Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 61, October - November 2001

Summits that Cheat Security

Crawford and Bonn: two summits to make us happy, if only we were incapable of seeing past the thick cosmetics of stitch-up and spin. Smile, we're cutting our nuclear arsenals. Smile, we're winning the war against terrorism.

When Donald Rumsfeld says he would prefer Osama bin Laden killed rather than captured, I fear what kind of world is being shaped. Defeating terrorism cannot be achieved at the expense of human rights and the international rule of law. Of course, terrorists, like rapists and murderers, must be hunted down and stopped. Then they should be put on trial. Because the weapons of terrorism are torture and murder, those opposing terrorism must not resort to the torture and lawless killing of defeated opponents, however appalling their crimes.

Peace-building requires and deserves at least as many resources as war-fighting. Yet all too often nation-building and reconstruction are afforded only a fraction of the cost of the bombs that rained down so freely weeks before. Most importantly, women must be fully involved at every level of the international and national institutions that will be needed for peace-keeping, developing and renewing the infrastructures for education, agriculture, industry, the legal and justice systems, commerce and all that is required to transform Afghanistan's culture from a permanent war footing, making it a haven for masculo-militarism, profiteers, extremists and terrorists, into a just and representative culture, safe for women and families.

The Bonn Summit was a depressing start. Tokens from Rome notwithstanding, who was representing the needs, interests and ideas of Afghan women? Women Living Under Muslim Laws and the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, who have faced torture and death in their long resistance to the dictates of the religious extremists, had called repeatedly for the genuine participation of Afghan women in the peace process and reconstruction of their country. Shamefully, their call was ignored and their voices excluded.

Defeating terrorism means uprooting the permanent warriors, whose identity, interests and status lie in perpetuating conflict one way or another, as warlords, gangs, mercenaries, drug-runners and terrorists. In boardroom or slum, those whose profits derive from making and pushing weapons are part of the same problem, financially benefiting whenever their clients fight or kill. Peace won't come without disarmament.

Since September 11, there is more awareness of the risk of terrorism using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Not all are banned. There needs to be a radical rethink about the role and possession of nuclear weapons and the dangers of misplaced concepts of nuclear deterrence, recognising how the long Cold War 'balance of terror' has contributed to lowering the threshold of thinkable acts of terrorism. So when President Bush offered to reduce the US nuclear arsenal to some 1,700 to 2,200 deployed strategic weapons over the next ten years, should we not rejoice?

If the Texas handshake works better than persuading Republicans to support treaties, by 2011, America and Russia will still be deploying up to 4,400 nuclear weapons (aimed at whom?). Not counting reserves. Not counting the many 'tactical' nuclear weapons or the MIRV warheads that can be independently targeted from a single missile. Though Bush spoke of destroying warheads, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice made it clear that this particular handshake says nothing about destroying weapons removed from deployment. Meanwhile, Republicans who voted down the CTBT on grounds that its verification system (whose monitoring stations were able to detect and accurately locate the two Kursk explosions) was not 100% infallible do not seem worried about verifying this gentleman's agreement to cut arsenals. Perhaps because they know it is a sham with little real impact on US and Russian nuclear capabilities.

Genuine deep cuts, whether undertaken by treaty or handshake, would be very welcome. But not if the underlying intent is for the largest nuclear powers to rationalise their arsenals at levels still well above world overkill. And not if the handshake is mainly intended to clear away enough of the oversized, obsolete junk to make room for new weapons for modern requirements - low yield, 'surgical' mini-nukes, for example, or deep penetrating warheads to get at those command bunkers and caves in Afghanistan, as recently advocated in the Washington Times. Such warfighting additions, however, might require nuclear testing, prohibited under the CTBT, which the United States signed in 1996. And boycotted this month in New York.

REJ