations,” DisarmingConflict post, 30 January 2010. http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/1/reshaping-nato%E2%80%99s-nuclear-declarations.
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Two former German security officials have responded, not entirely helpfully, to former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson’s sharp rebuke of the German Government’s call for the removal of US nuclear weapons from its territory.[i]
Accusing Robertson of relying on “outdated perceptions” that are rooted in the Cold War, Wolfgang Ischinger and Ulrich Weisser make some good points.[ii]
First, they say it “would be a grave mistake for NATO and its members to cling to the Cold War perception that Russia is a potential aggressor…” Russia must be a strategic partner they say, that being essential to long-term stability in Europe.
Second, they reject the argument that there must be US nuclear weapons on German soil (tactical gravity bombs) to keep Germany under the American nuclear umbrella – a point, they say, clarified 15 years ago by then US Defence Secretary William Perry.
Third, they say the role of nuclear weapons has “changed fundamentally” and that “any residual benefits of nuclear arsenals are now overshadowed by the growing risks of proliferation and terrorism.”
But when they set out the way forward, the argument goes somewhat awry.
First and foremost, they call on the alliance as a whole to “reaffirm its reliance on the US nuclear umbrella and on extended deterrence.” Really? So they claim that NATO countries, which represent virtually two-thirds of global conventional military might, are so threatened, so vulnerable are they in the most politically stable geography on the planet, that they must have the cover of American weapons of mass destruction and the threat of annihilation for them to feel safe? As for those states that really do live in threatening neighborhoods – say, in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, or South Asia – they are presumably expected to be the real pioneers in the drive for zero global nuclear weapons while Europeans and North Americans continue to cling to them.
Second, they call for negotiated reductions in tactical nuclear weapons, “based on the principle of reciprocity.” Again, they’re not paying attention Michael Quinlan’s rejection of reciprocity (discussed here last week). Quinlan argued instead that the unilateral removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe would “have the effect of depriving Russia of a pretext she has sometimes sought to exploit both for opposing NATO’s wider development and for evading the question of whether and why Russia herself need continue to maintain a non-strategic nuclear armoury that is now far larger than that of anyone else.”[iii]
Finally, they say if tactical nuclear weapons cannot be immediately eliminated, which they say would be the most easily verifiable approach, “a good alternative would be to move all tactical nuclear weapons from their forward bases for centralized storage deep inside national territory.” That would indeed be a sensible interim step toward zero tactical nuclear weapons, provided of course, they mean the “national territory” of the nuclear weapon states that own those weapons Russia and the US) – and not the “national territory” of the non-nuclear weapons states that now host them (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey).
Ischinger and Weisser offer some effective counterpoints to George Robertson’s Cold War call to preserving NATO’s nuclear strategy and weapons, but they end up with some Cold War assumptions of their own.
Notes
[i] See last week’s post on “Nukes out of Europe: Now the Backlash.”http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/2/nukes-out-europe-now-backlash.
[ii] Ischinger was formerly deputy foreign minister, and Weisser was director of the policy planning staff of the German defence minister. Their response to Robertson appeared in the New York Times, “NATO and the Nuclear Umbrella,” 15 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/opinion/16iht-edischinger.html.
[iii] Michael Quinlan, “The Nuclear Proliferation Scene: Implications for NATO,” in Joseph F. Pilat and David S. Yost, eds. NATO and the Future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NATO Defense College, Academic Research Branch, Rome, May 2007), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&lng=en&id=31221.
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When the German Government became explicit in calling for the removal of nuclear weapons from German territory[i] some energetic backlash was to be expected. Now it’s started.
Most thought strong reaction to removing the remaining US tactical nuclear weapons from Europe would come from the likes of Poland – an east European country not yet fully confident that its alignment with the west has left it permanently beyond Moscow’s grasp. But now some exaggerated push-back has come from a former alliance Secretary-General – one safely ensconced in the UK. The former NATO leader George Robertson, also a former British Defence Minister, has authored a new briefing together with two US security analysts to give urgent voice to alarms deeply rooted in the 1980s.[ii]
Their bottom line is that the defence of the North Atlantic region, in spite of it being in possession of almost two-thirds of the world’s conventional military capacity, still requires nuclear weapons in Europe. Furthermore, if Germany wants shelter under a nuclear umbrella it needs to have nuclear weapons on its soil – anything less is “irresponsible.” The latter is a judgment that will come as a surprise to the likes of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Norway, and, incidentally, Canada, none of which has nuclear weapons on its soil and all of which are nevertheless gathered within the arc of America’s extended nuclear deterrence – to the genuine chagrin, it must be added, of majority populations that repeatedly tell pollsters they want nuclear weapons and umbrellas permanently eliminated.
Germany, having actually noticed the escalating demand for nuclear disarmament, and having absorbed an appreciation for the risks to the nonproliferation regime that come with a refusal to disarm, took a second look at the Cold War relics it hosts in the form of US nuclear gravity bombs and decided it could advance two policy priorities through a single initiative. By removing nuclear weapons from Europe, NATO could advance the pursuit of disarmament in sub-strategic weapons and it could shore up respect for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by bringing NATO states into full compliance with Articles I and II.[iii]
Pressing both of these issues in advance the NPT Review Conference coming in May, the German government explained that “we want to send a signal and fulfill our commitments under the NPT 100 percent.”[iv]
Robertson et al regard that as a dangerous signal. They further worry that officials close to President Obama also support the repatriation of US tactical nuclear weapons back to the US mainland. No doubt Mr. Robertson and his co-authors would be even more troubled by the views of the late Michael Quinlan, a former Permanent Secretary of Defence in the UK who shared many of George Robertson’s assumptions about deterrence. Despite his commitment to nuclear deterrence, Quinlan expressed doubts about the value of US nuclear weapons in Europe – “I doubt whether their permanent presence remains essential nowadays either in military and deterrent terms or as a symbol of continuing US commitment to the security of its European allies.”[v]
Quinlan also rejected the argument advanced by Robertson that reductions to tactical nuclear weapons in Europe should be negotiated to win reciprocal and greater reductions in Russia’s larger arsenal of such weapons. Quinlan argued instead that the unilateral removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe would “have the effect of depriving Russia of a pretext she has sometimes sought to exploit both for opposing NATO’s wider development and for evading the question of whether and why Russia herself need continue to maintain a non-strategic nuclear armoury that is now far larger than that of anyone else.”[vi]
But Robertson puts the onus for reductions primarily on Russia, expecting it to reduce down to levels that produce Russian-American parity, ignoring the huge imbalance in conventional forces between Russia and NATO. Russia accounts for less than 6 per cent of world military spending while NATO states collectively account for more than 60 per cent.[vii] As long as Russia regards this overwhelming conventional force as, if not necessarily an overt enemy, then a challenge to its regional interests, it is unlikely to be amenable to significant further reductions to its substantial arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons.
Robertson and his co-authors make a number of additional arguments why NATO nuclear weapons must remain in Europe, but their ultimate and surprisingly frank appeal is to what they regard as the shared interests of all nuclear weapons states – and that boils down to regarding partial arms reductions as tactical moves designed to ease disarmament pressures in the interests of long-term nuclear retention. “Russia, like the US and other nuclear powers, has an interest in preserving its right to hold nuclear weapons under the NPT while stemming their spread to other states” (emphasis added).
Mr. Robertson needs to check in with his own Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who sent the following message to the just concluded Global Zero meeting in Paris: “I believe that a world free of nuclear weapons is not only achievable, but one of the most important policy objectives of our times.”[viii]
Notes
[i] Oliver Meier, “German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate,” Arms Control Today, December 2009,http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/GermanNuclearStance.
[ii] Franklin Miller, George Robertson and Kori Shake. “Germany Opens Pandora’s Box,” Briefing Note, Centre for European Reform. February 2010. http://www.cer.org.uk/pdf/bn_pandora_final_8feb10.pdf
[iii] Article I requires nuclear-weapon states (in this case the US) not to transfer nuclear weapons to any other state, and Article II requires nuclear weapon states (in this case German, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Turkey) not to receive nuclear weapons from any state.
[iv] See note #18.
[v] Michael Quinlan, “The Nuclear Proliferation Scene: Implications for NATO,” in Joseph F. Pilat and David S. Yost, eds. NATO and the Future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NATO Defense College, Academic Research Branch, Rome, May 2007), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&lng=en&id=31221.
[vi] See Note i.
[vii] International Institute of Strategic Studies. The Military Balance 2008. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008.
[viii] Messages from President Obama, President Medvedev, and Prime Minister Brown to the Global Zero meeting are available at: http://www.globalzero.org/en/opening-day-statement-global-zero-leaders.
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Earlier this week, January 25-26, a group of Canadian NGOs[i] sponsored a conference attended by officials and experts from the United States, Canada, and NATO headquarters to consider and critique a set of recommendations prepared by the sponsoring groups. The recommendations, which focused on issues related to the forthcoming review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the current review of the NATO Strategic Concept, were presented in the conference briefing paper.[ii] The following is my presentation on three disarmament promises made by NATO states which the current NATO strategic doctrine continues to ignore.
This morning’s focus on NATO is obviously a response to the important opportunity that comes via the current review of the NATO Strategic Concept (the review process is described in the briefing paper for this conference: Canadian Action for Zero Nuclear Weapons.
The review is an opportunity for NATO as well – a chance to make some clear changes (both symbolic and practical) to its declaratory policies and the posture and deployments that follow from them. We’ve argued in the paper that in some of the key elements of its nuclear policy NATO is at serious odds with the NPT and with the re-invigorated attention globally to the pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons.
My comments in the next few minutes will highlight some of the recommendations in the briefing paper, and it is worth noting that the paper does not call on NATO to do anything that individual NATO states have not already promised to do. And in that regard I hope Chris Westdal won’t mind me recalling something he said to the Toronto forum last fall. How about, he said, instead of asking states to make more and more new promises, we insist that they start keeping some already made.
So I want to remind you of three unequivocal promises that have been made by all NATO states, but which the current NATO Strategic Concept does not honor:
a) The first is the obvious promise, through the NPT’s Article VI, to disarm. If the wording of Article VI is a bit ambiguous, the unanimous decisions and declarations in 1995 and 2000, by all states parties to the NPT, clarify once and for all what it means – that is, it is an unequivocal commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons. The World Court added further clarity when it said that the promise to disarm is a legal obligation that requires not only the pursuit of disarmament, but its achievement.
But then we come to paragraph 46 of NATO’s Strategic Concept. It argues that given “the diversity of risks with which the Alliance could be faced…, the Alliance’s conventional forces alone cannot ensure credible deterrence.” So, the threat of nuclear attack is required to “render the risks of aggression against the Alliance incalculable and unacceptable.” And thus it concludes that nuclear weapons remain “essential to preserve peace.” So in its formal declaration, NATO insists that, rather than pursuing and achieving disarmament, it “will maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces based in Europe” (para 46). So the promise is abolition, the commitment is indefinite retention.
b) A second promise is found in the agreement, reached during the NPT review process, that all states party to the NPT will seek to “diminish the role for nuclear weapons in [their] security policies [in order] to minimize the risk that these weapons will ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination.”
Now look at paragraph 62 of the NATO Strategic concept: It says the purpose of nuclear weapons is broad – it is to “prevent coercion and any kind of war.” And to accomplish that purpose, NATO nuclear forces are given the “essential role” of “ensuring uncertainty in the mind of any aggressor about the nature of the Allies’ response to military aggression” (para 62). In other words, rather than a diminishing role, NATO continues to prescribe an expansive role for nuclear weapons, including their potential use in response to non-nuclear threats, and, by implication, first use. European-based nuclear weapons, it says, are directly linked, also in paragraph 62, to “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies,” namely the strategic nuclear forces of Alliance members.
Furthermore, there has in fact been a geographic expansion of the role of nuclear weapons in NATO, rather than a diminishing role, as a result of the post-Cold War expansion of NATO and its nuclear umbrella.
So for NATO to come into full conformity with the commitments made by its individually, the new strategic concept will have to scale back dramatically on the role assigned to nuclear weapons – a no-first-use commitment would be an appropriate case in point.
c) NATO states, in a third promise, have obviously also signed on to NPT Articles I and II, and thus accepted the treaty’s explicit prohibition on the transfer of nuclear weapons – the Treaty requires that nuclear weapon states not supply nuclear weapons to non-nuclear weapon states; and non-nuclear weapon states are not to receive nuclear weapons.[iii]
In European NATO US nuclear weapons have been transferred to non-nucelar weapon states. Paragraph 63 of the current strategic concept insists, in effect, that there is justification for such transfers (despite the NPT’s clear prohibition) from NWS to NNWS in NATO because credible deterrence requires that European NNWS members of the Alliance “be involved in collective defence planning in nuclear roles” and that nuclear forces be maintained on European territory. Furthermore, those weapons on European soil are also said to be necessary to maintain “an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the Alliance.” Thus the current Strategic Concept of NATO promises the Alliance will continue to ignore Articles I and II (this arrangement actually goes back to the origins of the Treaty) and NATO will instead “maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe” in NNWS (para 63).
So, we have at least three basic promises made which are not being honored through the current Strategic Concept. And NATO also says that, as of now, these promises will not be honored in the foreseeable future. The promise to disarm is met with a commitment to indefinite retention. The promise to reduce the role of nuclear weapons is met with a commitment to the continuing threat to be the first to use nuclear weapons, even in response to non-nuclear threats. The promise not to transfer nuclear weapons is met with the continuing deployment of US nuclear weapons on the territories of non-nuclear weapon states.
The most immediate political repercussion of NATO’s essentially “non-compliant” nuclear posture can be expected to be found in nonproliferation dynamics, rather than in disarmament. After all, if it is legitimate for Canada and other NATO NNWS (all of which reside in the most stable neighborhoods of the world and are backed by the overwhelming conventional military superiority) – if such states can credibly claim that they are so vulnerable that their security requires an ongoing nuclear deterrent (against “any” threat), then it is really hard to think of any states anywhere that could not make a much more credible case for nuclear deterrence. Think especially of Iran and the Arab states in the Middle East who really do live in rather unstable and threatening environments. By what logic can Canada, while insisting that nuclear weapons are essential to its security, appeal to Pakistan, India, and Israel to forego nuclear deterrence and join the NPT as NNWS?
If we are going to insist that all states be subject to the same standards with regard to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, then NATO has some critically important changes to make (and the paper sets out what some of those changes should be). If we are prepared to make the argument that not all states need to be bound by the same nonproliferation and disarmament standards, then, I’m afraid will also have to be prepared to see the nonproliferation regime unwind.
The briefing paper and its recommendations are proffered as an appeal to the government of Canada to muster the courage of its promises and to insist that NATO, taking advantage of this timely review of its strategic concept, make changes that will honor the promises all NATO states have already made. We have generally summarized the needed change as follows:
Canada should encourage a new NATO Strategic Concept that a) welcomes and affirms the groundswell of calls for a world without nuclear weapons; b) confirms NATO’s commitment to the objectives of the NPT and declares that the intent of Article VI of the NPT, and of the Alliance, is a world free of nuclear weapons; and c) commits NATO to security and arms control policies that conform to Articles I and II (which prohibit transfers of nuclear weapons) of the NPT and that are designed to achieve the nuclear disarmament promised in Article VI.
These are the changes that NATO could make immediately, at no cost to the security of its members – indeed it would be to the security benefit of its members inasmuch as it would contribute to the strengthening of the nuclear disarmament imperative.
Notes
[i] The Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Canadian Pugwash Group, Physicians for Global Survival, Project Ploughshares, and World Federalist Movement – Canada.
[ii] Available at: http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Abolish/ZeroNukesBriefPapJan2010.pdf.
[iii] Article I: “Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons…”
Article II: “Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons…”
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The new German Foreign Minister has pledged to pursue the removal of the last of US nuclear weapons on German soil. It’s a move that will either signal the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons in Europe or the beginning of a new political quarrel within NATO.
It seems anachronistic in the extreme, not to mention silly, for NATO to get caught up in a serious quarrel over a few hundred, at the most, US nuclear gravity bombs still kept on European soil. But it could happen, as it did at the end of the 1990s – all in the name of trans-Atlantic NATO solidarity. The New York Times today quotes an un-named NATO diplomat as insisting that US nuclear weapons in Europe “are the foundation of [NATO] solidarity. Take them away and what have we left?”[i]
Just because Guido Westerwelle’s pledge is sensible and long overdue doesn’t mean it will be easy to fulfill. And whatever resistance it meets will not come from Washington. A big part of the resistance will rely on the slightly absurd, to be kind about it, solidarity argument[ii] – the idea that, despite massive Europe-North America trade links, myriad cultural and historical ties, as well as broadly shared political values, it is still only the few hundred Cold War nuclear relics that can successfully bridge the Atlantic. Another claim will be that the removal of nuclear weapons from Europe should not be done unilaterally but should be coordinated with substantial reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons – as if 200 less warheads in Europe will suddenly reverse the Russian strategic calculus.
Nuclear weapons in Europe are still obviously championed in some influential circles, but a more likely scenario is that this German move to remove US nuclear weapons from its territory will indeed be the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons in Europe (outside of France and the UK).
Mr. Westerwelle, the leader of the German Free Democrats and Foreign Minister in the new German coalition led by the continuing Chancellor Angela Merkel, has long been an advocate of disarmament, and in this move he has the support of four of the six parties with members in the Bundestag.[iii]
There are similar pressures in the Dutch Parliament[iv] and the Belgian Senate is about to consider a proposal to ban nuclear weapons within its territory.[v] NATO strategic doctrine is now under review and, given that the alliance leader is now firmly and publicly committed to entering a path that leads to zero nuclear weapons, it should be expect, or demanded, that a new NATO Strategic Concept will no longer describe nuclear weapons as essential to its security or essential to transatlantic solidarity. And a NATO doctrine modified in that way will pave the way to the removal of nuclear weapons from the five non-nuclear weapon states that still host them (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey).
Notes
[i] Judy Dempsey, “Ridding German of US Nuclear Weapons,” New York Times, 29 October 2009.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/world/europe/29iht-letter.html.
[ii] The current NATO Strategic Concept insists in paragraph 63 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.” [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.]
[iii] “Germany opts for a farewell to NATO nuclear weapons,” Russia Today, 28 October 2009.http://www.russiatoday.com/Politics/2009-10-28/germany-nato-nuclear-weapon.html.
[iv] With the SP, for example, arguing for a non-nuclear NATO strategy. “Nuclear Disarmament: Steps must be taken which inspire confidence,” 27 October 2009. http://international.sp.nl/bericht/37934/091027-nuclear_disarmament_steps_must_be_taken_which_inspire_confidence.html.
[v] “Belgian Senate to Consider Nuclear-Weapon Ban,” Global Security Newswire, 16 October 2009.http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20091016_3998.php.
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