EU NON-PROLIFERATION CONSORTIUM The European network of independent non-proliferation think tanks NON-PROLIFERATION PAPERS No. 42 January 2015 NUCLEAR ATTITUDES IN CENTRAL EUROPE erzsébet n. rózsa and anna péczeli I. INTRODUCTION SUMMARY For more than 60 years, the nuclear attitudes of the The nuclear policy of the four states of the Visegrád Group, four states of the Visegrád Group (V4)—the Czech both during Soviet times and since the end of the cold war, Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia—was mostly has been primarily influenced by, and dependent on, the influenced by the international security environment military alliances to which they belong. Although the framework of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was and the undertakings of the military alliances to significantly different from the procedures of the North which they belonged. During the cold war this Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), there has been a influence was rather material: the Central European strong continuity in terms of the non-nuclear pro-activism states were under the same military alliance and, as of the Visegrád Group. Since the 1960s Central European members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO), states have been quick to join the relevant arms control Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland were all covered agreements and export control regimes. Active by the Soviet nuclear umbrella. This, on the one hand, participation in this field was encouraged by the Soviet made it unnecessary to think of the nuclear option Union and is in line with the priorities of the European and, on the other hand, ruled out the possibility of Union and NATO, which guarantees that the non-nuclear engaging in nuclear developments. The dependence stance of these states is likely to remain firm in the future. of the satellite states on the Soviet Union regarding Despite a few cases in which Central European states hold conventional and nuclear energy helped to keep this slightly different positions, they mostly think alike and the situation unchallenged. key determinant of their rather conservative and cautious behaviour seems to be their NATO membership. With the end of the cold war, the Central European states’ nuclear attitude was shaped by a new political ABOUT THE AUTHORS motive: the desire to belong to the West. The changed international security environment erased nuclear Erzsébet N. Rózsa is a Senior Researcher at the Institute weapons and nuclear threats from the public, as well for Foreign Affairs and Trade in Budapest (the former as political, thinking of these nations. Further, North Hungarian Institute of International Affairs). Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership— Anna Péczeli is a PhD candidate and an Assistant Lecturer the debate on which included nuclear elements, but at Corvinus University of Budapest and she was an Adjunct which received considerable support in public opinion Fellow at the former Hungarian Institute of International polls—brought the states (including by then a separate Affairs. Czech Republic and Slovakia) under the nuclear umbrella of a considerably different military alliance, thus the non-necessity and constraint of nuclear weapons featured again. Inactivity in the nuclear weapons field was matched with activity in nuclear non-proliferation and in the verification of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, where the foreign policy of satellite states could move relatively freely even under the Soviet system. 2 eu non-proliferation consortium Since these were fields of common interest between empire, directing the foreign and security policies of the nuclear weapon states (NWS), the Soviet Union members from the centre. supported an active role by its allies. As a result, all While the WTO seemed to establish security the Central European states have become increasingly among its members by stifling internal conflicts, it involved in non-proliferation and verification. These created new threats in which the member states were activities reached their peak around and after the ‘innocent’, non-active players. Membership in the WTO democratic transition of Central and Eastern European automatically implied being exposed to the other cold states in the early 1990s. This coincided with the war antagonist, NATO, and having little say in WTO increasing importance of non-proliferation in the Euro- policies. Yet the biggest threat to members proved to be Atlantic integrations, which the former members of the the alliance leader itself, the Soviet Union. Apart from WTO desperately wanted to be part of. This desire to the imposed domination, the Soviet Union was involved belong to the West could partly explain why pro-active in all the international military conflicts affecting the Central European states have become so cautious about region between 1953 and 1968 (e.g. the 1956 Hungarian NATO-related nuclear issues and why they generally Revolution and the 1968 Prague Spring), even though represent a rather conservative viewpoint. no nuclear weapons were, or threatened to be, used in these conflicts.4 II. NUCLEAR ATTITUDES DURING THE COLD WAR The WTO and the question of nuclear weapons During the cold war the WTO provided a security framework for the whole region. However, other Prior to 1989 there was no real debate on nuclear than the Soviet Union and its military leadership, issues, which were, together with other foreign and WTO members had very little say in the guidance of security policy issues, directed by the Soviet Union. As security-related matters. For example, soldiers from Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) non-nuclear weapon Central European states never had access to concrete states (NNWS) and WTO members, Central European operational plans, they had predetermined tasks to states were excluded from the nuclear weapon option. fulfil that did not always match the equipment and However, the Soviet Union reserved the right to deploy training of a given state’s army.1 ‘Military economic its own nuclear weapons on their respective territories, decision-making, direction and co-ordination were all in order to protect its strategic interests in case of a done by Moscow.’2 nuclear war in Europe. The strongest element of the Soviet security system The deployment of Soviet nuclear weapons in was the WTO’s nuclear component. What exactly this Central Europe happened under considerably different security framework and the nuclear umbrella meant, circumstances than in the case of NATO. While United however, was not always clear. The Cuban missile crisis States nuclear weapon deployments were codified in showed that WTO members had reason to question bilateral nuclear-sharing agreements with host states, whether the Soviet Union would defend them or the Soviet Union did not ask its allies’ permission and withdraw in the face of a nuclear threat.3 It was not tried to limit their knowledge of the exact parameters an alliance in the Western sense, since it was a regime of the deployment as much as possible. In the Eastern imposed on these nations, and it behaved more like an Bloc, nuclear deployments were not debated until the end of the cold war. Open discussions in the public and in the media—mostly limited to factual information— only started after the withdrawal of nuclear weapons 1 Kőszegvári, T., ‘A magyar harci feladat a VSZ-ben. Merre had been completed and the Soviet Union was kalandoztunk volna?’ [The Hungarian fighting task in the WTO. In which direction should we have gone?], HVG, 12 July 1997, pp.70–73. disintegrated. 2 Szemerkényi, R., ‘Civilianisation of Armaments Industries for The first official recognitions of these deployments Social Development: Economic, Political and Technical Dimensions. came in 1990. In a June 1990 human rights meeting The Central European Case’, Paper presented at the FRIENDS of the Conference for Security and Cooperation International Seminar on Nuclear Disarmament and Conventional Arms Control Including Light Weapons, 28–30 Oct. 1996, Islamabad, p. 2. 3 The Cuban missile crisis in Oct. 1962 was a 13-day standoff between 4 Dunay, P., ‘Whence the threat to peace in Europe?’, ed. I. Gambles, A the United States and Soviet leaders over the Soviet Union’s installation Lasting Peace in Central Europe?, Chaillot Paper no. 20 (WEU Institute of nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. for Security Studies: Paris, Oct. 1995), pp. 40–60. nuclear attitudes in central europe 3 in Europe (CSCE) held in Copenhagen, the Soviet the Governments of the USSR and CSSR on Measures Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevarnadze, declared that to Increase the Combat Readiness of Missile Forces, 60 tactical missile launchers, more than 250 nuclear which was signed in December 1965 by the Soviet artillery pieces and 1500 nuclear warheads would be Defence Minister, Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, and withdrawn from Central Europe—adding up to a total his Czechoslovak counterpart, Army-General Bohumir reduction of 140 launchers and 3200 nuclear artillery Lomsky.9 The treaty served as the legal framework for pieces by the end of the year.5 These numbers were the Soviet Union to station nuclear-tipped missiles in repeated by the Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesperson, the territory of Czechoslovakia and to construct three Gennady Gerasimov, later that month.6 In October nuclear storage facilities for Soviet nuclear warheads. 1990, as a result of these reductions, the Soviet Army The stationing of Soviet nuclear weapons allegedly Chief of Staff, General Mikhail Moiseyev, made a started in 1968 as ‘brotherly assistance to help keep statement during a visit to Washington that the Soviet the communist hardliners in power’.10 However, the Union had withdrawn all nuclear weapons deployed stationing was kept as secret as possible and only after in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.7 This statement was the cold war was it confirmed by the last commander later confirmed by the Speaker of the Soviet Ministry of the Soviet forces in Czechoslovakia, Eduard of Defence, who admitted that the Soviet Union stored Vorobyov. In 2008 the last Czechoslovak communist nuclear weapons—in what it saw as insignificant Chief of General Staff and the first democratic Defence quantities—in Central Europe in the framework of the Minister, General Miroslav Vacek, also admitted that WTO.