Disarming Conflict

Don’t take my word for it, ask Henry Kissinger.

Mr. Kissinger’s language is restrained, but if the quintessential Cold Warrior is even modestly worried it’s time to for the rest of us to sit up and take notice. For the second year running Kissinger[i] is warning that current nuclear disarmament and risk reduction measures “are not adequate to the danger.” In particular he calls for de-alerting arsenals – “Take steps to increase the warning and decision times for the launch of all nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, thereby reducing risks of accidental pr unauthorized attacks. Reliance on launch procedures that deny command authorities sufficient time to make careful and prudent decisions is unnecessary and dangerous in today’s environment.”

It is no accident that the warning comes at a time when energy for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation is at a dangerously low ebb. Nuclear weapon states are in flagrant denial of their disarmament obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); instead they focus on elaborating new nuclear use doctrines and weapons modernization. Regions of chronic conflict – the Middle East, South Asia, and Northeast Asia – have become the dangerous focal points of proliferation, and as the stability of Pakistan comes increasingly into question, so too does the fate of its nuclear arsenal. A growing demand for nuclear energy is placing extraordinary strains on global safeguard mechanisms.

And the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, the UN’s only disarmament negotiating forum, remains deadlocked after a scandalous decade of inaction.

Nuclear arsenals are still declining from their Cold War peak of 70,000, but there are still 25000 of these dangerous, not to mention expensive and difficult to track, weapons. They offer no solution to any of the world’s pressing challenges. They can deliver on only one promise: to destroy that which is most precious to humankind – life itself and the global ecosystem on which all life depends.

Of all the daunting challenges the human community faces – environment and climate change, poverty, regional conflicts – the nuclear threat should be the easiest to end. There is no economic downside to eliminating nucler weapons; there is no environmental price to pay, and no negative social fallout to worry about.

The diplomats, prodded by persistent social movements, have actually done much of their job. They have, in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, already created the legal instrument by which nuclear arms are to be eliminated. They have even agreed on the concrete, practical steps that must be taken to begin the only way out of the current nuclear danger -- that is the sure and liberating march toward the elimination of all the world’s nuclear arsenals, based on the recognition that a world divided into nuclear weapons “haves” and “have nots” is a world of perpetual instability teetering on the brink of annihilation.

Pulling back from that brink now requires simply the political will to act on the agreed disarmament agenda – action that, once taken, will yield immediate security, economic, environmental, and social benefits.

Canada has in the past made important contributions to advancing the disarmament agenda, through diplomacy as well as civil society advocacy. Canadians overwhelmingly favour, and successive governments have re-affirmed, a commitment to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

But it is not an unblemished record. While calling on states like N. Korea, India, Israel, and Pakistan to immediately eliminate their nuclear arsenals, Canada continues to affirm the nuclear retentionist policy of NATO, which insists that “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 current government has made a point of prominently affirming nuclear deterrence, but its commitment to nuclear disarmament is less obvious. Prime Minister Harper has yet to make a single clear statement in support of nuclear disarmament and the elimination of all nuclear arsenals.

But now, as the international community gets focused on preparations for the make or break 2010 NPT Review Conference, it is time for Canada to articulate a consistent and realistic approach to promoting the nuclear disarmament the world needs. More on the details of a Canadian disarmament agenda soon.