Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 67, October - November 2002

Editorial

A Farewell to Acronym but not to Disarmament

By Rebecca Johnson

This issue of Disarmament Diplomacy marks the end of the Acronym era and the transfer of the journal to the auspices of the Simons Centre for Peace and Disarmament Studies at the Liu Institute, where I will take up a new post as Director.

The Simons Centre, named for its Founding Director, Jennifer Simons, is one of four centres currently housed in the Liu Institute for Global Studies: the others are the Centre for Human Security, the Centre for Public Opinion and Democracy, and the Centre for International Relations. Led by its Director and Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Axworthy, former Foreign Minister of Canada, the Liu Institute was established to provide a nexus between the academic world and the real world, combining ideas and action by bringing a range of different opinion-formers and decision-makers together: scholars, business people, governments, citizen's groups, and the media. At the heart of the Liu Institute is the belief that citizens can have a profound impact on how global issues are resolved.

The move to Vancouver offers many opportunities. Without losing our US-European expertise, we can give greater emphasis to Asia-Pacific concerns. We will prioritise the promotion of security in outer space, while continuing to report on and encourage multilateral disarmament efforts across the full range of issues, from WMD to small arms.

Although excited by the new challenges, we are naturally sad to see Acronym go down, though we are ensuring that the best is saved, including the facilitation of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation. It is a dismaying reflection on the state of non-governmental funding that despite our very effective (and cost-effective) work with governments, international organisations and NGOs over the past eight years, Acronym has found it impossible to meet the increasingly heavy demands of fundraising and administration without either losing part of our independence or diverting over-stretched resources from research and core activities. Loss of foundation revenue due to declining stock values is one problem. More important has been the shift in priorities from multilateral disarmament, arms control and security-building, with some funders becoming frustrated at the paucity of irreversible "results" and the prospects for significant progress under present political conditions.

Disarmament is unlike many environmental or development issues, where incremental progress can often be represented in tangible outcomes - the closure of a polluting factory, the adoption of new environmental regulations, the building of wells, schools or field hospitals, etc. Such gains, however, can sometimes give the appearance of progress without necessarily addressing underlying causes or changing the deep structures and practices that enable, for example, polluting factories to be built in regions or countries less capable of resisting the dictates of globalised big business.

This tension between the tangible and the fundamental pervades the international security agenda. Because of continuing doctrines and beliefs that weapons and the threat of war are essential for state security, disarmament cannot be accomplished as a linear process, with each step leading to the next. Since fundamental ideologies about force and power have to be dislodged in order for alternative approaches to gain a foothold, disarmament is a slow, jerky process, seeking to loosen prevailing tendencies while maintaining the pursuit of basic objectives. Disarmament is different from arms control, which may offer short-term management solutions favouring dominant states. Disarmament is essential to conflict resolution, peacekeeping, nation-building and development, environmental protection, crime prevention, and a range of related human rights, security and civil governance issues. Yet it is the unwanted poor relative of the international system, always lagging behind in resources and attention. The current annual budget of the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs is less than $15.5 million: the equivalent of the cost of one underground nuclear test explosion, should the United States resume nuclear testing.

Faced with the Bush administration's general posture on multilateralism and disarmament diplomacy, the temptations of cynicism are high. But in these conditions, civil society work on disarmament is all the more vital, to counteract the false security of rampant militarism and lay the groundwork for deeper alternatives to take root.

To keep Acronym going, we risked becoming trapped by our institutional requirements, unable to make a difference in the real world. We hope that by moving to the Liu Institute we can save - and develop - the best of our work, in conditions of greater institutional support and backed by a great team of scholars and organisers. This way, we can pursue disarmament in its rightful context, integrated with the search for human and environmental security, democracy and good governance.

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© 2002 The Acronym Institute.