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Sunday, 04 November 2007 17:28 |
Speech by Mogens Lykketoft, MP and Former Minister for Foreign Affairs ?
at the Pugwash conference on ?Current Dangers of Nuclear Weapons? in the
Danish Parliament on September 27th, 2007
I am honoured to be invited to address this conference with so many people that have commited
themselves to the fight against nuclear weapons.
It is obvious that nuclear weapons are still one of the big threats against the future of humanity
It is tragic that the peaceful end of The Cold War was not used as the great opportunity to make
international agreements about nuclear disarmament - and the reduction of stockpiles of all other
weapons of mass destruction as well. And a reduction in military expenditure in general
Today we must realize that the end of The Cold War was certainly not the end of the risk of wars ?
including catastrophic use of nuclear weapons.
What is the situation right now?
There are at least 27.000 nuclear weapons in this world ? with a capacity to eliminate humanity
several times.
4.500 warheads are ready to be fired.
There is a permanent risk of war by accident
Article 6 in the Non-Proliferation-Treaty (NPT) expresses as the ultimate goal that those who did
not posses nuclear weapons in 1967 should agree not to ? and that the original five ? US, USSR,
Britain, France and China - who possessed them should divest themselves of the weapons over
time.
But the NPT is weakened day by day
The original nuclear powers have not disarmed. Quite the opposite. Above all the US generates
more weapons capabilities.
At the same time a number of non-signatory countries have actually developed nuclear capacities:
India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea. And it seems that Iran is heading in the same direction.
These exact countries that did not sign or apply to the NPT exist in more unstable international
environments than the original five.
Many more have the capability to follow. 44 countries have the necessary fossile materials and
technology needed.
Within a short period all major countries in this world could develop nuclear weapons
For instance a country like Japan could properly develop a nuclear weapon over a weekend.
We can not destroy the possibility. We cannot hide the technology
Therefore we must work much harder to strengthen the political will to avoid proliferation - to
increase the authority of international institutions to commit even the most powerful countries to
work in the right direction ? namely to actually implement in spirit and action the 40 years old NPT,
which is as relevant and as important as it was in 1967.
Increased focus on dangers of nuclear terrorism - risk that rogue states and terrorist non-state
organizations will get access is certainly there and will increase if more and more countries get
nuclear weapons.
The threat of mutual destruction is certainly much harder to apply against organizations that have
nothing to loose compared with a state, and whose location we don?t know.
What has driven and what will drive more countries to the dangerous strive for nuclear weapons?
Answer: Combination of all too easy access and the protection against regime change by invasion.
Easy access:
Dr. Khans Pakistani activities is an extremely dangerous example of nuclear weapons technology
being traded across borders to rogue and unpredictable regimes.
Pakistan in itself is an unstable political system where you must fear which political forces could
take over next.
I suppose that inadequately guarded stockpiles of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium is still a
problem in the former Soviet Union. As Foreign Minister back in 2001 I had a very interesting and
frightening meeting with Robert McNamara and Thomas Graham Junior - travelling the globe to
collect support for a much more effective effort to contain the risk of unauthorized transfers of the
dangerous materials to rogue states and terrorist organisations.
Ambitions that drive proliferation:
I can image more than one despotic head of state in this world that has drawn the conclusion after
the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein would not have been invaded and disposed if he had
actually been in possession of nuclear weapons.
The Iranian leadership?s drive toward nuclear capabilities is the most obvious example of this kind
of thinking. It?s extremely dangerous and we can only hope that a more united international
community can convince them that it is not in their genuine self-interest
But the cruel lessons of Iraq and North Korea is that possession of nukes makes a difference in
protection of the regime.
It seems that the peaceful end to the North Korean nuclear weapons programme is only achieved by
the strong intervention af China, who was highly concerned about the risk of a further nuclear arms
race in East Asia, potentially involving South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. No doubt China puts a
hard pressure on the regime in Pyongyang, but at the same time acts as the protector of that same
regime against foreign intervention.
Perhaps one should accept that the only peaceful way to avoid dangerous further proliferation is
sufficient guaranties against outside interventions in order to topple regimes.
This demands a more general understanding that ?we? ? the West, the US - cannot and should not
be going around the world and make regime change through invasions. It will not create stability
and democracy, but as we have so painfully seen it in Iraq it creates more regional and global
instability ,civil wars and fertile ground for extremists and terrorists.
Regime change must come from within ? through critical dialogue ? eventually combined with
traditional containment if we are facing regimes that threathen their neighbours.
What can we do to chance attitudes of the existing nuclear powers?
Unfortunately we cannot hope for a quick, general ban of all nuclear weapons
But we should fight hard to get back to the general idea of the NPT.
The question to me today is what can we do in Europe?
Frankly speaking it?s not the British ore French nuclear weapons that we worry should be fired by
accident or by accident come into the hands of terrorist organizations.
Nuclear disarmament and the strategy of non-proliferation must involve all the other existing and
potential nuclear powers
We in Denmark should work hard the get support for en EU strategy for reviving the NPT
Denmark should be in the forefront in Europe arguing three important messages:
1. Nuclear military powers should commit themselves to a programme of disarming instead of
investing huge amounts of resources to increase there nuclear capabilities.
2. Nuclear military powers should firmly commit themselves to no first use. Therefore we must
argue firmly against the positions of the present American administration that implies
development of new tactical nuclear weapons and keeps open the ?first use? option.
3. Nuclear powers ? both military and civilian ? should commit themselves to a much stronger
regime for control and destruction of stockpiles of nuclear weapons as well as fissile and
uranium-enriched materials.
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