Disarmament Diplomacy
Issue No. 89, Winter 2008
In the News
Toward a nuclear-free world: a German view
By Helmut Schmidt, Richard von Weizsäcker, Egon Bahr and
Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
In 2007 Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry and Sam
Nunn issued an appeal for a world free of nuclear weapons.
Their knowledge and experience as respected secretaries of state
and defense and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee
under Republican and Democrat administrations gave their concerns
about the growing nuclear threat special weight.
Being realists, they knew that the abolition of all nuclear
weapons could only be achieved gradually, and therefore they
proposed urgent practical steps aimed at realizing this vision.
The appeal met with broad approval and prominent support in the
United States; as far as we know no supporting decisions by
European governments were issued.
Our responses takes into account Germany's expectations of the
incoming Obama administration. Our century's keyword is
cooperation. No global problem - be it the issue of environment and
climate protection, providing for the energy needs of a growing
world population or tackling the financial crisis - can be resolved
by confrontation or the use of military force. America bears a
special and indispensable responsibility.
This is all the more true when the number of countries
possessing nuclear weapons or acquiring the capability to produce
such weapons - and thus the raw material for terrorism on a
catastrophic scale - is increasing. At the same time, existing
nuclear-weapon states are developing new nuclear arms.
We unreservedly support the call by Messrs. Kissinger, Schultz,
Perry and Nunn for a turnaround on nuclear policy, and not only in
their country. This applies in particular to the following
proposals:
- The vision of a world free of the nuclear threat, as developed
by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, must be
rekindled.
- Negotiations aimed at drastically reducing the number of
nuclear weapons must begin, initially between the United States and
Russia, the countries with the largest number of warheads, in order
to win over the other countries possessing such weapons.
- The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) must be greatly
reinforced.
- America should ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban
Treaty.
- All short-range nuclear weapons must be destroyed.
From Germany's point of view it must be added:
-The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expires this year.
Its extension is the most urgent item on the agenda for Washington
and Moscow.
- It will be vital to the credibility of the 2010 NPT Review
Conference that nuclear-weapon states finally keep their promise
under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to reduce their nuclear
arsenals.
- The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty must be restored.
Outer space may only be used for peaceful purposes.
Cooperation in the interests of shared security enabled
Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gorbachev to eliminate the mutual
threat posed by medium-range nuclear missiles at the end of the
Cold War and, in 1990, to undertake the largest-ever conventional
disarmament effort. In more than 18 years since then, what we now
call the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) has
become the basis for Europe's stability. To this day it continues
to address the interests of all concerned.
That stability has been strong and reliable enough to withstand
German reunification and the end of the Warsaw Pact, to survive the
implosion of the Soviet Union, to enable Baltic States to regain
their sovereignty and to stand up to NATO and EU enlargement and
the realities of the world at the beginning of 2009.
These arrangements would be jeopardized for the first time by
the American desire to station missiles and a radar system on
extra-territorial bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, on NATO's
eastern border.
A return to the era of confrontation, leading to a new arms race
and new tension, can be best avoided by an agreement on missile
defenses that would also serve the interests of NATO and the EU -
that is, a restored ABM Treaty. This would also make it easier to
adapt the CFE Treaty and pave the way for a greater dimension in
arms controls.
Barack Obama called in Berlin for Cold War mindsets to be
overcome. This ties in with the ideas discussed following the end
of the Cold War under the motto, "security stretching from
Vancouver to Vladivostok." Gorbachev was unable to realize his
vision of a European house; Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has
now called for a new pan-European security structure.
We recommend giving this opportunity careful consideration.
Security and stability for the northern hemisphere can only be
achieved through stable and reliable cooperation among America,
Russia, Europe and China. This cooperation would respect existing
NATO, European Union and Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) agreements and, if necessary, take its own
institutional shape. Stable security in the northern hemisphere
would certainly defuse global crises and make them easier to
resolve.
Serious endeavors by the United States and Russia toward a
nuclear-weapons-free world would make it easier to reach an
agreement on adequate behavior with all other nuclear-weapon
states, regardless whether they are permanent members of the UN
Security Council. A spirit of cooperation could spread from the
Middle East via Iran to East Asia.
Due to its policy of détente, backed up by its allies,
Germany created the preconditions for its self-determination.
Germany owes its peaceful reunification to the "2+4 Treaty" (signed
in 1990 by East and West Germany and the four occupying powers: the
U.S., Soviet Union, Britain and France) in which the principle of
cooperation across former borders proved its worth.
The treaty enabled historic progress to be made on disarmament
and arms control for Europe as a whole. One result was the
NATO-Russia Council, which can only be fully effective in a spirit
of cooperation. Relics from the age of confrontation are no longer
adequate for our new century.
Partnership fits in badly with the still-active NATO and Russian
doctrine of nuclear first use, even if neither side is being
attacked with such arms. A general non-first-use treaty between the
nuclear-weapon states would be an urgently-needed step.
Germany, which has renounced the use of nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons, has every reason to call on the nuclear-weapon
states not to use nuclear weapons against countries not possessing
such arms. We are also of the opinion that all remaining U.S.
nuclear warheads should be withdrawn from German territory.
Cooperation, our century's keyword, and secure stability in the
northern hemisphere can become milestones on the route to a
nuclear-weapon-free world.
This is our answer to the appeal issued by Messrs. Kissinger,
Schultz, Perry and Nunn.
First published in German in the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung and then in English in the International Herald Tribune, 9
January 2009.
The writers all held high office in the Federal Republic of
Germany: Helmut Schmidt, a Social Democrat, was chancellor
1974-1982; Richard von Weizsäcker, a Christian Democrat, was
president 1984-1994; Egon Bahr, a minister in Social Democratic
governments, was an architect of the policy of "ostpolitik";
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, of the Free Democrats, was foreign minister
1974-1992.
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