INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF
ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS
FOR GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
NEWSLETTER No. 24
CONTENTS
NATO expansion to the South, Bahig Nassar
NATO expansion: costs and Implications, Carl Conetta
NATO expansion and European security, Jiri Matousek
New security concerns and approaches (workshop proceedings announcement)
Pridneprovie cleaner production centre, William Zadorsky
Scientists demand NATO: No first use of nuclear weapons, Wolfgang Liebert et al.
Current state of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization
Scientific meeting "Space use and ethics"
Welcome to the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference, Graça Machel et al.
A word from the chairman, Armin Tenner
Nuclear policy and security (conference announcement)
Data Bank "Sustainable development - institutions and experts in Europe"
and
US NUCLEAR STRATEGY TO MAINTAIN WORLD ORDER
Bahig Nassar
Bahig Nassar is Coordinator of the Arab Coordination Center of NGO (ACC), Cairo, Egypt.
He can be reached at Giza: Tel: +, E-mail:
1. At the time of confrontation between the US and the former USSR, the two nations posed deadly threats to the national security of the countries of both East and West by targeting their nuclear weapons at each other. Their quest to defend their interests in other regions ranked second on the their agenda. Latin America, Africa and Asia were secondary theaters while Europe and the US were the main arena of nuclear confrontation. However, these deadly threats gradually disappeared since the dismantling of the Soviet Union. Consequently, the question of defending and promoting the vital interests of the US and other Western countries assumes paramount importance. It is now the main target of their global strategy.
As a result of this development, nuclear weapons proliferation and arms build up receded in the North leading to the conclusion of several disarmament agreements. Also NGOs, particularly those in the US and Europe, initiated a program to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2000.
Contrary to this trend, nuclear proliferation, military build up and military interventions, conflicts and clashes, internal and among states, continued to escalate in various regions in the South, mainly in the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, Africa, the Indian Ocean and the North West Pacific. These contradictory developments reflect the concerns of the US and the European countries over their vital interests worldwide.
2. In addition to the traditional vital interests, new areas of vital interests and challenges emerged after the termination of the cold war, inducing the US to escalate its military build up, conventional and nonconventional, in many regions in the South. Among them are the following:
Current efforts of Arab countries to establish an Arab Free Market and integrate their national economies are a challenge to the US domination over the Arab oil of the Gulf Area. This challenge is also imminent as a result of the efforts now underway to establish a system of partnership between Mediterranean countries in the South and the Middle East (mainly Arab countries), and members of the European Union, which are the main consumers of this oil.
3. To defend its interests under these new conditions, the US took the following military measures:
4. To implement this strategy, military alliances together with their missions underwent many changes. They are the major tools and mechanisms by which the US and its allies put their new policies into practice.
The US-Japan military alliance was strengthened, giving Japan new military tasks on the eastern part of the Pacific with the aim of pressuring China. At the same time, US forces in Japan retain their nuclear capability.
NATO expanded to the East close to the territories of Russia, after admitting Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary as members. It retains its nuclear options with the deployment of nuclear weapons in seven European states. The aim of this expansion is to put an end to the Russian resistance against US designs to promote its influence in other regions and countries, particularly in the former Soviet Republics.
However, the main drive of Western armed forces had been to the south. Already, the nuclear capable Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) under US Central Command had strengthened its military sway over the Gulf area and the Indian Ocean since the end of the war against Iraq. The power of its air, land and naval nuclear units is capable of destroying the entire world. Operations assigned to them cover vast areas of Southwest Asia, from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian sub-continent with Diego Garcia Island as its central base. At the same time, the US made every effort to link the RDF operations with NATO in the North.
Speaking about cooperation amongst NATO member states in support of RDF operations, Weinberger, then US Secretary of Defense, stated: "We and our NATO allies are studying ways for the allies to compensate in Europe for any diversion of US NATO-oriented forces to South West Asia." This diversion from Europe to the Middle East (ME) had been intensively undertaken during the Gulf war against Iraq. Consequently, deep and organic links tightening the relation between the NATO Command in Europe and the US Central Command in Southwest Asia had been established after this war.
5. On its eastern flank, NATO will be a deterrent force to limit political options available to Russia. But in the South, the role of NATO forces with their nuclear units will not be confined to deterrence to pressure other countries, but also will be a war-fighting force to defend the vital interests of the big powers. In this context, new missions were assigned to the US nuclear-capable sixth fleet of the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to its expansion to the Black Sea, it will be the floating carrier of NATO operations to the South.
Therefore, the NATO expansion to the East and its links with USCENTCOM in the South are assuming global dimensions. Both are no longer military edifices to confront Soviet "threats." Their function, at present, is to support the New World Order dominated by the USA. Together with the US alliance with Japan and its military build up in the Pacific, they are supposed to attain four targets:
Among all these structures, NATO will take the central role in the US global strategy designed to maintain World Order.
6. The US strategy which retains "'the first use" option of nuclear weapons is totally illegal. According to the opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered on July 8, 1996, the use and the threat of use of nuclear weapons are generally illegal. However, ICJ refused to deliver any judgment on "extreme circumstance of self defense, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake." But the insistence of the US and its allies to retain the nuclear option has no relation to any circumstance in which their very survival is at stake. The only mission of these weapons, at present, is to threaten other countries, mainly NNWSs in the South, in order to protect the interests of their transnationals.
The ICJ opinion, together with the report of the Canberra Commission, the New Agenda Coalition (NAM) positions on nuclear disarmament, the declaration of the 60 active and retired high ranking military officers and the NGOs Statement of April 25, 1995, to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2000, are effective tools to promote the campaigns against the US nuclear strategy and to free the world from nuclear weapons. However, other steps are very much needed to attain this end. Among them are:
Efforts designed to take these steps are tightly linked with those made to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2000 (or beyond). The more NGOs advance on one of the two tracks the more the targets of the other are likely to be achieved.
NATO Expansion: Costs and Implications
Carl Conetta
Carl Conetta is associated with The Project on Defense Alternatives, The Commonwealth Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA.
The present paper was presented in Cambridge in July 1998. It is part of the pamphlet "New Security Concerns and Approaches," published by INES in November 1998.
Introduction
The expansion of NATO is as fateful an initiative as any undertaken in the past 200 years, calling to mind the decisions made at the 1814 Congress of Vienna and at Versailles in 1919. It is peculiar and disconcerting, then, that on the eve of decision the questions this initiative inspires remain so elementary: Why expansion? And, To what effect?
For the Clinton administration NATO expansion has less to do with Russia than with Germany, and more to do with the Balkan intervention and NATO operations outside Europe than with either Germany or Russia. A collision with Russia is not the policys aim, although it may be its price.
Our focus today is on the costs and effects of expansion, but in order to evaluate we need to examine the "whys" of expansion. As former US ambassador Jonathan Dean has pointed out, NATO expansion would probably not have gone forward if not for Americas determined advocacy and pressure. So I will on why and how official American policy became fixated on NATO expansion.
For the United States NATO expansion is part of an effort to forge a "new deal" with Europe whose aim is to reduce the costs and enhance the benefits to the US of its involvement in Europe. Specifically, America has sought to:
Initially this deal did not necessarily encompass NATO expansion and certainly did not involve an American willingness to launch major operations in the Balkans. However, several events coincided to alter the proposed American deal and its context:
First, there was the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, its descent into war, and the failure of Western European governments to deal effectively and in a unified way with these developments. Indeed, American leaders felt that the ways some allies notably Germany dealt with the crisis only made matters worse.
Second, American policymakers became concerned about the relative growth of German influence in the East. German aid and trade had come to substitute for a more broadly based and balanced European outreach to the East, which America had favored. Indeed, Germany not only developed profound economic ties with key Eastern countries, but also came to share and voice some of their security concerns. What US policymakers sought to avoid was the development of a semi-independent policy bloc encompassing the Visegrad group and centered on Germany.
During the course of the Clinton Administration US officials came to appreciate that their insistence on NATO primacy and American leadership within it had little force if the United States refused to reaffirm its commitment by putting troops on the ground in the Balkans. This, of course, ran counter to the original American vision of a new deal. Indeed, nothing could be more at variance with its purpose: for the first time in 50 years the United States would send ground troops into the midst of a European conflict.
Having made the decision to intervene, however, the United States wanted institutional assurance of greater control over future West European (and especially German) policy toward the East. NATO expansion is meant to provide that assurance by co-opting the concerns of the Visegrad group and the relationships that Germany has developed with it.
Many advocates of expansion promote it as a means of stabilizing Eastern Europe. More accurately, the initiative aims to stabilize Western policy toward the East under American leadership. Expansion is supposed to insure that when trouble brews in the future, decisions about how to respond will occur in NATOs chambers first and foremost, where American opinion predominates, and not elsewhere. Consistent with US inclinations, we can expect an effort to limit future involvement in European peace operations unless it seems that a lot can be accomplished with little risk or effort. When riskier interventions are deemed necessary, however, the United States will labor to ensure that they involve American military leadership from the start and that they proceed in accord with the American predilection for decisive military means.
More generally, US policymakers hope that expansion will serve to lessen Germanys influence with the East. Germany may remain the banker and key trading partner, but the military ties of the new member states will be strongest with the United States through NATO. And their inclusion in NATO will strengthen Americas hand in the Atlantic Alliance.
The Fate of Russia in US Policy
Also affecting the American decision to press for expansion were developments in Russia during and after 1993: the attempted "second coup" and assault on parliament, the electoral victories by Communists and nationalists, the war in Chechnya, and US-Russian disputes over Bosnia. These left few American officials confident that Russia would evolve into a truly reliable and stable ally at least, not on its own. And if one thread has linked both the Bush and Clinton policies toward Russia it has been the decision to leave Russia "on its own," twisting in the wind. Both administrations voiced high hopes for post-Communist Russia, while doing very little materially to aid Russian stability and democratic transition.
Nonetheless, the Clinton team did not conceive and pursue NATO expansion as an anti-Russian maneuver. It was not fear of Russias potential strength that gripped them, but recognition of Russias current weakness. Put simply: The Clinton administration knew that there was little Russia could do about expansion. Yes, that condition may change given 15 or 20 years but by then, the Administration hopes, Russia will have accepted the new strategic landscape. And if it has not, and a new cold war ensues, at least the West will be in much better position strategically than it was during the first go around.
For other pro-expansion advocates, represented by the Republican leadership in Congress, anti-Russian sentiments are central. In this there may be an element of "settling scores" and also the notion, espoused by Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, that Russia is somehow culturally programmed for expansion. At any rate, this part of the policy bloc tends to favor accelerating NATO outreach to the Baltic states and possibly the Ukraine. But they will not pay even lip service to the idea of eventually including Russia too.
One sentiment shared across the spectrum of expansion advocates is that Russia has no legitimate reason to be concerned about NATO expansion. Strobe Talbot, who should know better, says Russian opposition to NATO "will only intensify the darkest suspicions about Russias intentions and future." Senate Republican leader Trent Lott echoes these sentiments: "Whether Russia is ready to accept an enlarged NATO will be an important sign of Russias departure from its imperial past." For them, Russian opposition to NATO is itself an argument for expansion. From this perspective there are no legitimate Russian concerns.
This remarkable assertion asks us to set aside all that history teaches about the behavior of states and the workings of power. We might begin to understand Russias concerns by asking "What is NATO?" Edward Luttwak, an American strategic analyst, answers that "NATO is not a security-talking shop but a veritable military force...temporarily at peace." NATO offers its members participation in not only an alliance but also a unified military command whose primary mission is to prepare for war on a continental scale. Even today, after significant reductions, NATOs members together boast military power several times as great as that demonstrated (but underutilized) in the Gulf War.
It is the stock in trade of military professionals to look first at strategic capabilities and trends, rather than declarations of intent. So it should not surprise anyone that the creep of a great and exclusive military organization toward Russias borders is of concern to the Russian military. It would also seem unavoidable that any Russian politician hoping to keep his or her position would express concern. This concern need not focus principally on the unlikely prospect that NATO might someday take an aggressive turn. More to the point is the effect military power has on politics every day. Nations routinely have differences of interest and perspective. The settlement of these differences need not involve conflict but they always involve calculations of power and position. NATO expansion diminishes Russia politically and does so at a time when Russia is already weakened, fairly accommodating, and facing great instability at home and on its southern borders. Moreover, third parties are watching, and some of these directly and immediately engage important Russian interests.
Russia is naturally concerned about the tens of millions of Russians living outside Russia as minorities in other former-Soviet republics. These republics are sensitive to Russias concern but how will the image and reality of an expanding NATO affect their behavior? For that matter, how will the march of NATO affect the calculations of separatist forces within Russia?
Another concern: The former-Soviet republics seemed able to divide the assets and resources of the Soviet Union with relatively little acrimony partly because they have continued to function cooperatively in the economic realm. ??This division the ing magnitude and (2) different ways of allocating costs among members.??
The 1996 Rand Corporation study posited defense options ranging from bare bones NATO support for self-defense by the new members costing $17 billion, to several power projection options, to an $82 billion "forward presence" option. The high-end CBO estimate envisaged an even more robust posture against a re-emergent Russian threat.
Generally, expansion cost is subdivided into three parts: costs for new members, current members, and the common NATO infrastructure fund. The 1997 Pentagon estimate saw new members providing $14 billion in new funds, current European members providing $12 billion and the common account requiring $9 billion of which America would give only $2 billion. The NATO study, with which the Pentagon now concurs, largely excludes costs to current members and sets common costs at only 1.5 billion but it keeps the cost to new members high. By adopting this estimate the Pentagon avoided a burden-sharing argument and made the package more palatable to the US Congress.
Like everyone else, the new members are not up to accepting high costs. Poland recently announced a five-year $2.3 billion to upgrade its military to NATO standards; the other new members plan to spend significantly less. This suggests that not even the low cost estimate for NATO expansion will be met. Indeed, even Rands low cost, low threat option appears beyond reach. Of course, if relations with Russia worsen, and a new cold war dynamic sets in, NATO may find itself feeling compelled to invest a sum close to CBOs upper end estimate: $125 billion.
NATO expansion and the resolution of the issues surrounding the CFE Treaty. Not to put too fine a point on it: NATO expansion may push nuclear abolition off the agenda for another decade or more.
Turning to the issue of nonproliferation: in several ways NATO expansion may slow progress in this area. First, Russia must be a key player in any successful effort to stem nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon proliferation. However, insofar as Russia perceives expansion as an exercise in strategic competition, it will put greater emphasis on seeking friends and allies elsewhere. Russia has a strong interest in non-proliferation, as its recent national security blueprint makes clear, but it also has an interest in reaffirming or courting friends to its South Iran and India; all the more important in light of NATO expansion. Some aspects of Western nonproliferation policy and counter-proliferation efforts too (with regard to Iraq, for instance) will stimulate Russian concerns about encirclement and "Western predominance" or what the Chinese call "hegemonism." There is in this the potential for a greater convergence between Russian and Chinese concerns.
A second way in which expansion collides with nonproliferation efforts concerns the group of non-aligned states. As a matter of principle NATO will not preclude the deployment of nuclear weapons on the territory of new member states, and these states, striving to become members in good standing, also will not forbid it. But this contradicts their obligations under the NPT. Nonaligned states, already sensitive to double standards regarding the possession of NBC weapons, are sure to press this issue when the NPT next comes up for renewal.
Conclusions
The implication of NATO expansion for arms control efforts and international relations generally is not, at heart, a matter of treaty interpretation and legalisms. The real problem is this: NATO expansion abrogates the promise of the post-cold war era, which should have involved the limitation of military prerogatives, instruments, and organizations, rather than their augmentation or extension. The promise of the new era resides in mitigating fear and pursing cooperation with potential adversaries, rather than responding to weakness by pressing strategic advantage.
Returning to the question of historical antecedents with which I began this presentation. Unfortunately, the proper analogy to NATO expansion is not the Congress of Vienna, but the Versailles settlement after the First World War, which laid the basis for a second global conflict within 20 years. The epitaph for the architects and advocates of NATO expansion may be this: having faced the opportunity to heal the Cold War divide, they could do no better than displace it geographically and in time.
Visit our searchable web site at http://www.comw.org/pda, where more than twenty full text PDA studies and reports are available. We also maintain a comprehensive collection of documents and links on the Quadrennial Defense Review and the National Defense Panel at http://www.comw.org/qdr
NATO EXPANSION AND EUROPEAN SECURITY
Jiri Matousek
Prof. Jiri Matousek is Director of the Institute of Environmental Chemistry and Technology of Environmental Protection at the Technical University of Brno, Czech Republic. He is a member of the INES Executive Committee.
Are we safer in the post-Cold War era?
A decade has already elapsed since the failure of the East-West confrontation and the end of the Cold War. Some people have nearly forgotten that the previous paranoiac paradigm of stability, existing for nearly forty years, based on the balance of force and threat with force, was broken through by Mikhail S. Gorbachev starting to act in the spirit of "New Thinking." This was soon reflected in many military-political initiatives, inter alia, by adopting a new, clearly defensive doctrine by the Political Consultative Committee of the WTO in 1987, as well as through the option of the "No first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances" by the USSR.
This was the actual commencement of other far-reaching changes, marking the entry of a new era connected with the hopes of lasting Peace and stability based on growing confidence and cooperation. The Soviets surrendered their East European buffer zone shortly before the Soviet Union dissolved at the end of 1991. Gorbachev agreed to withdraw Soviet troops from this region, acquiesced to the liquidation of the Warsaw Pact and even permitted reunification of Germany and expansion of NATO into what was once the German Democratic Republic. Gorbachev also signed the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, which provided for massive reductions in Europes conventional forces, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which greatly reduced the continents nuclear forces, and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) which made possible substantial reductions in the strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union and the United States. In turn, Gorbachev expected the West to refrain from expanding NATO into the vacuum created by the Soviet military withdrawal. Rather than NATO, Gorbachev believed the peace of the region would become the responsibility of the Conference (now Organization) on Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), to which most of the nations of the continent belong (1).
In the early 1990s, the world had a unique chance to overhaul the obsolete and fragile security system based on military political blocks and to create a new security architecture based on equality and universality, encompassing all European countries, and possessing the transatlantic link, able to prevent conflicts, settle them peacefully by political means. Simply by creating a new regional security organization as envisaged by the UN Charter, under aegis of the UNO (2).
Instead, we have been faced with efforts, not only to maintain the obsolete military tool of the past confrontation but also to strengthen it prior to the previously promised transformation. This means that the unique historical opportunity to build up a modern security system open for all could be missed. Instead of enhanced stability, new security concerns seem to emerge entering the Third Millennium.
NATOs nuclear posture
To the most important achievements of the new political environment of the 1990s belongs the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague of July 8, 1996, declaring the use and threat of nuclear weapons to be generally contrary to international law.
It is a pity that nothing has changed in NATO since this act of the ICJ. NATO still insists on retaining nuclear weapons. Up to 200 US nuclear bombs are deployed in seven NATO European member states. UK and France possess their Euro-strategic, as well as their operational and tactical nuclear weapons. More striking is the fact that NATO refuses to refrain from its doctrine to use nuclear weapons first. Even if the ICJ asserted that it "cannot conclude definitely" whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be illegal "in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake," this area of uncertainty does not cover NATO strategy. Indeed, NATO threatens to use nuclear weapons even when no member state is threatened in its survival (3). NATO nuclear forces serve much broader political purposes, as quoted from an important document on NATO strategy (4):
"The nuclear forces of the Alliance continue to play a unique and essential role in Alliance strategy... A credible Alliance nuclear posture and the demonstration of Alliance solidarity and common commitment, continue to require widespread participation by European Allies involved in collective defense planning; in nuclear roles; in peacetime basing of nuclear forces on their territory and in command, control and consultation arrangements."
Not only NATOs nuclear strategy has remained unchanged since the ICJ advisory opinion, but it seems that the growing NATO-ization of the European Union has contributed to the shift in the pro-nuclear weapon bias in a couple of EU member countries. If we compare the rare pro-nuclear weapons stance of those countries in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the position of states in the late 1970s when six countries, namely Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and to lesser extent Denmark and Spain supported almost all UN resolutions favouring nuclear disarmament, we can observe the dramatic change during the 1990s. There are only two groups now 12 nations that vote consistently for a NATO line and three countries (Austria, Ireland, Sweden) that struggle to support nuclear disarmament (5).
The planned NATO extension will increase the number of states committed to the NATO strategy. Regardless whether NATO will deploy nuclear assets in the new member states, it will increase the number of countries relying on nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence and it will extend NATOs system of nuclear sharing arrangements.
In the Founding Act between NATO and the Russian Federation (6) it is stated: "The member states of NATO reiterate that they have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members, not any need to change any aspect of NATOs nuclear posture or nuclear policy and do not foresee any future need to do so."
NATO also stated that it does not intend to build or use nuclear weapons infrastructure on the territory of its new members. However, in spite of this, statements such as by Madeleine Albright, that the new member states would have the same rights as the old ones, imply these new members have the right to deploy offensive assets including nuclear weapons. Even some leading Czech politicians declared their readiness to accept nuclear weapons in the name of defense of "Western values." (7)
The above mentioned Founding Act fails to provide an internationally binding guarantee that NATO will not deploy nuclear weapons in the new member states. NATO unilaterally reserves the right to change its declared policy on nuclear deployment. It is intended and considered as a right of the new members to be full and equal members and therefore eligible to fully participate in NATO nuclear-sharing and decision-making arrangements. Full membership status includes the right to ask for the deployment of US nuclear weapons, as well as the obligation to accept that US nuclear weapons can be deployed at least during wartime (like e.g. in Denmark and Norway) (3). Participation of non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) in NATO nuclear sharing includes the possibility that the control over nuclear arsenals in wartime will be (even if only partially) transferred to the armed forces of NNWS. Peacetime occurrence of nuclear weapons including training of use on the territory of new NNWS are possible, which is already the case for existing NATO member NNWS. It is evident that in Norway, for example, where nuclear weapons should not be deployed in peacetime, US nuclear weapons on aircraft and submarine carriers are actually present for about 200 days a year for "training purposes" (8).
As long as NATO asserts that nuclear weapons play a critical role in deterring aggression against the Alliance (although no one has adequately explained what the source of that aggression might be), the citizens of the new member states have reason to suspect that they would not be informed if nuclear weapons were stationed on their soil and therefore they themselves might become targets. For example, it was only in the early 1980s that the Norwegian public discovered that NATO had littered the countrys coastline with facilities deemed likely targets in the event of attack (9).
NATO nuclear sharing and decision-making processes are perceived as a violation of Articles I and II of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) by many non-NATO NNWS. Agreement among the parties to the NPT as to whether this is in compliance or in violation of the NATO countries obligations under the NPT has never been reached. ??Further, during both the NPT Review and Extension Conference in 1995 and the 1997 PrepCom ries with long traditions in neutrality like Austria, Sweden and Finland, not to mention the changing defense postures even in the traditional member states, including UK.??
Expected consequences of the NATO enlargement
After the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw pact Treaty Organization, three options were open to NATO (10):
The crucial issues are the relations with Russia. The end of the Cold War has entailed the transformation of the relations between the Western world and Russia, from adversarial to non-antagonistic and perhaps even to friendly and cooperative. This development has steered humankind away from the course leading towards self-annihilation. It is because of this that many wise personalities oppose NATO enlargement. Indeed, it is precisely because the risk of antagonizing Russia, that George Kennan, a most senior American expert on Russia, has dubbed the expansion of NATO "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post Cold War era" (11).
Building new enemy images
In the Central-East European states, the desire to enter NATO was from the beginning (i.e. from 1993) mainly an ideological one to share common Western values and to be committed to defend them. Whereas official documents, like the concisely formulated defense doctrine in then Czechoslovakia (7) clearly stated that the state had no enemy. This was confirmed in the "White Book on the Defense of the Czech Republic" in 1995 (12). Leading politicians, when advocating NATO membership, continuously evoked Russo-phobia, misusing the sensitive populations resentment of the suppression of the "Prague Spring" in 1968. Arguments such as instability in Russia, possible migrations from the East, smuggling of arms and drugs, and the like have been used. In fact, NATO as a defense community lost all enemies. Perestroika and the current transformation and collapse of the USSR have dramatically reduced the potential of the traditional adversary. It seems therefore, that transforming NATO means to look for a new defense target. The new Russia is the obvious candidate. The leading idea of counterbalance of the so-called Western against Eastern values (never concisely defined) seems to be a very weak ideological justification of the NATO enlargement. It is, on the other hand, a very dangerous idea leading to a new bi-polarity. Stupid propaganda, offending the common citizens sense was used in the media shortly before the vote on the NATO accession in the Czech parliament, instead of a serious discussion based on a profound analysis of threats and security alternatives.
New dividing line in Europe
Contrary to the view of Arpád Göncz, the Hungarian President, that NATO enlargement will eliminate the dividing lines in Europe, an expanding military fortress in Europe will create a new dividing line some hundred kilometers east of the former Cold War divide. This is an undesirable legacy at the end of the bloodiest century in history, which will clearly divide Europe. For those inside the fortress, more security is promised in order to defend democracy and freedom, those who remain outside will likely be considered as the second order population of the continent, who have not yet procured the right to be defended. For me personally, it is extremely bitter that this new divide would proceed across for former Czechoslovakia, precisely on the line of the borders of the former Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in medieval times.
Cold War relics
Excluding Russia and other former Soviet allies and republics is alienating them and will force them to look for other partners to rectify the imbalance created by NATO extension. First of all, Russia will seek to restore the balance of conventional arms and forces and adopt legitimate measures to ensure its security for the case the NATO war machinery approaches its borders. It is possible and even probable that Russia may seek other partners, not only among independent states and former Soviet republics, but also among unfriendly allies not wanting to be isolated facing an enlarged NATO. The fact that the NATO extension was engineered through Russias weakness rather than by consensus has led Russia to strengthen relations with its neighbours, China, Iran, and India in the last time. A Eurasian military alliance to counterbalance NATO has unpredictable consequences and could even lead to a new Cold War and create actual enemies.
Nuclear proliferation
As already mentioned above, new member states will be invited to the nuclear decision-making table. Attracting more militaries to this decision-making is nuclear proliferation and, even making more nations dependent on nuclear arsenals. This is against every NATO members legal commitment under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Moreover, non-deployment policy that uses air bases on the territory of the new states for temporal landing of aircraft with nuclear payloads should also be assessed as nuclear proliferation. In the case of deployment of nuclear assets, one can assume that these would be inevitably targeted and consequently, the new states would themselves become targets. Politicians of the countries running under the NATO umbrella have never taken this into consideration, and they have never explained this fact to their uninformed population.
In this connection it is possible to say that there are in fact two kinds of NATO expansion taking place now. One is geographic - an eastward push towards Russia; the other one is doctrinal - NATOs nuclear posture is now shaping the policies of the European Union (13). This also affects the NATO newcomers.
Undermining disarmament
Leading politicians of the NATO countries often argue that its enlargement is not directed against any nation and that it will not endanger Russia. Every realistic politician should agree with Mr. Gorbachev, in that Russias security concerns should be left to Russia (14). Russian bitterness over NATO expansion is not only seized upon ultra-nationalists to exploit a growing sense of isolationism and defeat. It is quite legitimate to think about Russian security from the democratic standpoint. Since NATO made known its intention to expand, the Russian Federation renounced its policy of no first use of nuclear weapons in 1993. By the way, at present, only China retained this option. Vis-a-vis to approaching the NATO war machinery, the Russian Federation will undoubtedly restore the imbalance in conventional forces (started just as a result of German unification). This would question the CFE Agreement. One can expect increased military presence in the western part of Russias territory. The Russian Federation will accelerate the rejoining process of the CIS, where its change to a defense community is highly probable, as witnessed by the gathering of defense ministers of the CIS at the end of 1998. Faced with nuclear proliferation, as was explained above, the Russian Duma will consequently hesitate to ratify the START II agreement in spite of president Yeltsins promises. The fate of further agreements, as expected earlier, including negotiations on the START III is thus uncertain.
Costs
There are cost estimates for the first stage of extension (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) varying between USD 40 - 125 billion over the next ten years (15). This sensitive issue is the matter of the biggest propagandistic manipulations. Only part of the overall costs are revealed; they will have to be borne by the taxpayers both in the new and the contemporary NATO countries. So, in the Czech Republic for example, for propagandistic reasons the costs are presented as limited to the membership fee only. Former Minister of Defense Mr. Výborný recently has estimated this, as being equal to six beers per person (which should be understood and acceptable to the Czechs). The US propagandists seem still to do better. In the official material issued in Washington D.C., bearing signatures of many current outstanding US officials, including former US presidents (16), one may read the price for Peace (as the NATO enlargement is euphemistically described) is only one candy bar. Regardless of the overall price for NATO extension, the further costs of the new round of the arms race have consequences in addition to those already mentioned.
Alternatives to NATO enlargement
There is, no doubt an alternative to NATO enlargement:
??Not the enlargement and development of the relations with the rest of Europe including Russia on the base of the Partnership for Peace Programme (PfP).?? As I see it, being personally involved in a number of activities within the PfP, such a framework enables political, military technological, scientific technological, as well as military activities among NATO members and former WTO member states including traditional neutral or non-aligned states. The PfP offers a far less expensive framework for collective security without excluding many of the nations that share a common interest in maintaining stability in the region. It is to be stressed that, in addition to 16 NATO countries, the PfP already encompasses 27 non-NATO countries promoting military co-operation and transparency among the members.
NATO is sometimes presented as a security organization, which is actually not true. NATO was, is and remains, even after transformation (which should have been started before any extension) to be more political than military, nothing more than a defense community. It never can play the role of a Pan-European security structure because it is unlikely to ever encompass all European states (17).
The likely candidate for a democratic organization, encompassing all European states including a transatlantic link, representing the overall decision-making security body for Europe, is undoubtedly the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). This is the core for the future security regional organization envisaged by the UN Charter. The necessary shift from the intervention option and military solutions to the conflict prevention option requires drastic readjustments of the current disparity between budgets of NATO and OSCE. The OSCE actions have already demonstrated that the OSCE member states are able, without the help of NATO, to prevent conflicts from openly breaking out and to allow democratic elections to take place (e.g. in Albania). Early detection, early warning, negotiations, mediation, consultations, arbitration, sanctions, and follow-up procedures are important existing components of the OSCE mandate. The assistance of NGOs would be invaluable for all these components to be adequately fulfilled. The positive function and role of OSCE as a regional security organization has recently been precisely described (18). Its universality and equality, as well as its ability to prevent international conflicts and settle them peacefully stays as a counterweight to the exclusivity and arrogance, as well as the brutality, of military interventionism connected with the functioning of any one-sided military alliance.
Quo vadis, NATO?
In the early 1990s, NATOs leading politicians started convincing the international community of their willingness to considerably transform NATO. After the dissolution of the WTO in 1991 and the failure of bipolarity, assuring international quasi-stability with an ever-growing level of balance of force and threat with force, the status has been changed to a strange monopolarity very quickly. It seems that leading western politicians, more-or-less hostages of old-fashioned military thinking and belonging to the era of a divided bipolar world, became helpless in such a new situation.
Reading the official documents of NATO from the last years, one cannot find any sign of the promised change to a political organization or any fundamental change in the main strategic concepts such as revised nuclear option. There is, on the other hand a certain shift, mainly on the tactical and the operational level, reflecting changed tasks of the allied forces nowadays. So, e.g. the Special Report by Jan Hoekema to the NATO Defense and Security Committee on the New NATO: Security for an Undivided Europe, October 2, 1998 (19) says inter alia: ".... The consequences for NATOs security policy are obvious. The transformation from armies that have been organized and equipped to fight streams of bombers and large tank armies into forces capable of carrying out peace missions in coalition environments has already begun. The new forces must be able to project power over considerable distances. The air forces should be organized and equipped in such a way that they would be capable of destroying tanks and guns that open fire within minutes and shooting down aircraft soon after take-off.... These tasks necessitate optimum co-operation between satellite-supported surveillance, air reconnaissance and rapid reaction fighter aircraft...." In this report there is also the following interesting notion: "European leaders, however, are as yet not very enthusiastic regarding the prospect of such an enlargement of NATO missions and tasks. There is a lingering uneasiness that NATO might be used by Washington to serve merely American interests worldwide."
According to B. Moller (20), the West seems to suffer from an acute case of hubris, as NATO is talking seriously about appointing itself the "worlds policeman." The report on NATO in the 21st Century, presented by Senator William V. Roth Jr. in his capacity as President of the North Atlantic Assembly on October 2, 1998, contains the ominous phrases that "NATO must preserve its freedom to act: The Allies must always seek to act in an unison, preferably with a mandate from the UN or OSCE. Even though all NATO member states undoubtedly would prefer to act with such a mandate, they must not limit themselves to acting only when such a mandate can be agreed." This hubris is firmly based on an unprecedented military superiority, with NATO alone standing for two thirds of the worlds military expenditures, not to mention most of the worlds nuclear weapons and three of seven official nuclear weapons states. NATOs hypocritical condemnation of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in May notwithstanding, the Alliance has absolutely no intention to abandon its nuclear status. The aforementioned Roth makes this abundantly clear with his formulation: "Under current international conditions, NATO must keep a nuclear weapons component in its strategy, even though today there is no active threat that requires the Allies to contemplate the use of nuclear weapons. The continued presence of such weapons, which are not aimed at any particular state or government, nonetheless creates a deterrent effect that contributes to overall peace and stability in Europe."
B. Moller (20) also states that NATO, as an organization, as well as individual members, appears to be increasingly disposed toward military interventionism.... By this kind of arrogant behaviour, the West risks bringing about the otherwise avoidable "clash of civilizations" that Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington has predicted. It may, indeed be "the West against the rest," but with the West cast in the role as the aggressor perhaps for the sake of values that the West regards as universal, but which are seen by others (Russia, China, India, the Islamic world, for instance) as distinctly western.
References
(1) Powaski, R.E.: Joining the march of folly. The Bull. Atomic Sci,
pp 18-22 Jan/Feb 1998
(2) Matousek J.: Risks and benefits of NATO expansion. Peace and Security, 29, pp 30-34, June 1997
(3) Schlaining Manifesto, June 5, 1997.
(4) NATO. The Alliance New Strategic Concept, Rome, 1991.
(5) Bosch M.: Europe´s nuclear family. The Bull. Atomic Sci,
pp 35-37 Jan/Feb, 1998.
(6) Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Co-operation and Security between NATO and Russian Federation. Mar 27, 1997.
(7) Matousek J.: Risks and benefits of NATO expansion. Peace and Security, 29, pp 30-34.
(8) Alba Kör: No to NATO Conference, Budapest, November 1997
(9) Millar A., Caspody T., Matousek J.: NATO´s shaky new triad. The Nation 266, No 9, pp 18 -21, 1998.
(10) Calogero F.: Pugwash Secretary General´s Report 1997. Pugwash Newsletter, 34, pp 230-239, 1997.
(11) Kennan G.: International Herald Tribune, February 6, 1997.
(12) The White Book on the Defense of the Czech Republic. MoD of the Czech Republic, Prague, 1995.
(13) Bosch M.: Europe´s nuclear family. The Bull. Atomic Sci., pp 35-37, Jan/Feb, 1998.
(14) Gorbachev M.: Let´s be serious: there´s no good reason to enlarge NATO. International Herald Tribune, January 18-19, 1997.
(15) US Congressional Budget Office: The cost of expanding the NATO Alliance. CBO Papers, Washington, D.C., March, 1996.
(16) US Committee to Expand NATO: NATO Expansion - America's Insurance Policy, Washington, D.C., 1997.
(17) Matousek J.: NATO expansion, nuclear weapons and European security. Peace and Security, 30,
pp 28-32, June 1998.
(18) Lanc E.: Austria: NATO and neutrality. Peace and Security, 30,
pp 1-4, June 1998.
(19) From the political arena (October-December 1998) A.NATO. NOD and Conversion, 47, pp 4-7, 1998.
(20) Moller B.: Editorial: NATO, quo vadis? NOD and Conversion, 47, p 3, 1998.
New Security Concerns and Approaches
Proceedings of the INES Workshop in Cambridge MA, USA, 20-21 July 1998
Contents:
Opening, Philip Morrison
Situation and perspectives in Russia, Alla Yaroshinskaya
Dangers of nuclear terrorism and proliferation, David Krieger
Prospects for nuclear disarmament, Alice Slater
The Hague Appeal for Peace, Karina Wood
NATO expansion: Costs and implications, Carl Conetta
U.S. Global roles and interests in the post-Cold War era, Paul Walker
Security concerns in the Middle East, Esmat Ezz
Global action to prevent war, Randall Forsberg
The proceedings may be obtained from the INES office in Dortmund. Price Euro 6.- or $ 7.- + mailing cost.
The Irish Research Scientists' Association
IRSA, 28 Sandyford Hall Park
Kilgobbin Road, Sandyford
Dublin 18, Ireland
The Irish Research Scientists' Association (IRSA) exists to promote excellence in scientific research in Ireland, a greater awareness of the role of research in our lives and Ireland's scientific heritage. IRSA is a voluntary association of individuals and organizations interested in this aim. Anyone may join and corporate membership is available. For more on the aims and motivations of the IRSA, see the homepage.
IRSA is the primary research network in Ireland. Its membership, standing at more than 700, is composed of researchers, teachers, journalists, politicians, civil servants, etc. Members are drawn from the whole Island of Ireland and from 17 countries overseas. Countries where IRSA has members include, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Brunei, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, France, Germany, The UK, The Netherlands, The United States, Canada, Mexico, and Peru among others.
PRIDNEPROVIE CLEANER PRODUCTION CENTRE (PSEIC)
Professor William Zadorsky, President of PSEIC writes:
The Pridneprovie Cleaner Production Centre (Ukraine) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that unites Ukrainian specialists in the sphere of theory and practice of cleaner production, process enhancement, environmental protection, waste treatment, waste utilization and waste management.
The main objectives of the Pridneprovie Cleaner Production Centre are: to improve the environmental performance whilst increasing competitiveness throughout industry and commerce; to encourage companies to adopt environmentally favourable technologies and best practices in environmental management; to develop a mechanism for effective use of the scientific-technical potential of the Former Soviet Union in the emerging environmental market; to provide closer links between Ukrainian and Western environmental organizations.
The Pridneprovie Cleaner Production Centre is operating from Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine), where positions of environmental organizations are particularly strong.
In the Dnepropetrovsk Region of the Ukraine there are over fifty educational and scientific-research establishments involved in environmental activities. The Pridneprovie Cleaner Production Center is the only cleaner production centre in the Ukraine. It has developed a basic infrastructure for the establishment of a national cleaner production centre through a long-term working relationship with such Ukrainian organizations as the Department of Ecological and Chemical Equipment at the Ukrainian State University of Chemical Technology, the Ukrainian Metallurgical Academy, Pridneprovie Ecological Foundation, Pridneprovie Branches of the Ukrainian Ecological Academy and International Academy of Computer Sciences and Systems.
The Pridneprovie Cleaner Production Centre has mutual contacts with similar centres in other countries. In September 1996 Eureng Limited (UK) in conjunction with the PCPC organized the International Scientific-Practical Conference "Cleaner Production and Waste Management" which was held in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. The conference was attended by over 200 people from Ukraine, Russia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, and Belgium. In April 1997 we staged the NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Conversion and Ecology" and the exhibition "High Technology for Environment" in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. These events were attended by a broad spectrum of scientists and industrialists from various countries of the world. The Ukrainian side was presented by such organizations as UMZ (South Machine Building Factory - one of the world's largest producers of satellites, missiles and rockets), "Orbita" (computer-programme developers for the aero-space industry), "Zarya" (formerly largest military plant in the Lugansk region of the Ukraine), the Dnepropetrovsk Machine Building Factory, the Zhovty Vody Uranium Extraction Plant, the Pridneprovsky Chemical Plant, the Dnepropetrovsk State University, the State mining Academy of the Ukraine, the Institute of Chemical Technology and Industrial Ecology, and many others. Among Western participants of the workshop there were such companies as AEA Technology Plc, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the American Environmental Institute of Learning, the Rotterdam Erasmus University, the NATO Scientific and Environmental Affairs Division, the Environmental Science Department of the University of Amsterdam, the Symbiosis Institute of Kalundborg and others.
The Pridneprovie Cleaner Production Centre will be in a position to promote further collaboration between specialists from various countries and contribute into the establishment of cleaner production in the Ukraine.
We believe that the world network of cleaner production centres should focus not only on the establishment of national centres, but also on international integration and collaboration in order to promote a global approach to cleaner production concepts and techniques based on the best practices adopted in various countries.
No First Use of Nuclear Weapons as an Essential First Step Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World
The German initiators of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) demand a No-First-Use pledge for nuclear weapons as an essential step towards a nuclear-weapon-free world. We support the initiative by the German Foreign Minister for a No-First Use in NATO and demand further steps leading to complete nuclear disarmament. The decision of Germany and 11 further NATO member states not to vote against resolution A/C.1/53/L.48 "Towards a Nuclear Weapon Free World: The Need for a New Agenda" in the UN First Committee on 13th November 1998, is a courageous step and a signal that even within NATO there is opposition against the indefinite reliance on nuclear weapons.
NATOs nuclear first-use doctrine, stemming from the darkest ages of the Cold War, is completely anachronistic. It is based on the premise of a massive conventional attack of the Warsaw Pact in Central Europe. None of the underlying assumptions, which were already questionable in earlier times, have any justifiable basis, neither in Europe nor elsewhere. Striking first is not defensive, neither against supposed aggressor states nor against terrorists. The threat of striking first is also in complete contradiction to the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice which declared the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons to be generally illegal. First use would be illegal in any case. The insistence of the US government on the first-use doctrine is an indicator that the last remaining superpower wants to keep the right to use nuclear weapons any time against any point on this planet. No other country should find this acceptable. As long as this threat persists, more developing countries could follow India and Pakistan to seek reliance on nuclear weapons, undermining the whole non-proliferation regime. A No-First-Use would be the bare minimal step, signaling the willingness of the nuclear weapon states to diminish the nuclear threat.
No-First-Use could be a first but should not be the last step. Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty as well as the International Court of Justice demand complete nuclear disarmament. No nuclear weapons state can change this fact. What is required is an on-going international negotiation process on the step-wise transformation of the insufficient non-proliferation regime into a new regime of a nuclear-weapon-free world. How this could be done was examined in an expert study of INESAP "Beyond the NPT - A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World" that was presented in April 1995 in New York, as well as in a number of studies by other organizations and individuals that followed. This study sketches a path towards a nuclear-weapon-free world, combined with a process of negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) as a legal framework to ban and eliminate all nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the call for the NWC has been expressed by more than 1000 international non-governmental organizations and citizen groups (Abolition 2000) as well as by more than two thirds of all States in UN resolutions of the years 1996, 1997 and 1998. A model NWC that was drafted by an international Committee of lawyers, scientists and disarmament experts is now an official UN document (UN doc. A/C.1/52/7).
Even though the path towards a nuclear-weapon-free world can not be planned in all details in advance, the required steps can only be negotiated and realized if the goal is clear. The necessary political initiatives have to be taken now. As a non - nuclear - weapon state and a NATO member, Germany has a considerable political weight and a special responsibility.
Therefore, we urge the new German government to insist on its independent path and to take an active role to initiate negotiations on the elimination of all nuclear weapons, aiming at the Nuclear Weapons Convention as a binding framework of international law. It would be consequent and in accordance with the government coalition agreement if the German delegation at the UN would not only abstain on disarmament resolutions in the UN General Assembly but would vote "Yes." What is most pressing is that Germany makes an end to the first-use doctrine and pushes for the removal of all nuclear weapons from its own territory, a dangerous remainder of past ages.
Dr. Wolfgang Liebert, Dr. Jürgen Scheffran (Darmstadt, Germany),
Dr. Martin Kalinowski (Vienna, Austria)
November 27, 1998.
E-mail:
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,
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Current state of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization
On September 24, 1996 the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was opened for signature at the United Nations in New York. The Treaty, which bans all nuclear weapon test explosions and any other nuclear explosion anywhere in the world, had, by end of October 1998, been signed by 151 countries and ratified by 21. Ten of them are in a list of the 44 countries whose ratification is necessary in order for the Treaty to enter into force. (They are: Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, Peru, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom.) Two of them (France and the United Kingdom) are nuclear-weapon States. Three states out of the list of 44 have not yet signed the CTBT. These are India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Both India and Pakistan have declared their intentions to adhere to a test moratorium, and it is likely that they will sign the CTBT soon.
The Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear - Test - Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO Prep Com) was established - in order to bridge the period until the Treatys entry into force on 19 November 1996 at a Meeting of States Signatories to the Treaty held in New York. As an international organization financed by the States Signatories, it consists of two organs: a plenary body composed of all the States Signatories - also known as the Preparatory Commission and the Provisional Technical Secretariat.
Ambassador Affonso Celso de Ouro-Preto, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Vienna, is the Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the first half of 1998. Mr. Wolfgang Hoffmann of Germany is Executive Secretary of the Provisional Technical Secretariat. He was appointed by the Preparatory Commission on 3 March 1997. The Provisional Technical Secretariat started work on 17 March 1997. The budget for 1998 is $US 58.4 million. In October 1998, the number of staff members reached 155 from 55 countries.
The Preparatory Commission has two subsidiary bodies: Working Group A on administrative and budgetary matters, and Working Group B on verification issues, as well as the Advisory Group on financial, budgetary and associated administrative issues. Both Working Groups make proposals and recommendations for consideration and adoption by the Preparatory Commission at its plenary sessions. Ambassador Tibor Toth of Hungary is Chairman of Working Group A and Dr. Ola Dahlman, a scientist from Sweden is Chairman of Working Group B. The Advisory Group, with Mr. André Gue of France as its Chairperson, is composed of experts of international standing serving in a personal capacity.
The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO Prep Com) has concluded a series of meetings to direct and to review progress in implementing CTBT. The eighth session of the Preparatory Commission is scheduled for 20-23 April 1999 in Vienna.
The main task of the CTBTO PrepCom is to prepare for the Treatys entry into force and to establish the global verification regime so that it is operational when the CTBT enters into force. The International Monitoring System (IMS) will draw on a global network of 321 monitoring stations, spanning some 90 countries, that will be capable of recording data generated by nuclear explosions and other sources around the world. The network includes 50 primary and 120 auxiliary seismic stations from which data can be used to help in distinguishing between nuclear explosions and the thousands of earth tremors registered annually by the seismic system. It also includes 80 radionucleide stations to sample active debris released during a nuclear explosion and an additional 16 laboratories to assist in the analysis of samples. In addition, 60 infrasound and 11 hydroacoustic stations will be able to record acoustic signals in the atmosphere or under water that might have come from a nuclear explosion. Of the four monitoring technologies, the seismic network is the most complete because it draws on a long history of preparatory work especially carried out under the auspices of the Group of Scientific Experts. This group got a mandate to study the scientific basics for the international monitoring of a test ban treaty in 1976 from the CCD in Geneva, which is now known as the Conference on Disarmament.
The monitoring stations will transmit, via satellite, in near real time the data to the International Data Centre (IDC) within CTBTO PrepCom in Vienna, where the data will be used to detect, locate and characterize events. These data and IDC products will be made available to the States signatories for final analysis.
On September 7th, CTBTO PrepCom and the international partnership HOT (Hughes Olivetti Telecom Ltd.) signed a $70 million contract to establish the global communications infrastructure for verifying compliance with CTBT. Over the next 10 years, the partnership will design, install, manage, operate and maintain a complex global network of very small aperture terminals (VSAT) to ensure the swift and secure transport of data between the 337 worldwide monitoring facilities, IDC and the States signatories. By April 1999, 30 monitoring stations should be connected by VSAT to IDC in Vienna.
Throughout May 1998, the first of four releases of applications software from the prototype international data center in Arlington, United States was delivered and initially tested. By 15 May, real-time data from 63 monitoring stations were flowing to the International Data Centre (IDC) at CTBTO PrepCom headquarters in Vienna through the prototype center, using the new high-speed communications link. Although IDC could not provide real-time processing and analysis during the nuclear tests announced by India because it was still installing the first release of software, it later retrieved the data for 11 May for archiving and analysis. It received and processed data in real time for the announced Pakistani nuclear explosions on 28 and 30 May from 27 and 23 primary seismic stations, respectively. The automatic processing of the data provided reasonable first estimates of the location of the tests on those two days, which were passed on to States Signatories. The findings were also published and discussed publicly (see Science, 280, 26 June 1998, pp 2038-2040, Science, 281, 25 September 1998, p 1939 and 1967/8, as well as The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, July/August 1998, p26-29.)
Dr. Martin Kalinowski (member of INES) has joined the Provisional Technical Secretariat of the CTBTO PrepCom in October 1998. He serves as nuclear physicist on the position of a Fusion and Review Officer in the Monitoring Section.
Most of this description is based on the press releases from the CTBTO PrepCom.
For more information see the homepage: http://www.ctbto.org/
Scientific Meeting Space Use and Ethics
3-5 March 1999
Darmstadt University of Technology
(mainly in English)
Organizer: IANUS, Research Group Science, Technology and Security at the Darmstadt University of Technology (TUD) in cooperation with:
TUD Institut für Theologie und Sozialethik,
Darmstädter Friedensforum,
NaturwissenschaftlerInnen-lnitiative,
International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP),
Friedens- und Begegnungsstätte Mutlangen,
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
Additional groups are being invited to join.
Space activities are increasing. Who is doing what? Who is watching? Who sets the standards? Who benefits? What are the consequences?
These questions were addressed at the conference "The Ambivalence of Space Technology" which took place in March 1997 and was organized by IANUS and several other groups.
The conference on March 3-5,1999, will focus on ethical criteria for the assessment of space research and use. Goal is the critical dialogue between representatives of space organizations, science, military, industry, and peace and ecological groups.
On the first evening, ethical criteria for space use and research will be presented by professors of social ethics, a physicist, and representatives of a space organization
On the second day, these criteria will be used to assess several concrete space projects:
The military control of space is the topic of an open panel discussion on the second evening.
The third day is planned for the discussion of consequences originating from the ethical criteria for space use. Political recommendations, a catalogue of challenges, and implementation possibilities are to be worked out.
Welcome to the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference
Dear Friends,
You are invited to join hundreds of organizations and thousands of people from all over the world in The Hague, The Netherlands, from May 11 to 15, 1999, to create The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century. Civil society, governments, and international organizations will review peace and justice initiatives of this century, diagnose the successes and failures, and determine how, in partnership, we can take the next steps for a more peaceful twenty-first century.
This century has been full of the horror of war and other forms of human suffering. It has also been full of the promise-largely unrealized-of abundance and peace. Our task, at the dawn of the new century and on the centenary of the First International Hague Peace Conference, is to transform the brief period of the end of the Cold War into an epoch of world peace.
At The Hague you can expect to hear great figures of civil society such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jody Williams and Graca Machel, leaders of the UN system, such as Federico Mayor, Director General of UNESCO, experts of the level of Justice Christopher Weeramantry of the International Court of Justice, and others. You will find videos of a vision of a world without war by young film-makers; a women ??S space?? to strategize about womens rights and roles; fora and symposia on a large variety of topics related to peace and justice-and strategies for the twenty-first century.
The Hague Appeal for Peace is a campaign and conference led by civil society. As UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has stated, there is nothing that civil society, working in partnership with governments, cannot accomplish. "There are no limits to what the campaigns of tomorrow can achieve - campaigns not yet born, for causes not yet articulated, championed by hearts and minds still unformed. And it is often those single-minded enough to believe their mission to be the most important who are also likely to make it the most successful." (14/07/98)
The Hague Appeals campaign calls for discussion and for action on four major topics:
international humanitarian and human rights law and institutions;
prevention, resolution, and transformation of violent conflict;
disarmament, including nuclear abolition; and
the root causes of war and a culture of peace.
The program has focus groups on gender, indigenous peoples, labor, media, education, globalization, youth, and the environment. It is for people dedicated to securing peace and human rights. We must make armed conflict unnecessary, unthinkable, and impossible.
As long as 1.3 billion people live in poverty, and bloated defense budgets deprive citizens of their fundamental economic and social rights, then, there will be strife. As long as the nuclear weapons race continues, the threat of nuclear destruction will remain.
When humanity invests in the force of law instead of the law of force, when governments ratify the new International Criminal Court statute, the land-mines treaty and a nuclear weapons convention, and when humanity commits itself to the implementation of these and already existing treaties prohibiting genocide, racial discrimination, environmental degradation, colonialism, and other human rights violations - in short, "all human rights for all people" - only then can we begin to feel secure in the knowledge that we and our children and grandchildren can look forward to a world of peace with justice. It is time to abolish war; peace is a human right.
This is our vision. Let us make it come true.
Ms. Graça Machel, First Lady, South Africa
Professor Joseph Rotblat, FHS Nobel Laureate, 1995
Mr. José Ramos-Horta, Nobel Laureate, 1996
HAGUE APPEAL 1999 HOMEPAGE: http://www.haguepeace.org
Contact addresses:
The past year was one of turbulent militarism and fateful political development. This found its reflection in the activities of INES and in our views being concentrated on political matters. The INES Council meeting in July 1998 was preceded by a workshop on political matters and peace problems. You may read the announcement of the proceedings of this workshop elsewhere in this Newsletter.
There are conferences about political and military subjects in preparation in which INES will play an active role. First the big Hague Appeal conference in May of this year which promises to become the greatest manifestation for peace in many years. INES is participating in this conference as one of the supporting organizations and will contribute three workshops to the program:
"Abolition of Nuclear Weapons" will treat the issue of nuclear devices and the efforts being made for their removal, together with the political problems raised by the new nuclear-weapon nations. "New Military Technologies and their Future Impact on Peace Security" displays the horrifying weapons that will threaten mankind in the next century. "Peace, Science, Ethics" addresses the ethical dilemma of this age in which science is used so much for destruction. We are able to organize these workshops thanks to a very generous support from the Berghof Foundation.
You find an appeal for participating in the Hague conference on the opposite page of this Newsletter, and the announcement of two new conferences on political issues, both in which INES is involved.
The concentration on militarism and politics is also reflected by the contents of this Newsletter: it is largely devoted to NATO expansion, seen from three different areas of the world, to peace and to the use and abolition of nuclear weapons.
However, there is also activity in another field, in science. We had constructive discussions in Paris with our French member organizations and with representatives of UNESCO. We gave a presentation of our projects and expressed our willingness to come to a fruitful collaboration. For the big UNESCO Science Conference in June 1999 in Budapest, government delegations and scientists will be invited, but also representatives from international NGOs. INES may contribute to the program and should speak up for its principles in the scientific community.
Our greatest project is still the INES conference in Stockholm "Challenges for Science and Engineering in the 21st Century" in May of next year. The program development for this conference is in full swing. Co-organizers of INES 2000 are The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the European Physical Society. It will be a challenge and an opportunity for INES itself to have these two prestigious bodies as co-organizers. It is a coming together of an NGO born in the last decade of this millenium with two traditional powers. NGOs play an increasing role in policy making, in economical and social life, and possibly in our case in shaping scientific thinking. It is felt strongly that the discussion between the traditional partners and us can lead us to a better understanding of our common task in the future.
This year, the INES Council Meeting will be held in September in the vicinity of Vienna.
I may close this note by welcoming the new INES members.
Armin Tenner, Amsterdam
"Sustainable Development -Institutions and Experts in Europe"
The model "Sustainable Development", is an attempt to find answers to the great challenges of our time, especially to the question of organizing the relations between Society and Nature, North and South, present and future generation. Above all, since the beginning of the nineties, the idea of a sustainable development has begun playing an increasing role in the strategic as well as in the programmatic considerations of the European Union. However, a major breakthrough, a wide-ranging change in economy and in life style still remains very much at large. Today, what exists in essence are simply political declarations of good will, well-meaning individual performances or initial practical efforts at the local/regional level. Further delays however, may lead to dramatic consequences endangering the aim of the creation of a unified Europe and unbearably straining relations between Europe and other parts of the world, especially countries of the Third World.
It is therefore of urgent necessity to get responsible forces together in politics, economics, science, media, labor union, church, civil rights and in the public for the purpose of:
· pushing the fact through on a large scale, that there is no long-term alternative to development in line with the principles of the model of "sustainable development" and
· finally making some decisive headway in the practical implementation of the model.
In solving this problem, a data bank listing Institutions and Experts in the European Union and in Europe dealing with the model "Sustainable Development" and its implementation as well as providing information on their performance profile, the focal point of their work, their special areas etc., might be of assistance. Such a data bank could be useful in:
· the creation of international contacts and the linkage of persons, projects and activities;
· the concentration of research forces, the intensification of international scientific discourses as well as in the improvement of co-operation;
· the connection of East-European states to the debate of the sustainability problem;
· the stronger assertion of the idea of subsidiary in the implementation of the principles of a sustainable development by opening up means for the integration of regional and locally active voluntary organizations beyond the frontiers of nations;
· the spread and qualification of public debates on this problem as well as in increasing public sensitivity toward the policies of the European Union in relation to the model "Sustainable Development;"
· the accurate location of politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, representatives of the mass media, of labor unions, of the church, of NGOs as well as other experts Europe-wide;
· organizing co-operations in the spirit of the model: cutting across scientific disciplines and political-administrative departments.
The following partners are involved in the project:
Christian Stadter, Institute for Sustainable Projects I. Z. P. (Germany)
Reiner Braun, International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility INES (Germany)
Prof Dr. Dr. F. J. Radermacher, Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing (Germany)
Prof Dr. Jiri Matousek, Institute for Chemistry and Technology of Environmental Protection, Technical University Brno (Czech Republic)
Dr. Marc Ollivier, ISMEA linstitut de Sciences Mathematiques Appliquees/ (France)
Prof Dr. Giorgio Nebbia, Institute for Political and Social Sciences, University of Sari (Italy)
Dr. Claus Montonen, Helsinki Institute of Physics IfilPi and Technology for Life (Finland)
Prof Dr. Phil Webber, Kirkiess Metropolitan Council's Environment Unit (Great Britain)
Dr. Irina Perminova, Dept. of Chemistry, M. V. Lomonosov University (Russia)
Prof Dr. Igors Tipans, Department of Theoretical Mechanics, Technical University Riga and Baltic International Center of Human Education "Co-operation for Peace" (Latvia)
Conference in St Petersburg, Russia
June 18th - 20th 1999
Nuclear Policy and Security on the eve of the 21st century
Host organisations:
St Petersburg Peace Council;
Russian Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (RPPNW);
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), Germany;
Finnish Peace Committee;
Swedish Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (SLMK);
International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility.
as part of Abolition 2000 - a Global Network to eliminate nuclear weapons.
Themes to be covered:
Present nuclear situation in the Russian Federation - contamination, plutonium reprocessing, nuclear submarines and decommissioning, nuclear disarmament.
Russian nuclear policy and global security - ratification of START II, further disarmament measures, tactical nuclear weapons subcritical testing.
Security in the Baltic Region - NATO expansion, Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones, neutrality, confidence building measures.
International Humanitarian Law and Nuclear Weapons - how does it apply to Russia and to NATO?
European Security - New NATO Strategy, OSCE Document-Charter, Treaty on Conventional Forces 2, Western European Union and EU Common Foreign and Security Policy.