GCSP Geneva Papers 17 17 17 START Ends: START How to Start Again? START Ends: How to Start Again? Multilateral Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Challenges Today; Between High Hopes and Expectations and the Missing of Mutual Confidence Dr Markku REIMAA, Ambassador, ret. March 2010 START Ends: How to Start Again? Multilateral Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Challenges Today; Between High Hopes and Expectations and the Missing of Mutual Confidence The opinions and views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect the position of the Swiss authorities or the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Copyright © Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 2010 START Ends: How to Start Again? Multilateral Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Challenges Today; Between High Hopes and Expectations and the Missing of Mutual Confidence Dr Markku REIMAA, Ambassador, ret.1* March 2010 *Ambassador Markku Reimaa, b.1943, has been a Finnish diplomat since 1970. Throughout 1973-1990 he served mainly in the context of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), notably as Ambassador in the Vienna Follow-up Meeting in 1986-89. As Finnish Disarmament Ambassador in Geneva at the Conference on Disarmament 1997-2005, he participated ia. in the Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference in 2001 and the NPT Review Conferences in 2000 and 2005, coordinating the CCW negotiations on Mines Other than Anti-Personel Mines (MOTAPM) in 2004-2005. He was an associate faculty member of the GCSP in Geneva in February-March 2010. This report reflects the personal opinions and views of the author. The author wishes to thank Mr Joe Brady for his English editing contribution. The Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) The Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) offers a valuable forum to a world in a continuous search for peace and security. Our mandate is to promote independent policy dialogue and understanding across cultures and, through capacity building, serve to stabilise regions in crisis, transition, and reconstruction. L’Esprit de Genève In the early 16th Century, Geneva established its longstanding iden- tity as a city of sanctuary and refuge for ideas and beliefs, and for the people who espoused them. Initially embracing and protecting victims of religious persecution during the Reformation, this tradition of mutual tolerance and openness has continued into the 21st century. With its spirit of tolerance, neutrality and discretion, Geneva has become a space where people with differences can meet for open dialogue about critical issues. The Geneva Papers The Geneva Papers promote a vital dialogue on timely and cutting-edge global security issues. The series showcases new thinking about security issues writ large – ranging from human security to geopolitical analysis. Persistent and emerging security challenges are explored through the multiple viewpoints and areas of expertise represented in GCSP confer- ence proceedings and by speaker presentations. The Papers offer innovative analyses, case studies and policy prescrip- tions, with their critiques, to encourage on-going discussion both within international Geneva and the wider global community. 2 GCSP Geneva Paper 17 GCSP Geneva Paper 17 3 4 GCSP Geneva Paper 17 Table of Contents START Ends: How to Start again?...........................................................7 Overall Security Environment................................................................9 Historical Perspective...........................................................................13 The End of East- West Confrontation.....................................................17 Lessons Learned...................................................................................21 China, India, Pakistan, Israel.................................................................23 North Korea, Iran.................................................................................29 Step by Step Process of Confidence-Building........................................33 Nuclear -Weapon -Free Zones...............................................................37 The Role of the UN General Assembly First Committee........................41 Globalisation and the Fight Against Terrorism.......................................43 A Compliance Measure: Always a Problem?..........................................47 Conference on Disarmament: Why in the Focus?.................................49 Outer Space: Looking for the Future....................................................53 How to Promote the Disarmament Cause?............................................55 Do We Need a New Nuclear Ban Convention?......................................59 More Disarmament PR Needed.............................................................65 How to Measure Progress?....................................................................67 Do Personalities in Charge Matter?.......................................................72 How to Proceed?..................................................................................75 The World is More Complex Today than Yesterday................................77 List of Abbreviations.............................................................................80 GCSP Geneva Paper 17 5 6 GCSP Geneva Paper 17 START Ends: How to Start Again? The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, signed in 1991 between the United States and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, expired in December 2009. In order to keep the past achievements valid and in force, the two parties have engaged in updating the key provisions of that treaty. When finalised, this may have positive repercussions in the wider world. Pending the final conclusion, it will have an immediate impact on the forthcoming NPT Review Conference in May 2010 and its deliberations. Even though it is widely expected that a positive outcome is at hand, the result will nevertheless be presented as a new example of the two superpowers’ responsibility as regards the commitments made in the NPT 40 years ago. The focus in the review conference discussions could be turned to other participants. GCSP Geneva Paper 17 7 8 GCSP Geneva Paper 17 Overall Security Environment The global security environment today is in many respects very different from what it was 50 years ago. In the 1960s the European map still showed many concrete traces of the Second World War. The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, was one visible example of the East-West divide. National security was protected mainly by armaments, not by mutually- enhancing confidence-building treaties. National defence doctrines were well-kept secrets. China’s testing of its first atomic bomb in October 1964 it changed many premises and perceptions. One more nuclear power had announced its readiness to join the club of real superpowers, even though the other pa- rameters for reaching that status were still far behind credible standards. The world became multipolar, divided by nuclear weapons. But the security situation was still dominated by European considerations. Political leaders in Washington and Moscow decided to open dia- logue on nuclear disarmament. Negotiations began in Geneva on a non- proliferation agreement to strengthen the prohibition of the prolifera- tion of nuclear weapons. Based on an initiative by Ireland in 1964, the two superpowers came to New York with their own texts in 1967. Final bargaining was conducted between the two and representatives of the nonaligned movement. Finland, represented by UN Ambassador Max GCSP Geneva Paper 17 9 Jakobson, was instrumental in chairing the meeting and, with the support of like-minded delegations, in spring 1968 the text of the treaty was finalised. On 8 May 1968, when everything was ready, Jakobson said: “The task of making a treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons is perhaps the most difficult ever undertaken by multilateral diplomacy. It goes to the heart of the strategies of the great powers and security of all states. At the same time the result also affects the prestige and pride of all nations”. Several internationally-binding treaties and agreements carry similar features. They have been negotiated with the help of the conditions then existing. Every multilateral treaty contains plenty of compromises, which can be interpreted afterwards with arguments different to those originally agreed to. The NPT was also a multipurpose instrument, an important element in the European security architecture. Although the German question was still totally open, and although the Soviet Union, with its friends, invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968, perhaps the overriding task in the early 1970s was to obtain ratification of the NPT by the Federal Re- public of Germany (FRG). The final items for negotiation were related to the control regime. When the final text was in accordance with the EURATOM provisions and its relationship with the IAEA, Italy and the FRG were able to come on board the NPT without major problems. Not a UN member at the time, China’s voice was brought to the UN members’ knowledge via Albania. The Albanian representative said that the NPT was a confirmation of the “holy alliance between the imperi- alistic United States and revisionist Soviet Union in order to guarantee global hegemony by those two states”. France was silent in the debate. Paris did not openly oppose the treaty but did not see great political importance in it at that time. Today we have an astoundingly similar constellation around the NPT and the forthcoming review conference