International Seminar on Disarmament

Lima, Perú
Dec-1999

THE STATE OF NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT AND
ARMS CONTROL AT THE END OF THE CENTURY;
A EUROPEAN VIEW
Ambassador Pasi Patokallio

Mr. Chairman,

I wish to thank you personally, OPANAL, the Government of Peru and the UN for organizing this international seminar on important issues ranging from small arms to nuclear disarmament.

Let me begin by a caveat. What follows is a European view, not the European Union view. The EU does not in fact have any one view on the issues at hand. This is therefore the personal view of a diplomat from an EU country.

I happened to read recently two articles by two well-known figures associated, in their own way, with nuclear disarmament and arms control, Miguel Marin-Bosch and Henry Kissinger. Marin-Boschïs article appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists last year, Kissingerïs article just the other day in the Washington Post.

To me, these two articles are perfect illustrations of how differently the state of nuclear disarmament and arms control are perceived at the end of this century. The authors even use different terminology: Marin-Bosch never speaks of arms control, Kissinger never mentions disarmament.

To Marin-Bosch, there was never any legal or moral justification for nuclear weapons. These weapons are illegal and ought to be eliminated, the sooner the better. Having stated his premise, Marin-Bosch goes on to examine what he calls the growing NATO-ization of the European Union's foreign and defence policies and to argue that, with few exceptions, membership of the European Union has come to mean embracing NATO's pro-nuclear posture. I take issue with his characterizations and conclusions but will not do so on this occasion.

The article gives the impression that the end of the Cold War has not made much of a difference - except that it has robbed the West of any military justification for nuclear weapons as well. The great divide between the nuclear haves and the nuclear have-nots remains, just as it did during the Cold War.

To Kissinger, on the other hand, nuclear arms control is a tool of statecraft, particularly useful in managing the past US-Soviet relationship. Its purpose was limited: to reduce the dangers of surprise attack, accidental war or war by momentum, the kind that caused World War I. This approach always retained the option of modernization of nuclear weapons and took no risks with verification, ie relied on so-called national technical means only.

To Kissinger, the end of the Cold War has basically transformed global strategic conditions and the nature of arms control as heretofore conceived. The threat is now proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to countries that reject any common norms and seek nuclear weapons to blackmail the rest of the world. The countries of most concern have neither signed the CTBT nor would they be constrained by it if they did sign.

Kissinger is not alone in the broad thrust of his views. Already in 1992, the Security Council of the United Nations, meeting at the highest political level, stated that proliferation of weapons of mass destruction constitutes a threat to international peace and security. In 1997, the US Department of Defense concluded that the threat or use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons is a likely condition of future warfare and could occur at its early stages.

In my view, too, the end of the Cold War has made a huge difference. That difference is overwhelmingly to the good. The nuclear arms race as all of us knew it for so long is over. Nuclear weapons have been vastly reduced, and continue to be reduced. The existential threat of a global nuclear war has disappeared.

The challenge now in terms of nuclear disarmament is to preserve and, where necessary, adapt the treaty-based multilateral approach of the Cold War era to changing global conditions dominated by the threat of proliferation. The cornerstone of that approach, the NPT, is just as important, if not more important, than it was thirty years ago.

The Finnish view of nuclear disarmament has always been practical and incremental. We have supported what we have seen as achievable at any given time, and in stages if necessary. We have always been enemies of the best if that meant sacrificing the good. We supported the NPT in 1968. We supported its indefinite and unconditional extension in 1995. We support the NPT now. What counts are results in terms of more stability and security, not ideological purity in the cause of disarmament. The NPT has delivered stability and security for non-nuclear-weapon states. A world free of nuclear weapons, however desirable, is not achievable now or in the foreseeable future. Therefore, the question for the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond is one of management, not of final disposal.

Unilateralism now tempts both protagonists of the Cold War, albeit for different reasons. This is a danger. Unilateral action is by definition reversible. It is also often unverifiable. Its general effect is to corrode trust in the efficacy of multilateral action and institutions. In the case of the United States, Exhibit A is the Senate refusal to ratify the CTBT. Exhibit B is the continuing effort to modify the ABM treaty.

Still, it has to be admitted that there were and are some valid concerns with the CTBT, such as verifiability of possible violations of the treaty through low-yield explosions given rapidly changing technology. One certainly hopes that these concerns can be addressed so that the US would ratify, and the CTBT would become a dynamic instrument in support of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

The ABM treaty, on the other hand, is essentially a bilateral undertaking reflecting the conditions of the early 1970s. For the US, some of its rationale seems to have disappeared For Russia, this is not the case as it is technologically and financially less able to build a national missile defence. Moreover, Russia seems to be less concerned over the specific proliferators the US has in mind.

Europeans are concerned about the fate of the CTBT and of the ABM treaty. These treaties are seen, along with the NPT, as cornerstones of international stability. Moreover, the US has been a driving force in negotiating both treaties. If the US pulls back from them, what credibility is there to pursue new negotiations such as verification of the Biological Weapons Convention or the fissile material cutoff?

There is also a deeper concern which, I would submit, has less to do with these treaties and more with the sense of decoupling from US security interests. Would national missile defence in the US lead to a situation of two different layers of security, one for the US, another for Europe? Transatlantic ties have been and continue to be invaluable for European security and stability.

Russia, too, has its incentives to go unilateral on nuclear weapons. The reasons have much to do with the deep social and economic crisis gripping Russia. Understandably, Russia wants to maintain its status as a world power. Nuclear weapons are seen as a relatively cheap way to do that. The role of nuclear weapons in Russian defence thinking is therefore growing, not diminishing as in the West. First use is now declared to be an option. And it seems to be a real option unlike the Soviet no-first-use pledge which was always seen as unreal. Even battlefield use of tactical nuclear weapons is not excluded in some comments.

These developments, coupled with the emergence of India and Pakistan as states with nuclear weapons, make it unlikely that any approach based on calling for a universal and multilaterally negotiated legally binding instrument to rid the world of nuclear weapons would succeed. Nor do these developments make declaratory steps such as multilateral agreements on no-first-use of nuclear weapons or on negative security assurances to the non-nuclear-weapon states any more likely than heretofore.

What these developments do require are continued efforts to make sure that nuclear weapon reductions continue, that nuclear testing is not resumed, that production of fissile material for weapons purposes is capped and that more attention is paid to missile proliferation and tactical nuclear weapons. All of these efforts would be underpinned by an early entry into force of the START-2 treaty, followed by negotiation of a START-3 treaty.

Treaty-based multilateral nuclear disarmament and arms control must remain a vital tool in the service of international security and stability.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman