Disarmament Diplomacy

Editor's Introduction

In the fractured, increasingly violent post-9/11 world of international terrorism, resurgent militarism and political fanaticism, the search for peace and disarmament through diplomatic means can seem - and is often presented - as anachronistic, simplistic, and even passé.

This edition of Disarmament Diplomacy details the latest developments rocking the global arms control regime: deepening controversy over the decision of the US, UK and others to override a UN weapons inspections process in Iraq; mounting anxiety over Pyongyang's brazen defiance of its international non-proliferation obligations; growing concern over Iran's reluctance to embrace full nuclear transparency; and domestic and international consternation at the willingness of the Bush administration to explore options for new nuclear weapon designs and capabilities.

The journal, however, also maintains its focus on ongoing diplomatic efforts to reduce or eliminate threats to global stability and international security. Peter Batchelor, Project Director of the Small Arms Survey, reports from UN headquarters in New York on the mixed outcome of the First Biennial Meeting of States to consider the implementation of the 2001 Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. Batchelor characterises the meeting "as an essential yet still modest step in dealing in concrete terms with the global scourge of small arms". The merits of different initiatives to strengthen international controls on ballistic missiles are considered by W. Pal S. Sidhu, Senior Associate at the International Peace Academy (IPA), and Christophe Carle, Deputy Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). From the University of Southampton, Mark Smith provides a progress report on one of these initiatives, the recently-launched Hague Code of Conduct (HCoC) on Ballistic Missile Proliferation.

The role of missile defence in countering the threat from ballistic missiles has long been a subject of fierce dispute. With the White House pressing full steam ahead with the development and deployment of an ambitious range of unproven capabilities, the pressure on key US allies to participate in the programme has reached new heights. Disarmament analyst Nicola Butler examines the recent decision of the British government to lend its crucial political and practical support to the system - a decision, she argues, motivated less from belief in the merits of missile defence than from the determination of Prime Minister Tony Blair to remain, in his words, "the closest ally of the United States".

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© 2003 The Acronym Institute.