Text från PDF
Swedish Disarmament
Policy during the Cold War
Conference Report, 26 November 2012, Stockholm, Sweden
Editors: Thomas Jonter, Professor of International Relations, and Emma Rosengren,
PhD Candidate, Department of Economic History, Stockholm University
Foreword
Ever since Sweden got engaged in the process leading up to the creation of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968, Sweden has been an important player in the
international game of disarmament. With committed politicians, skilled diplomats,
technical competence and high ambitions, Sweden has become known as an important
contributor in international disarmament and arms control efforts. Still, little academic
attention has been paid to this field of research. Therefore, the Department of
Economic History at Stockholm University invited academics, diplomats and civil
society representatives to a conference in 2011, to initiate a broader research project on
Sweden’s engagement in international disarmament diplomacy during the cold war.
The issue of Swedish disarmament involvement needs to be further explored.
Therefore, the Department of Economic History, in cooperation with the Swedish
Physicians against Nuclear Weapons, the Swedish Affiliate of the International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), held a second conference on
the 26
th
of November 2012, this time addressing academics. The Swedish Physicians
against Nuclear Weapons funded the conference.
The conference served to lay the basis for a joint research project on Swedish
disarmament policy and included presentations on three themes: Historical;
Theoretical; and Comparative perspectives on disarmament. Dr. Hans Blix, Director-
General Emeritus of the IAEA and the Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) for Iraq between 2000 and
2003, and chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC) and
Robert Kelley, Associate Senior Researcher at SIPRI and former Director of nuclear
inspections in Iraq, 1992 and 2001, also addressed the conference with keynote
speeches. Hans Blix emphasized that the foundation of SIPRI and the set up of several
institutions for research on peace and disarmament are signs of an increased refocus
from war to peace and disarmament, something that according to Mr. Blix was at the
very heart of important disarmament actors like Alva Myrdal. Mr. Blix also spoke
about the challenges that the international community has faced throughout the years,
including continued presence of interstate conflicts, increased military spending in
developed and developing countries, and the general lack of legally binding and
enforceable international laws. Still, Mr. Blix was hopeful about the possibility to
change the present state of things, and argued that Mutual Economic Dependence will
outgrow Mutually Assured Destruction in the long run. Robert Kelly emphasized that
IAEA regularly deals with countries that meet their nuclear safeguards reporting
obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). From time-to-time
countries emerge that have failed to meet obligations by accident or intentional
disregard. When this happens, international safeguards of declared activities turns in a
serious nonproliferation investigation in places like Iraq, Iran, Libya, Egypt and
Burma. These special cases are interesting to re-visit to see what techniques work and
how success can be leveraged.
3
This report includes the research papers presented at the conference. The papers are to
be considered as research plans rather than finished products. All views expressed in
this report are those of the different authors.
As organizers of the conference and editors of this report we express our sincere
gratitude to those who contributed to the conference as speakers, discussants and
participants. A special thank you goes to the authors who kindly have agreed to have
their papers included in this report.
Thomas Jonter, Professor of International Relations, and Emma Rosengren, PhD
Candidate, Department of Economic History, Stockholm University
4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword 2
Part I. Introduction
Introduction 6
Part II. Historical Perspectives on Disarmament
Security First: The Swedish Interest in Confidence and Security Building
Measures and Questions of Disarmament - Aryo Makko 13
Democracy and Disarmament - Some Notes on Public Opinion, Peace
Movements and the Disarmament Process in the early 1980s - Stellan Andersson 23
Naval Arms Control: Positions of Sweden - Jan Prawitz 38
Olof Palme and Nuclear Disarmament: A Work in Progress - Lubna Qureshi 54
Part III. Theoretical Perspectives on Disarmament
A feminist reading of nuclear disarmament - Emma Rosengren 60
"A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand"
- Swedish disarmament policy and weapons exports, investigated from
a Large Technical Systems perspective - Lars Ingelstam 68
Political Regimes and the Politics of Peace in Sweden:
From “The Fortified Poorhouse” to “The Swedish Quandry” - Jonathan Feldman 77
Disarmament as a humanitarian obligation - Gunnar Westberg 85
Part IV. Comparative Perspectives
India and the Atom: Non-alignment, Disarmament and Nuclearity,
1954-1974 and Beyond - Jayita Sarkar 90
Explaining nuclear forbearance: a comparative study on Sweden and
Switzerland, 1945-1977 - Thomas Jonter 106
Soviet disarmament policy during the Cold War: the role of the
ideological rhetoric - Ekaterina Mikhaylenko 114
Appendix
A. Conference program 125
B. List of Participants 126
5
PART I.
INTRODUCTION
6
Introduction
Swedish disarmament policy – a brief background
When Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project, witnessed the first
successful nuclear test tested on the 16
th
of July 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico,
words from the Bhagavad Gita, flashed through his mind: “Now I am become Death,
the destroyer of worlds”.
1
Less than a month later, the United States dropped nuclear
bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, instantly killing between
110, 000 and 140,000 people, and eventually leaving future generations with
radiation-related injuries. At this point, the nuclear arms race between the US and the
Soviet Union began, ultimately leading to nuclear proliferation among other states, and
worldwide terror.
2
Ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the international disarmament movement
has striven to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in the total world arsenal. Article
26 of the Charter of the United Nations assigned the Security Council the task of
promoting arms regulation, and the first resolution adopted by the UN General
Assembly in 1946 called for the elimination of nuclear weapons from the world’s
military arsenals.
3
More than a decade later in 1957, the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) was founded to promote peaceful use of nuclear energy, and also to
prevent the military use of nuclear items by non-nuclear weapon states.
4
In 1961,
Ireland presented a nuclear non-proliferation resolution to the General Assembly,
which aimed to prevent further acquisition of nuclear weapons. Only a year later, the
UN Conference of the Committee of Eighteen Nations formalized negotiations of a
Partial Test Ban Treaty, which would ban nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in
outer space, and underwater. Negotiations soon followed between the US and the
United Kingdom on one side, and the Soviet Union on the other. In 1963, the Test Ban
Treaty was signed and ratified.
5
In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US
and the USSR also entered into multilateral negotiations for the non-proliferation
treaty, which had been initiated by Ireland. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was first signed on 1 July 1968, and then entered into force
in 1970.
6
In the years following the adoption of the NPT, its implementation has been
evaluated, and additional protocols have been agreed upon, in four-week long
diplomatic Review Conferences (RevCon’s) every five years, and two-week long
Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meetings the years in between, except for the year
right after each RevCon. Anti-nuclear groups have used these conferences as focal
points for lobbying and protests.
7
When the NPT was first signed, between fifteen and twenty countries were
1
Andersson, Stellan, Den första grinden: svensk nedrustningspolitik 1961-1963, Santérus, Stockholm,
2004 p 13
2
Agrell, Wilhelm, Fred och fruktan: Sveriges säkerhetspolitiska historia 1918-2000, Historiska media,
Lund, 2000; Andersson (2004); Rublee, Maria Rost, Nonproliferation norms: why states choose nuclear
restraint, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 2009
3
The Charter of the United Nations, signed on 26 June 1945, www.un.org/en/documents/charter/ available
20120511; United Nations General Assembly, Establishment of a commission to deal with the problems
raised by the discovery of atomic energy, adopted during the first session of the UNGA, 26 January 1946,
daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/032/52/IMG/NR003252.pdf?OpenElement, available
20120516
4
Goldblat, Jozef, Arms control: the new guide to negotiations and agreements, 2nd ed., Sage, London,
2002 p 103
5
Goldblat (2002) p.48; Myral, Alva, Spelet om nedrustningen, Stockholm, 1973, pp 212f
6
Goldblat (2002); Rublee (2009)
7
Rublee (2009) p 38
7
regarded as potential nuclear states.
8
Nevertheless, only the US, USSR, the UK, France,
and China had developed nuclear weapons, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty
exclusively recognized and authorized these five countries were nuclear weapon states.
Articles I, II, and III of the treaty recognize all other countries as non-nuclear weapon
states, prohibiting them from acquiring nuclear weapons. Article VI, however, also
obliges the nuclear weapon states to disarm their nuclear arsenals in good faith.
Furthermore, for all state parties, Article IV acknowledges the peaceful use of nuclear
energy as an inalienable right. Hence, the NPT is based on the three pillars of non-
proliferation, disarmament, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Regarded as the
cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the NPT now has 190
states as signatories. Only four states – India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan – have
developed nuclear weapons and stand outside of the treaty. Even though the
disarmament commitment has not fulfilled its promise, the NPT has played a crucial
role in ensuring nuclear restraint.
9
The negotiations for the NPT, and its subsequent implementation, have not
been uniform processes, neither in the multilateral disarmament sphere nor within
countries that are party to the treaty. Sweden’s commitment to multilateral nuclear
disarmament constitutes a particularly interesting case. After the Second World War,
the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOA) researched the potential acquisition of
nuclear weapons. The underlying assumption was that Sweden needed tactical nuclear
weapons in the event of a hostile attack, presumably from the USSR. In 1954,
Commander-in-Chief Nils Swedlund, publicly argued that nuclear weapons were
crucial to guarantee the country’s national security. A year later in 1955, FOA
concluded that the availability of plutonium would enable Sweden to produce nuclear
weapons.
10
The process of acquiring nuclear weapons did not go unchallenged,
however, and arguments for and against nuclear possession were put forward in the
Swedish parliament, within the ruling Social Democratic party, among organizations,
and in public discussions during the late 1950's.
11
Even though Sweden had not made a final decision on the acquisition of
nuclear weapons by 1958, it still raised its voice in international disarmament fora,
where Foreign Minister Östen Undén emphasized the importance of negotiations of the
Test Ban Treaty in the UN General Assembly.
12
In 1961, Undén presented a more
8
Myrdal, Alva, Spelet om nedrustningen (Stockholm: Internationella studier 1972:10, 1973) pp 218f
9
Dhanapala, Jayantha, Multilateral Diplomacy and the NPT: An Insider ́s Account, UNIDIR & SIPRI
2005 www.unidir.org/bdd/fiche-ouvrage.php?ref_ouvrage=92-9045-170-X-en available 2011-10-12;
Goldblat (2002) A few countries have abandoned their nuclear weapon programs and joined the NPT as
non-nuclear weapon states. South Africa is the only country which has first developed and then decided to
disarm its nuclear weapon program, joining the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state in 1991.
10
See for example Bergenäs, Johan and Richard Sabatini, ”Issue Brief: The rise of a White Knight State:
Sweden's Nonproliferation and Disarmament History”, Nuclear Threat Initiative, 10 February 2010,
www.nti.org/e_research/e3_white_knight_state_sweden.html available 20111010; Jonter, Thomas “The
United States and the Swedish Plans to Build a Bomb, 1945-1968”, in Security Assurances and Nuclear
Nonproliferation (Ed. Jeffrey Knopf), Stanford University Press, 2012; “The Swedish Plans to Acquire
Nuclear Weapons, 1945–1968: An Analysis of the Technical Preparations,” Science and Global Security
18, no. 2 2010; Sverige, USA och kärnenergin. Framväxten av en svensk kärnämneskontroll 1945–1995
(“Sweden, the United States and Nuclear Energy: The Emergence of Swedish Nuclear Materials Control
1945–1995”), Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI), SKI Report 99:21, May 1999; Sweden and the
Bomb: The Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945–1972, SKI Report 01:33, September 2001;
Nuclear Weapons Research in Sweden: Co-operation between Civilian and Military Research, 1947–1972,
SKI Report 02:18, May 2002; and Prawitz, Jan, From Nuclear Option to Non-Nuclear Promotion: The
Swedish Case, Research Report, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Stockholm, 1995; FOI, “Det
svenska spelet om nedrustningen”, Framsyn, nr 1 2004
11
Ahlmark, Per, Den svenska atomvapendebatten, Utrikespolitiska institutet, Aldus Aktuellt, Stockholm:
Bokförlaget Aldus/Bonniers 1965
12
Reiss, Mitchell, The politics of nuclear nonproliferation, Columbia University Press, New York 1988;
8
radical initiative with the so-called Undén Plan arguing for the creation of a nuclear
weapons free club by the non-nuclear weapons states. This initiative was dealt with
during the same UN General Assembly meeting as the Irish non-proliferation
resolution, but unlike the Irish resolution it was not adopted by consensus since it did
not receive the support of the western allies.
13
At the same time, the perceived risk of
nuclear war was on the Swedish national agenda, and was significantly visible in the
information leaflet In case of War, which bore the signatures of Prime Minister Tage
Erlander and King Gustav VI Adolf and was distributed to all citizens in 1961. The
leaflet identified the brutal light, heat, and wind that would serve as indications of a
nuclear attack, its consequences in the form of long-term radiation injuries, and
required procedures of emergency preparedness for the public.
14
The following year, in
March 1962, Sweden joined seven other neutral countries that were serving on the
Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee, a predecessor to the Conference on
Disarmament.
15
In this capacity, Sweden supported the non-proliferation treaty
negotiations initiated by the Irish non-proliferation resolution and participating in the
drafting of the NPT. As one out of a few non-aligned countries, Sweden was a main
proponent of the inclusion of disarmament commitments in the treaty, making it less
discriminatory, and giving further incentives for non-nuclear weapon states to join.
16
By signing the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state on the 19
th
of August 1968, Sweden
publicly committed itself against acquisition of nuclear weapons. In sum, multilateral
disarmament became an integral part of Sweden's security politics during the 1960's.
Since then, Sweden has initiated, and contributed to, proposals aimed at strengthening
the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.
17
It is fair to say that before 1968, Sweden pursued a double-track policy that
investigated the competing options of nuclear weapons acquisition and nuclear non-
proliferation. In case the efforts to create an international legal framework for non-
proliferation came to naught, Sweden wished to preserve the nuclear weapons option.
After the signing of the NPT in 1968, Sweden became one of the strongest supporters
of the treaty. In the creation of the export control regimes Zangger Committee and
Nuclear Suppliers Group, Sweden was one of the most engaged states, and remains so.
Both organizations were established for the purpose of preventing the illicit traffic of
nuclear materials and technology, while also facilitating the peaceful use of nuclear
energy. Sweden has signed and ratified all important treaties and agreements, taking up
seats in all vital organizations within the NPT regime. Sweden has contributed greatly
to a number of international non-proliferation efforts. Especially notable is the work at
the NPT Review Conferences, where Sweden has joined the G-11, which jointly
prepares position papers in advance of the meetings, and is also responsible for the
treaty’s disarmament provision. As a founding member of the New Agenda Coalition
(NAC) Sweden contributed to the proposition and adoption of the so-called 13 Steps,
Norlin, Annika, Undénplanen - ett lyckat misslyckande?: en studie om genomförandet av en svensk
utrikesfråga, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, Göteborgs univ., Göteborg, 1994
13
Andersson (2004); Myrdal (1973); Norlin (1998)
14
Andersson (2004) p 43, the Swedish name of the leaflet is Om kriget kommer.
15
See for example Jonter (2010; 2002); Bergenäs & Sabatini (2010); Goldblat (2002); Prawitz (1995;
2004). The ENDC transformed several times; in 1969, it became the Conference of the Committee on
Disarmament (1969-1978); in 1979 the Committee on Disarmament (1979-83); and thereafter the
Conference on Disarmament (1983-).
16
Andersson (2004); Myrdal (1973); Reiss (1988) pp. 66ff
17
Swedish disarmament and non-proliferation initiatives have been put forward for example in relation to
NPT Review Conferences, in negotiations of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), in discussions
about Nuclear Weapon Free Zones (NWFZ) and in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). See for example
Bergenäs & Sabatini (2010); Prawitz (1995; 2004); Conference Report, Den svenska
nedrustningspolitikens historia, forthcoming
9
which aims to meet the disarmament obligations according to Article VI of the NPT.
Moreover, Sweden has been actively involved in multilateral forums, especially the
Conference on Disarmament and the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile
Proliferation. The CD was initially established as the Ten Nation Committee on
Disarmament in 1960, and transformed into the Eighteen Nation Disarmament
Committee, with Sweden as a member, in 1961. Sweden has most actively contributed
to all the major disarmament treaties negotiated by the CD.
18
In the beginning of the
1990s, Sweden closely collaborated with the United States and other countries, to
assist Russia and former Soviet Union states in developing nuclear security and safety
infrastructures.
19
Throughout the Cold War, Sweden also served as an international mediator
and bridge-builder. Key historical examples were UN Mediator Folke Bernadotte’s
mediation assignment in the Israeli-Arab conflict in 1948, Foreign Minister Östen
Undén’s proposals of nuclear-free zones and nuclear disarmaments talks between the
United States and Soviet Union in the 1950s and ’60s, Prime Minister Olof Palme’s
mediating role in the war between Iraq and Iran, and Foreign Minister Sten
Andersson’s efforts to mediate between the PLO and Israel during the 1980s. Dag
Hammarskjöld’s appointment as Secretary General of the United Nations was another
example of Sweden’s prominent role on the international scene, as were the
appointment of two Swedes, Sigvard Eklund and Hans Blix, to the Director
Generalship of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A number of respected
Swedish diplomats such as Alva Myrdal, Rolf Ekeus, and Henrik Salander were
assigned leading international positions in the field of disarmament.
Given the traditionally high profile of Swedish disarmament and nuclear non-
proliferation policy, many international observers have questioned the commitment of
the current Swedish center-conservative government. For instance, in 2008 Sweden did
not join other states in the Nuclear Supplier’s Group (NSG) in opposing India’s
exemption from the NSG ́s ban on export of nuclear material and equipment to other
states that do not have full-scope safeguard agreements with the IAEA. This exemption
has been interpreted as a violation of the rules and norms upheld by the NPT regime,
since India is a non-signatory state. Other states such as Austria, Ireland, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland have criticized the proposal,
arguing that opening the door to India would betray the purpose of the export control
regime. In July 2009, when Sweden headed the EU presidency, non-proliferation and
disarmament were not priority issues. Sweden did not advocate the ratification of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which surprised many international observers. That
same year, the center-conservative government cut funding for the Commission on
Weapons of Mass Destruction, which was headed by Hans Blix, the former director
general of IAEA. The Swedish government showed not regard for the international
attention attracted by the Commission for its bold recommendations on reducing the
threats posed by WMDs.
20
Lately, however, there are signs that the present government is strengthening its
commitment to non-proliferation policy. Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has taken steps
18
Johan Bergenäs and Richard Sabatini, February 10, 2010, “Issue Brief: The Rise of a White Knight State:
Sweden's Nonproliferation and Disarmament History”, Nuclear Threat Initiative,
http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_white_knight_state_sweden.html (accessed November 30)
19
Sarmite Andersson and Thomas Jonter, “Lessons Taught and Lessons Learned in the Swedish Program
to Improve Education in Nuclear Non-Proliferation in Former Soviet Union”. Paper presented at Pacific
Northwest International Conference on Global Nuclear Security – the Decade Ahead, April 11-16, 2010,
Portland, Oregon, USA.
20
Johan Bergenäs and Richard Sabatini, February 10, 2010, “Issue Brief: The Rise of a White Knight State:
Sweden's Nonproliferation and Disarmament History”, Nuclear Threat Initiative,
http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_white_knight_state_sweden.html (accessed November 30).
10
that might be the beginning of a new trend in the present Swedish government’s
security policy. In a New York Times op-ed, Bildt and his Polish counterpart, Foreign
Minister Radek Sikorski argued for an elimination of tactical nuclear weapons in
Europe, calling upon Russia to withdraw its nuclear forces close to Europe and to
destroy its nuclear storage facilities.
21
Critical observers in Sweden, who did not
welcome this initiative, argued that the US should immediately remove their nuclear
weapons from the NPT, since their placement within the territories of other countries
territories violated the spirit of the treaty.
22
In a speech delivered at the Global Zero
Summit at the initiative of President Obama and President Medvedev, Bildt gave strong
support for the non-proliferation efforts.
23
Sweden demonstrated a similar commitment
to Obama’s initiative in the spring of 2010 to promote a nuclear-free world. This new
interest in non-proliferation issues could hopefully lead to a more active Swedish
disarmament policy.
Previous research
Despite Sweden’s prominence in multilateral disarmament negotiations, little academic
attention has been paid to this field of research. Most available studies turn to the
period leading up to Sweden's ratification of the NPT, focusing on why Sweden chose
nuclear restraint. Obviously, Sweden's decision against nuclear weapons acquisition
was critical for its role as a disarmament watchdog. Different reasons for the Swedish
decision have been suggested, but many of these studies are based on secondary
sources. According to Mitchell Reiss, the debate for and against acquisition of nuclear
weapons was intensified during the late 1950 ́s, and “considerations of national
security, economics, radiation hazards, morality, the differences between tactical and
strategic nuclear arms, and the impact on the Great Power test ban negotiations at
Geneva”
24
were all put forward in this debate. Thomas Jonter argues that the choice to
integrate nuclear weapons within the civilian nuclear energy program was a key factor
in Sweden’s abstention from nuclear weapons. This process, which was technically
complicated as well as time-consuming, allowed adequate time for a critical mass
against nuclear weapons to grow among the Swedish people themselves. It also created
a dependency on American technology, which was formalized in the Atoms for Peace
program, placing the US a strong position to steer away Sweden from the nuclear
weapons plans. Furthermore, Jonter emphasizes that arms control talks between the US
and the USSR strengthened the arguments against nuclear acquisition in the domestic
debate, and that the establishment of an international disarmament regime gave further
ammunition to the skeptics.
25
In her doctoral thesis, Anna-Greta Nilsson Hoadley
studies the nuclear weapons position of the Federation of Social Democratic Women
from 1955 to 1960. She mainly focuses on the role of the women's organization in
creating opposition against Swedish nuclear weapons, and how the women's
organization related to the position of the overall Social Democratic party. She
concludes that even though there was strong internal resistance, the women's
organization acted in line with the Social Democrats, and she stresses that the women’s
organization had limited influence on the policy outcome.
26
Jan Prawitz argues that
21
Carl Bildt and Radek Sikorski, “Next, the Tactical Nukes”, New York Times, February 1, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02iht-edbildt.html (accessed November 30)
22
See for example Petra Tötterman Andorff, “Sverige – landet som förlorade sin röst”, in Newsmill 2010-
05-29, http://www.newsmill.se/artikel/2010/05/29/sverige-landet-som-f-rlorade-sin-r-st
23
“Remarks By Carl Bildt at the Global Zero Summit”, February 2, 2009,
http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/12529/a/138949 (accessed November 30)
24
Reiss (1988) p. 47
25
Jonter (1999; 2001; 2002; 2009; 2010)
26
Nilsson Hoadley, Anna Greta, Atomvapnet som partiproblem: Sveriges socialdemokratiska
11
Sweden’s active involvement in international disarmament negotiations did not start
until 1962, even though the country raised issues of disarmament and peace in the First
Committee of the UN General Assembly prior to that. According to Prawitz, Sweden’s
disarmament endeavors have been inspired by an ideological approach to disarmament
on the one hand, and national security considerations on the other.
27
In his study of
Swedish disarmament policy from 1961 to 1963, Stellan Andersson also emphasizes
the early 60's as constitutive for following disarmament endeavors. Andersson stresses
the significance of Undén and Myrdal's efforts in relation to the Undén plan, both for
forthcoming disarmament policy and for the abandonment of the Swedish nuclear
bomb.
28
Annika Norlin also emphasizes the importance of the Undén plan, while also
acknowledging that it was little more than a survey about nuclear weapons among UN
member states.
29
Other studies address the role that Swedish nuclear weapon capability
had for the country's ability to influence international disarmament negotiations.
Many experts today argue that Sweden’s technical skills have given the nation
confidence in disarmament negotiations throughout the years.
30
Others contend that
the political dimension of disarmament limits the importance of this expertise.
31
Due to
the scholarly disagreements, Sweden’s commitment to multilateral disarmament, which
intensified after the commencement of the NPT, requires further historical analysis.
kvinnoförbund och frågan om svenskt atomvapen 1955-1960, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell
International 1989
27
Prawitz (2004)
28
Andersson (2004)
29
Norlin (1998)
30
Andersson (2004); Conference Report, Svensk nedrustningspolitik – en översikt, 2012, forthcoming
31
See for example Andersson (2004)
12
PART II.
Historical perspectives on
disarmament
13
Security First: The Swedish Interest in Confidence
and Security Building Measures and Questions of
Disarmament
1
Aryo Makko, PhD, Department of History, Stockholm University
Abstract. Sweden has a long-standing record of active involvement in
international efforts towards disarmament. In 1932, the Nordic
country participated in the World Disarmament Conference. During
the Cold War, the Swedish government continued to be keen to
contribute to related UN efforts. This article explores Sweden's
interest in Confidence (and Security) Building Measures in the context
of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE)
and its follow-up process between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s.
It argues that Sweden prioritized disarmament, stability, and peace
over human rights, change, and individual freedom despite the rise
and dominance of a rhetoric of morality in Swedish politics in the
1970s.
Introduction
The majority of studies on Sweden’s foreign policy during the last three decades of the
Cold War era have focused on perceptions of the social democratic Welfare state, its
policy of neutrality (neutralitetspolitik) and on visions of democratic socialism and
international justice. There has also been an imminent interest in Sweden’s solidarity
with Third World countries.
2
These historical perspectives are mainly based on
Sweden’s role as a critic of the superpowers – in particular Olof Palme’s criticism
against the Vietnam War in 1968 and 1972 – and the country’s engagement in the
United Nations or its extensive development aid.
3
This image of an ‘active neutrality
policy’ also dominates, with few exceptions, the Swedish and English historiography
on Sweden’s foreign policy after the end of the Second World War. Europe played a
subordinated role in the planning of the Utrikesdepartementet (UD), the Swedish
Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
4
Priority was given to national neutrality, the
maintenance of a strategic balance in Northern Europe and supporting collective
security through an active engagement at the UN.
5
In general, little space has been
given to the traditional interest in questions of disarmament, another important
cornerstone of Swedish foreign policy.
6
In an article published in 1978, Wiberg called
1
An earlier version of this chapter has been published in German as ‘Das schwedische Interesse an
Vertrauensbildenden Maßnahmen und Abrüstungsfragen’, in Peter, Matthias and Hermann Wentker
(eds.), Die KSZE im Ost-West-Konflikt. Internationale Politik und gesellschaftliche Transformation 1975–
1990 (Munich, 2012). The author would like to grant the editors and Oldenbourg Verlag for the
permission to republish this article.
2
Bjereld, Ulf, Alf W. Johansson and Karl Molin, Sveriges säkerhet och världens fred: svensk utrikespolitik
och kalla kriget (Stockholm, 2008), 224–275.
3
In 1968, the Swedish government decided on the so-called ‘Proposition 100’ which held that 1% of
Sweden’s GNP would be used to aid developing countries. This goal was achieved in 1976. See Ann-Marie
Ekengren, Olof Palme och utrikespolitiken (Umeå, 2005), 156–168.
4
See the portrayal of the most central issues in Swedish neutrality policy in Karl Molin, ‘The Central
Issues of Swedish Neutrality Policy’, in: Gehler, Michael and Rolf Steininger (eds.), Die Neutralen und die
europäische Integration 1945–1995 (Wien, 2000), 261–275.
5
Mikael af Malmborg, Den ståndaktiga nationalstaten: Sverige och den europeiska integrationen, 1946–
1959 (Lund, 1994) and Neutrality and State-Building in Sweden (Basingstoke, 2001), 148–153.
6
At the League of Nations, Sweden had contributed in efforts towards international disarmament since
14
the parallelism of military and foreign policy components the ‘dual expression’ of
Swedish security policy:
In sweeping terms, one might locate the schizophrenia here. On the one hand,
there is the ‘radical’ strain colouring some of the areas, a strain bred by a long
period of Social Democrat dominance, which has gradually shaped some degree
of national consensus. Here we can locate much of Sweden’s foreign policy and
aid policy – Sweden spends more than 1% of her GNP on aid, most of the
bilateral part going to Socialist or Left-Wing countries, the present Liberal–
Conservative government of Sweden having made but marginal changes in this
area. Here we can also locate the activity for disarmament and the interest in
peace-building institutions. On the other hand, we have a ‘conservative’ strain,
mainly expressed in defence policy and parts of trade policy. Decision makers
in these areas, rather irrespective of party membership, appear to have a world
picture rather similar to the Realist school in political science, with its Anarchy
model, and are thereby fairly sceptical about the possibilities for various forms
of peace building to work.
7
The country’s relationship with Europe was generally characterized by a fear of contact
(Berührungsangst), as rightly pointed out by Klaus Misgeld in an essay on the
European policy of the Social Democratic party.
8
Misgeld’s judgment is mainly based
on Sweden’s course in the European integration process but can also be inserted for
Stockholm’s approach to the Conference on Security and Co-Operation in Europe
(CSCE) and the so-called CSCE process.
9
This article describes and analyses the Swedish interest in Confidence and
Security Building Measures (CBSMs) and questions of disarmament within the context
of the first basket (‘Questions relating to security in Europe’) at the follow-up meetings
in Belgrade (1977–78) and Madrid (1980–83). For the first time, this author has been
granted access to the archival documentation on the CSCE follow-up process in the
late 1970s and the early 1980s at the archives of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign
Affairs.
10
The central hypothesis is that Sweden’s early reluctance towards the CSCE in
the 1960s as well as its policy in the first basket from the 1972–73 Multilateral
Preparatory Talks (MPT) at Dipoli near Helsinki can be understood through Wiberg’s
concept of duality. The initially reserved attitude against any kind of move in
European security matters was related to the overall primary goal of securing status
quo in Scandinavia and on the continent above all. There was little faith in the
European security conference as a deus ex machina contributing to deepened détente. It
was only with the breakthrough of West German chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik
that Stockholm came to the conclusion that the CSCE may offer opportunities through
its multilateral structure. Therefore, it gained importance in Swedish foreign policy
the 1920s and eventually established a standing delegation on disarmament in Geneva. See Andrén, Nils,
Nils Gyldén and Johan Lundin (eds.), Internationella rustningsbegränsningar och nationell säkerhet
(Stockholm, 1979) and Stefan Trönnberg, Nedrustning under mellankrigstiden: Sverige och
nedrustningskonferensen i Genève 1932 (Solna, 1985).
7
Håkan Wiberg, ‘Swedish National Security Policy. A Review and Critique’, Bulletin of Peace Proposals,
Vol. 9 (1978), 311.
8
Klaus Misgeld, ‘Den svenska socialdemokratin och Europa – från slutet av 1920-talet till början av
1970-talet. Attityder och synsätt i centrala uttalanden och dokument’, in Huldt, Bo and Klaus Misgeld
(eds.), Socialdemokratin och svensk utrikespolitik: från Branting till Palme (Stockholm, 1990), 195–210.
9
See Michael Zielinski, Die neutralen und blockfreien Staaten und ihre Rolle im KSZE-Prozess (Baden-
Baden, 1990), 215–218 and Janie Leatherman, ‘Engaging East and West beyond the bloc divisions: Active
neutrality and the dual role strategy of Finland and Sweden in the CSCE’, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis
(University of Denver, 1991), pages 200–204, 233–236, 425–431, 515–521.
10
The archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs are usually opened to the public after forty years.
15
from 1972 onwards.
11
This article will also discuss why the first Palme government
(1969–1976) did not display the same idealistic approach towards the human rights
issues of the third basket (‘Co-Operation in Humanitarian and Other Fields’) that it
took in the UN and in relation to Third World issues. After all, this was a time when
Stockholm was generally interested in maintaining the prestigious roles of emphatic
bridge-builder, superpower critic and ‘Darling of the Third World’.
12
The General Framework of Swedish Neutrality Policy during the
Cold War
The political debate about neutrality policy in Sweden was heated up to an
unprecedented level after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the German
reunification between 1989 and 1991. With the demise of the imminent danger of an
escalating East-West-conflict, the traditional principle of consensus in foreign policy
matters had lost its ground. During the 1990s, this provoked the appointment of an
enquiry committee on Neutrality policy (Neutralitetspolitikkommissionen) by the
Swedish government. Also, research projects were introduced with the goal to study
the matter in great detail.
13
It became evident from these efforts that the parameters of
the country’s foreign and security policy during the Cold War era had been laid down
by a small number of very influential decision-makers. These individuals decided, at
times rather arbitrarily, on the distribution of information regarding the foreign policy
within the government and the foreign ministry.
14
The most important figure in this
respect was Östen Undén who served as foreign minister between 1945 and 1962.
Undén, a prominent professor in international law at Uppsala, had been a key
representative of his country at the League of Nations in Geneva in the mid 1920s.
15
The 1956 doctrine determining that Sweden would perform a non-aligned policy with
the aim of remaining neutral in the case of war was soon called Undénlinjen after its
architect. It remained a leitmotif until the end of the Cold War.
16
Between the three
constants of national neutrality, Nordic cooperation towards regional balance and
collective security through the UN, Europe remained an often-problematic variable for
Sweden.
Sweden and the CSCE from Molotov to the Follow-up Process
Swedish Foreign Minister Undén was one of few politicians in Europe who did not
immediate reject the Soviet idea on a European security conference when it was first
circulated in February 1954. Moscow’s proposal, presented by Soviet Foreign Minister
Molotov, was met with derision by the majority of Sweden’s leading newspapers who
11
On Sweden and the road towards the conference, see Aryo Makko, ‘Multilateralism and the Shaping of
an “Active Foreign Policy”: Sweden during the preparatory phase of the CSCE’, Scandinavian Journal of
History, Vol. 35 (2010), 310–329.
12
See Ulf Bjereld, ‘Critic or Mediator? Sweden in World Politics ’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 32
(1995), 23–35 and Hans Lödén, ‘För säkerhets skull’: ideologi och säkerhet i svensk aktiv utrikespolitik
1950–1975 (Stockholm, 1999).
13
The SUKK (short for Sverige under kalla kriget, ‘Sweden during the Cold War’) project, a research
collaboration between the politics department at the University of Gothenburg and the history
departments at Södertörn and Stockholm Universities, led by Ulf Bjereld, produced a total of 16
publications between 1996 and 2008.
14
Stefan Ekecrantz, Hemlig utrikespolitik: kalla kriget, utrikesnämnden och regeringen 1946–1959
(Stockholm, 2003).
15
On Undéns role at the League of Nations, see Yngve Möller, ‘Östen Undéns utrikespolitik’, in Huldt
and Misgeld (eds.), op.cit., 62–64; Aryo Makko, ‘Arbitrator in a World of Wars: The League of Nations
and the Mosul Dispute, 1924–1925’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 21 (2010), 631–649; Peer Krumney,
‘Das Wirken Östen Undéns auf dem Weg zur schwedischen Neutralitätspolitik’, Nordeuropaforum, Vol.
10 (2009), 7–35.
16
Bjereld, Johansson and Molin, op.cit., 172–174.
16
viewed it as an awkward attempt to exclude the Americans from European security
matters. In a diary entry dated 15 February, however, Undén noted that ‘some features
are of interest’.
17
In his view, any change eventually granting small states a say was
worth consideration. He added himself to the traditional Swedish disarmament
engagement through the Undén Plan of 1961. It suggested that states not in possession
of nuclear weapons would prohibit the presence of such in their territory and renounce
themselves from producing and acquiring nuclear weapons.
18
Other prominent
representatives of Sweden’s traditional commitment to disarmament from this era were
Alva Myrdal, the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and Hans Blix, the later chairman
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In the 1950, not many in Stockholm shared Undéns relatively positive
assessment. Even when the idea of a conference resurfaced on the international agenda
a decade later when Poland and Romania tabled proposals at the UN, Sweden
responded with disinterest. From 1964 onwards, a conference was described as ‘useful’
and ‘appropriate’ but also requiring ‘thorough preparation’, as it was coined in official
statements.
19
Neither Undén nor Prime Minister Tage Erlander would offer any
concretization of this position in the years that followed. When the inter-bloc
communication on a CSCE intensified after the Warsaw Pact states issued the so-called
‘Budapest Appeal’ on 17 March 1969, Sweden added the participation of the United
States and Canada to the aforementioned standard phrases. In contrast to the other
European neutrals Finland, Austria and Switzerland, the Swedes were not willing to
take initiatives or make proposals of any kind themselves. Despite the pressure exerted
by Soviet diplomats in April 1969, the Swedish government also rejected issuing a
memorandum in favour of the conference under its own name.
20
The Soviet Union had
hoped for a neutral initiative to bring about a breakthrough and finally secure the
convocation of the conference. Eventually, this was offered by Finland on 5 May 1969.
The foreign ministry in Stockholm reacted with dissatisfaction over the extent and
concreteness of the Finnish Initiative.
21
Against the traditionally friendly relations with
Finland, Sweden therefore delayed its support to the Finnish memorandum. Prior to
1970, the conference was not even discussed in the Advisory Council on Foreign
Affairs (Utrikesnämnden), the highest bipartisan body on foreign policy matters
usually used to build consensus.
22
Thus, the CSCE was by no means a Swedish project. Despite the general
‘activation’ of Swedish foreign policy after Olof Palme’s entered office in October
1969, it was neither used as a platform for, otherwise often vocally promoted, visions
for a better and more just world.
23
In the context of the CSCE, the Swedes did not have
17
Östen Undén, Anteckningar. 1952–1960 (edited by Karl Molin). Handlingar/kungl. samfundet för
utgivande av handskrifter rörande Skandinaviens historia, vol. 25 (Stockholm, 2002).
18
Annika Norlin, Undénplanen: ett lyckat misslyckande (Gothenburg, 1998).
19
‘Några svenska uttalanden angående förslaget om inkallandet av europeisk säkerhetskonferens om
säkerhet och ekonomiskt samarbete’, 1 April 1969, File 1, Vol. 26, HP (Politiska ärenden 1953–1974), HP
79 (Konferenser och kongresser 1953–1974), 1920 års dossiersystem 1920–1974, Utrikesdepartementet
(UD), Riksarkivet (RA).
20
Makko, ‘Multilateralism’, 311–313.
21
For a thorough analysis of the Finnish initiative, see Thomas Fischer, ‘”A mustard seed grew into a
bushy tree”: The Finnish CSCE initiative of 5 May 1969’, Cold War History, Vol. 9 (2009), 177–201.
22
Protocols of the Advisory Council can be consulted at the Government Office Archives
(Regeringskansliets arkiv, RKA) in Stockholm Arninge.
23
This policy still provokes romanticising perceptions. See for example Abdul Karim Bangura, Sweden vs
Apartheid: Putting Morality Ahead of Profit (Aldershot, 2004), 17–70. The self portrayal of (Social
Democratic) Sweden as a ‘moral superpower’ was fiercely criticized during the neutrality debate of the
1990s. See Ann-Sofie Nilsson, Den moraliska stormakten: en studie av socialdemokratins internationella
aktivism (Stockholm, 1991). British journalist and author Maurice Keens-Soper shared this opinion and
maintained that ‘then there are the Swedes, the Darlings of the Third World, whose good works are can
matched only by their glutinous smugness’, cited in Susan L. Holmberg, ‘Welfare Abroad: Swedish
17
any illusions, as pointed out by former diplomats. Therefore, their position was
developed along the lines of a ‘reasonable and realistic’ policy.
24
From the beginning of the MPT in 1972, the Swedes attracted attention for
their exclusive focus on security and issues of disarmament and confidence-building
measures in Basket I. At Dipoli, head of delegation Axel Edelstam served as chairman
of the under committee on military questions.
25
Together with the Norwegian, Dutch
and Romanian delegations, Sweden emphasized that a conference on security and
cooperation in Europe could not completely ignore military aspects and the need for
further disarmament regardless of the simultaneously negotiations on Mutual and
Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) between the two blocs. In the humanitarian field,
on the other hand, Sweden was much more susceptible for concessions than most
Western delegations. In this area, the leading role was left to the Western states and the
other neutrals Switzerland and Austria.
26
In the spring of 1975, therefore, Swedish
Foreign Minister Sven Andersson emphasized that ‘judging the results possible in this
field it must be borne in mind that the Conference cannot eliminate differences due to
political, economic or social systems’.
27
This meant that the structure of the East-West-
conflict and Sweden’s own interests did not allow for an idealist approach in delicate
matters in the European sphere. Human rights in Eastern Europe were indeed a much
more sensitive matter for Sweden than they were in Far East, India or Africa. Göran
Berg, former member of the Swedish delegation to the CSCE and Ambassador to
Brussels and Rome after the end of the Cold War, explains this ambivalence as follows:
‘the aim was to maintain a realistic policy in our immediate European neighborhood.
Vietnam did not imply the same kind of responsibility and security implications.’
28
In
the Helsinki Final Act, concrete results were achieved on military matters. It was
decided that notification would be given on manoeuvres of more than 25000 troops at
least 21 days in advance. Information would also be provided about the designation,
the general purpose, the types and numerical strength of involved forces, the area and
the time frame of conduct. There were also additional measures like the exchange of
observers.
29
The Legacy of Helsinki
Against this background, the legacy of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act to the four Centre-
Right governments between 1976 and 1982 under Thorbjörn Fälldin (1976–1978,
1979–1981 and 1981–82) and Ola Ullsten (1978–1979) was restricted to CSBMs and
disarmament. 44 years of Social Democratic dominance ended with the electoral
victory of the three Centre-Right parties on 19 September 1976. Yet, few changes were
made in the foreign policy area under the leadership of Karin Söder, Sweden’s first
female foreign minister. The reason was that neutrality policy as a whole rested on
strong consensus in politics and society by then. Consequently, Sweden’s policy
towards Europe was also characterized by continuity despite the change of
government. Immediately after Helsinki, further ambitions in the areas mentioned
above were developed as part of the preparation for the follow-up meeting in
Development Assistance’, in Bengt Sundelius (ed.), The Committed Neutral. Sweden’s Foreign Policy
(Boulder, 1989), 123.
24
Author’s interview with Ambassadors Kerstin Asp-Johnsson and Göran Berg, both former members of
Sweden’s delegation to the CSCE, 20 May 2010.
25
‘Nedrustningsfrågorna’, 6 April 1973, File 38, Vol. 38, HP, HP 79, UD, RA.
26
Thomas Fischer, Neutral Power in the CSCE: The N+N States and the Making of the Helsinki Accords
1975 (Baden-Baden, 2009), 135–138, 151–316.
27
‘Sveriges och övriga neutralas intresse för VBM-frågan’, 17 March 1975, File 63, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
28
Author’s interview with Ambassador Göran Berg, 20 May 2010.
29
Helsinki Final Act of 1 August 1975, 13–17, http://www.osce.org/mc/39501 (accessed on 18 December
2012).
18
Belgrade.
30
The Swedes monitored the implementation of the measures determined in the
first basket, such as prior notification of manoeuvres or the invitation of observers,
closely in 1975 and 1976.
31
Due to the growing tension between the superpowers, the
Swedes did not lend themselves to illusions nevertheless. A memorandum dated 14
December 1976 noted that it would be hard to change the parameters of the Final Act
in Belgrade despite the positive experience made at Helsinki. Therefore, a ‘pragmatic
attempt’ towards qualitative substantiations would be made. This meant that there was
a will to specify how prior notifications of manoeuvres would be formulated and what
exactly observers would be allowed to see. The Swedes also wanted to reintroduce an
older proposal regarding the publication of defence expenditures of participating
states. This had been rejected in Geneva. They did not believe, however, that the link
between CSCE and MBFR could be strengthened at Belgrade.
32
During this period, the ‘quasi institutionalization’ of the cooperation between
then so-called ‘N+N’ (neutral and non-aligned) states gained further momentum.
33
Discussions on CSBMs and the follow-up process more generally took place during
more then twenty meetings between 1977 and 1982. In Sweden, disarmament and
military confidence building became increasingly central elements of the country’s
multilateral foreign policy. On an institutional level, this development would express
itself in the appointment of a study group of five on CSBMs in September 1979,
comprising of representatives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Defence Ministry
and the Military.
34
This allowed the diplomats of the Foreign Ministry to follow up
Foreign Minister Karin Söder’s statement made in the Swedish parliament on 30
March 1977, in which she had announced more far-reaching proposals on CSBMs in
the future.
35
At Belgrade, it was a Swedish diplomat, Stellan Arvidsson, who presented
proposal CSCE/BM/6, which suggested the inclusion of notifications of naval
manoeuvres and greater visibility of military budgets, on 25 October 1977. The
document had been signed by the N+N states Ireland, Yugoslavia, Liechtenstein,
Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Cyprus. The proposal described the substance of the
CBMs in the Final Act as ‘extremely modest’ but emphasized that their palpable
contribution to confidence building and military détente in Europe had been a ‘good
start’. Now was the time to take further steps and expand on the trust created. A
minimalistic position reduced to the mandate of the Final Act would soon result in the
loss of what had been achieved earlier, Arvidsson argued during the discussion.
36
The
proposal itself was based on an initial draft of the Swedish delegation dated 10
October 1977.
37
Three weeks after the start of the Belgrade follow-up meeting, Soviet Embassy
Secretary Kugujenko presented a proposal on a separate disarmament conference to
Swedish diplomats in Stockholm. The idea had been mentioned by General Secretary
Leonid Brezhnev in his speech in Moscow three days earlier and was now
communicated to the Foreign Ministries of Yugoslavia, Austria and Sweden on the
30
Schyberg to Swedish Embassy Oslo, 8 August 1975, File 8, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
31
See for example Crafoord to UD, 16 August 1975, File 8, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
32
‘Sveriges och övriga neutralas intresse för VBM-frågan’, 14 December 1976, File 13, Korg I, HP, HP 79,
UD, RKA.
33
On its origins, see Zielinski, op.cit., 242.
34
‘Kallelse’ and ‘Arbetsgruppen för VBM’, 3 September 1979, File 20, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
35
‘NATO diskuterar VBM-förslag’ and ‘NATO-kommentarer till svenska VBM-utkastet’, 15 August
1977, File 15, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
36
‘NN-ländernas CBM-förslag framlagt’, 28 October 1977, File 16, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
37
Arvidsson to Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 12 October 1977, File 16, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD,
RKA.
19
instruction of the Kremlin.
38
As had been the case with the Soviet proposal of a Neutral
initiative towards the CSCE in April 1969, the Swedes rejected this. In their official
response, they referred to the structural harmony of the CSCE process.
39
An internal memorandum reveals that this idea was met with general
acceptance despite the official denial and that the Swedes considered Stockholm as a
natural venue for such a conference.
40
Due to the general anti-Soviet atmosphere in
Swedish society, it was natural to criticize the proposal from Moscow, as most people
believed that nothing good could be expected from the powerful neighbour in the
East.
41
Swedish decision-makers could not expect immediate public support for a
disarmament conference explicitly proposed by Brezhnev. An adoption of Brezhnev’s
idea would rather have been looked as a form of ‘Finlandization’ and probably caused
significant criticism. Therefore, the disarmament conference was only discussed
internally during the first years. Six months after the conclusion of the Belgrade
meeting, efforts towards it were intensified as part of the preparations for the next
follow-up meeting in Madrid. Experts from Defence Ministry played an important role
here.
42
The first acknowledgement of Sweden’s interest to host a disarmament
conference was made by the Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Political Section in a
discussion with the Polish Ambassador in September 1979, almost two years after it
had been first mentioned by Brezhnev.
43
The cooperation between the neutral and non-aligned states was vital during
the preparations for Madrid. Concrete proposals for the meeting were prepared in
early 1980 on the basis of a N+N workshop in Stockholm held in October 1979.
Agreement was reached on proposal BM/6 as a basis for further discussion. Changes
included the parameters of prior notification of manoeuvres. The amount of troops
was reduced to 18,000 and the time frame from 21 to 30 days prior to the manoeuvre.
It was also hoped for a limit of troops to be set between 40,000 and 50,000 and for
larger naval and aerial manoeuvres to be included in the scheme.
44
Initially,
Washington encouraged the explorations of the Neutrals in this field. In a meeting with
diplomats of the American Embassy in Stockholm, Ambassador Carl Johan Rappe was
told that CBMs had to be substantial and that they should be mandatory, verifiable
and applicable to all of Europe. The Swedish diplomat was also told that the
Americans would not accept an Eastern European capital as venue for a disarmament
conference. In the view of the Swedes, this meant that Warsaw was out of question.
45
Stockholm’s hopes to host such a meeting, on the other hand, seemed justified.
Therefore, in March 1980, a mandate for a CSCE follow-up meeting on disarmament
was defined as a Swedish target at Madrid.
46
The approach of the N+N group was
discussed between March and June 1980 at meetings in Berne, Vienna, Vaduz and
38
‘Brezjnev-förslag om åtgärder för militär avspänning i Europa’, 24 October 1977, File 16, Korg I, HP,
HP 79, UD, RKA.
39
Press Release of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 26 October 1977, File 16, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD,
RKA.
40
‘Kommentarer i anslutning till det sovjetiska förslaget om åtgärder för militär avspänning i Europa’, 27
October 1977, File 16, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
41
The traditional perception of Russia as an imminent danger to Swedish security manifested itself
between 1880 and 1914, the heyday of imperialism. See Gunnar Åselius, The ’Russian Menace’ to
Sweden. The Belief System of a Small Power Security Elite in the Age of Imperialism (Stockholm, 1994).
42
Memorandum Björeman to Westerberg and Prawitz, 3 November 1978, File 17, Korg I, HP, HP 79,
UD, RKA.
43
‘ESK: WP-förslaget om särskilt VBM-möte’, 7 September 1979, File 20, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
44
‘CSCE; Confidence-Building Measures; A Provisional List of Elements of a Possible Proposal’, 12
February 1980, File 21, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
45
‘USA-attityd till CBM i ESK-Madrid’, 11 March 1980, File 21, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
46
‘Aktuella Korg 1 (CBM-) frågor inför polchefens samtal i Moskva i mars 1980’, 13 March 1980, File
21, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
20
Belgrade. From the first meeting in Berne, there was agreement on the significance of
further work within CSBMs. This was equally true for prior notifications and
exchange of observers. Movements (of troops), on the other hand, were viewed more
problematic and most participants viewed the Swedish goals as ‘ambitious’.
47
The
range of these ambitions and the pace with which the neutral and non-aligned states
developed new proposals was soon met with criticism from NATO in general and the
Americans in particular. Even within the Western alliance, Norwegian efforts towards
greater CBM activities were chocked off immediately.
48
Criticism was also raised
against a meeting of the Neutrals in Vienna in April 1980, this time with the
Yugoslavians present, where concrete common goals for Madrid had been defined.
49
There was little understanding for such concerns in Stockholm. The Swedes thought
that enough experience had been gained in this area at Belgrade. ‘Self-evidently’, they
argued, the time had come for further ‘accentuation’ and ‘specification’ of CBMs at
Madrid. ‘In the long term, Sweden is hoping for the establishment of a far-ranging
CBM-System with the perspective of a comprehensive European disarmament
conference’, it was stated in an internal memorandum.
50
The Swedish ideas continued
to meet resistance during the remaining months until the follow-up meeting in Madrid.
The main reason was that the world was turning away from détente as a consequence
of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and NATO’s Double-Track Decision in
December 1979. The Norwegians doubted the legal liability of future CSBMs.
51
The
Kremlin on its part generally disliked the level of details that the proposals of the N+N
states had reached.
52
Still, Sweden would defend the path that the N+N had chosen
during the following meetings in Stockholm in the end of May and in mid-June 1980
in Belgrade.
53
The creation of Sweden’s internal CSBM-structures was completed during the
preparatory phase for the Madrid meeting. Sweden, seeing itself as a forerunner in
questions of confidence-building and disarmament since the second stage in Geneva in
the mid-1970s, now had a group of experts at its command and also profited from the
extensive exchange between the Foreign and Defence Ministries and the High
Command of the Swedish Military.
54
General considerations and concrete proposals
resulted from the cooperation between these entities.
55
In August 1980, the key corner points of Sweden’s Basket I policy in Madrid
were decided based on a working paper drafted by Ambassador Michael Sahlin. The
paper had been completed after numerous meetings of the Swedish CBM experts and
cooperative efforts of the latter with the other N+N states. It was finally decided that
Sweden would seek a mandate for a separate follow-up meeting on CBM and
disarmament. Concrete extensions of CBMs were the second main goal.
56
These ideas
received support from Austria but were seen critically by Switzerland.
47
‘Anteckningar från de fyra neutralas möte om VBM:s i Bern’, 24 March 1980, File 21, Korg I, HP, HP
79, UD, RKA.
48
‘Amerikanska CBM-synpunkter’, 16 April 1980, File 21, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
49
‘Fortsatta VBM-konsultationer mellan NN-staterna i Wien 14-15 april’, 18 April 1980, File 21, Korg I,
HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
50
‘Sverige och korg 1 (CBM) inför ESK-Madrid’, 22 April 1980, File 22, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
51
‘Svenskt-norskt samtal om förtroendeskapande åtgärder (CBM), m.m.’, 6 May 1980, File 22, Korg I,
HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
52
‘CBM - m.m. diskussioner i Moskva’, 7 May 1980, File 22, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
53
‘CBM-möte i Belgrad mellan N+N stater’, 24 June 1980, File 22, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
54
Mats Marling, Michael Sahlin, Jan Prawitz, Geselius and Ulf Reinius were all members of the group of
experts.
55
‘Planeringssammanträde rörande ärendet förtroendeskapande åtgärder (CBM)’, 10 September 1979, File
20, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
56
‘NN-positioner rörande frågan om uppföljning post-Madrid på området VBM-nedrustning’, 22 August
1980, File 22, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
21
Foreign Minister Ola Ullsten’s talk to his colleagues at the Council of Europe in
Strasbourg on 16 October 1980 illustrated that the country’s Basket I policy enjoyed
active support from the highest political level. Ullsten discussed the Swedish line
concretely and pointed to the potential risks from military capacities in Europe. He
described his country’s approach as ‘integrative’ of expanding on CBMs and reaching a
mandate for a separate disarmament conference comprising of a preparatory and a
main stage.
57
At Madrid, issues related to CBM and disarmament quickly reached a dead
end. Stockholm could not maintain the role of demandeur as it had hoped for,
regardless of the support from the other N+N states. The reason for this was the
decreasing space for manoeuvre due to the deteriorating political situation. Austrian
efforts first helped reaching a compromise (Proposal CSCE/RM/39). The proposal
failed nevertheless after the proclamation of martial law in Poland on 12 December
1981 suddenly intensified the persisting crisis further.
Michael Zielinski argues that the further development of the negotiations at
Madrid profited from the ‘virtuous’ role played by the N+N states, both in informal
and formal fora. Their successful efforts as a third party helped the participants to
reach a substantial final document and the envisaged mandate for the Stockholm
Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures and Disarmament despite
all problems.
58
Therefore, from a Swedish point of view, Madrid was a success despite a
significant and unexpected delay. To the Swedish government, the mandate for a
disarmament conference meant nothing short of a historical opportunity to contribute
to lasting peace in Europe.
Final Remarks
The period between the Helsinki Final Act and the convocation of the Stockholm
Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures in January 1984 was a
relatively turbulent time for Cold War Sweden. After 44 years of social democratic
hegemony, the 1976 electoral victory of the Centre-Right wing opposition brought
about an ideological paradigm shift. It did not, however, affect the country’s foreign
policy, despite the fact that there were four conservative governments (Fälldin I-III,
Ullsten) with a total of three foreign ministers (Karin Söder, Ola Ullsten, Hans Blix).
Instead, all of them continued to follow the path chosen by former Foreign Minister
Östen Undén until the Social Democrats regained power in 1982. The principles of a
Nordic balance and the duality in Swedish security policy were maintained, and so was
the general idea of a consensus in foreign matters. In the context of the CSCE process,
Sweden’s contribution and main goal were within the field of military security since the
late 1960s.
Thus, Swedish policy during the follow-up process was consistent. In
multilateral arenas, such as the UN or the CSCE, the paradox between solidarity in
global matters on the one hand, and emphasis on security in European matters, on the
other hand, characterized Swedish agency.
59
Only in historical review and with the
benefit of hindsight do the elements of that policy appear as contradictory. There were,
for instance, very few calls for a more idealistic CSCE policy from politicians,
researchers and experts or the Swedish press. In essence, modifications to Swedish
foreign policy were seen as a means to balance the growing criticism against the moral
57
‘Utkast till inlägg under agendapunkten “ESK” vid Europarådets utrikesministermöte i Strasbourg’, 16
October 1980, File 23, Korg I, HP, HP 79, UD, RKA.
58
Zielinski, op.cit., 249–258.
59
On this paradox, see Aryo Makko, ‘Sweden, Europe, and the Cold War. A Reappraisal’, Journal of
Cold War Studies, Vol. 14 (2012), 68–97.
22
implications neutrality policy.
As suggested in the introduction, Stockholm’s preference of security and the
first basket and its reluctance towards human rights issues and the third basket can be
understood with the help of the concept of duality as explained by Wiberg.
23
Democracy and Disarmament - Some Notes on
Public Opinion, Peace Movements and the
Disarmament Process in the early 1980s
1
Stellan Andersson, Archivist and Historian: Some Notes on Public Opinion, Peace
Movements and the Disarmament Process in the early 1980’s
Abstract. With a few examples I want to discuss what Olof Palme
called The general principle of politics: “Without the popular
movement pressuring, hounding the politicians, you won’t get
anywhere, but without politicians wanting in the end to tackle the
matter, and sit down with their adversaries and try to get the
negotiating done, you won’t get anywhere either.” Was the pressure
from public opinion, from a strong peace movement, a precondition
for disarmament? Or had the peace movements and public opinion,
the intellectuals, the experts and the scientists no impact at all? How
can we investigate this? How can it be measured?
We have in fact turned over to a small group of people decisions of incalculable
importance to ourselves and mankind, and it is very far from how, if at all, we
could recapture a control that in fact we have never had.
- Robert Dahl in Controlling Nuclear Weapons: Democracy versus
Guardianship
The growth in the past few years of the new popular movements for peace and
disarmament is one of the political events of our time. Their influence has to be
taken into account in any discussion of the success or failure of arms control
negotiations. [...] More generally, governments now consider that they have to
appeal to public opinion, on military matters, much more than they ever did
before.
- Malvern Lumsden in Sipri Yearbook 1983
2
Robert Dahl, the famous American political scientist, has stated that the decisions on
nuclear weapons were turned over to a small group of people. Does the same apply to
the disarmament issues? Had the public opinion, political parties and the peace
movements any impact on the disarmament process? This is what I am interested in
and will discuss in my paper.
30 years ago Alva Myrdal and Alfonso Garcia Robles were awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in Oslo. In her Nobel lecture on December 11, 1982, Alva Myrdal said:
A mighty protest movement, speaking the language of common sense in more
and more countries, has now arisen to confront all these forces that are
engaged in the armament race and the militarization of the world. For the
moment this movement has won most remarkable strength in countries like the
1
Parts of this paper include extracts from an earlier unpublished paper of mine: “You can never say no to
Noel-Baker. Olof Palme on disarmament and the peace movement.” Paper presented at Peace Movements
in the Cold War and Beyond: An International Conference, London School of Economics, UK, 1-2
February 2008.
2
Malvern Lumsden, Nuclear weapons and the new peace movement, in Sipri Yearbook 1983, p. 101
24
Netherlands and Norway, but more recently in West Germany and the United
States as well. It also lives in the hearts of the people in the East, although there
it has so much greater difficulty in making itself heard.
In this new popular movement of protest against nuclear weapons women and,
more and more churches and professional organizations are playing a leading
role. [...]
I personally believe that those who are leaders with political power over the
world will be forced some day, sooner or later, to give way to common sense
and the will of the people.
The general principle of politics
”It was quite an experience for me, to meet such a large and engaged audience”, Olof
Palme wrote in a letter to Mary Kaldor on October 8, 1981. He thanked her for
inviting him to a meeting arranged by END, European Nuclear Disarmament, and the
Labour Party in the Caxton Hall, London, on September 2, 1981; the Caxton Hall
where the Suffragette movement once had hold its famous meetings, where Churchill
had spoken during the war, and where the important Russell-Einstein-Manifesto had
been released at a press conference on July 9, 1955. Mary Kaldor, who was chairing
the meeting, regretted that not a larger hall had been booked as a lot of people had to
stand outside; many were “not able to get in at all”. When she introduced Olof Palme,
she reminded the audience that he was “one on the first to call for European nuclear-
free zones”.
At Caxton Hall Edward Thompson was the first speaker. He informed about
END and how this peace movement’s “ultimate objective” was not only the missiles,
but “putting Europe together again”. In the book Dynamics of European Nuclear
Disarmament, published by END and the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation it was
shown, Thompson said, especially in Alva Myrdal’s contribution, how “Europe could
free itself from nuclear weapons and become a space of tranquillity between the
superpowers, hence assisting them to re-enter negotiations”.
Olof Palme first wanted to inform the audience that he was speaking “in two
capacities, one as chairman of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, and the other one
as chairman of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues”. In
his second capacity he had to be more careful, as he then represented “people of very
different views”. He then gave a long and detailed presentation about how he saw the
present situation on the arms race, the balance of terror, the risks of nuclear war, the
way governments make decisions in crisis; he talked about limited war, nuclear
proliferation, the consequences of a nuclear war in Europe, the medical effects and so
on. He talked about the importance of negotiations: “the whole of civilised opinion in
the world now has one demand, simply please to sit down at the negotiating table and
start serious discussions [...] because if you are going to avoid a nuclear holocaust the
first thing is to talk with one another”. After a discussion about what had happened
with the neutron bomb, and the work of experts and politicians with great experience,
he ended: “It is particularly important that people not adapt, that they don’t say OK,
you know better, but that they say: we know better, because it is our lives and our
future that is at stake, and we find this all monstrous this building up of arsenals.”
Michael Foot, the next speaker spoke about what was happening inside the Labour
Party on the disarmament questions, and about the discussions that took place
between the socialist parties within the NATO alliance: “... the more we discuss them,
the more I believe we are able to move towards an intelligent policy for the whole of
Europe, and indeed for a world wider than Europe itself.” The audience raised critical
voices against the Labour Party and Michael Foot, especially when the roles of the
25
peace movement and that of professional politicians were discussed. Olof Palme then
interrupted:
But those two things are both indispensable. Without the popular movement
pressuring, hounding the politicians, you won’t get anywhere, but without
politicians wanting in the end to tackle the matter, and sit down with their
adversaries and try to get the negotiating done, you won’t get anywhere either.
And accept, then, that if there are some negotiations, that you should denounce
them with all your force, but as a matter of principle, and I’m not speaking
about the Labour Party, or any other party or an issue, I’m speaking about the
general principle of politics. Without accepting and respecting the dual role, the
indispensable role of the clear cut moral stand of the popular movement, and
the necessity for people who do some of the practical work, without accepting
that, you won’t achieve anything, in this world, and that’s the only principle I
wanted to state.
3
With this note I want to illustrate the situation and the discussions in the early 1980’s.
After NATOs dual-track decision on deployment of cruise missiles and Pershing II in
several countries in Europe, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in December 1979,
suddenly a lot of people got very concerned and afraid of a coming nuclear war in
Europe. Public opinion polls showed how the fear increased.
4
The peace movements
got thousands and thousands of new members. But there was a pre-history, which I
also want to remind of.
Political warfare
Atomic weapons, nuclear tests and various proposals on disarmament were important
instruments in the battle of the domestic and international public opinion in the early
stage of the Cold War. They became part of what the British Labour politician John
Strachey called the "political warfare" between East and West.
5
The Soviet Union and various so called front organizations from the foundation
of Kominform in 1947, through a series of so-called peace offensives, took advantage
of people's fear of a third world war, in which nuclear weapons would be used. In
1949 the World Council for Peace, the Soviet Union main front organization, was
founded (with the Swedish Peace Committee as an offshoot). At a meeting in
Stockholm in March 1950 the so-called Stockholm Appeal was adopted, which
attracted huge international attention. Peace Congresses, as well as the communists'
behavior in various international organizations, led to retaliation from the west.
6
In the summer of 1950, while the Korean War broke out, Congress for Cultural
Freedom was formed in Berlin (also with a Swedish sub-organization). The Berlin
meeting was attended by a number of individuals who later would play important roles
in the formation of public opinion about nuclear weapons and disarmament issues:
Bertrand Russell, Karl Jaspers, Willy Brandt, Haakon Lie, (from Sweden participated
Ture Nerman which later was to form the Swedish Committee for cultural freedom )
along with another hundred intellectuals from all over the world.
7
The Nordic reformist labor movement came to act in response to the
3
Meeting between Olof Palme, Edward Thompson and Michael Foot (Chair: Mary Kaldor) held at the
Caxton Hall on 2 September 1981, Olof Palme’s archives, volume 2.5 : 021.
4
Malvern Lumsden, Nuclear weapons and the new peace movement, in Sipri Yearbook 1983, p. 101 f.
5
Strachey, John, On Prevention of War. London 1962.
6
Hjort, Magnus, Den farliga fredsrörelsen. SOU 2002:90, s. 20 ff.
7
Coleman, Peter: The Liberal Conspiracy. The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the
Mind of Postwar Europe. New York 1989.
26
communist peace propaganda. From the autumn of 1950 to January 1951 what
became The Nordic labor peace manifesto was discussed. This too came to have a
relatively large international impact. In 1953 the propaganda also took other forms
from the U.S. side: Eisenhower had taken over as a new president in January. During
his first year in office, the speech that he would hold in early December before the UN
General Assembly was prepared, where the proposal Atoms for Peace was presented.
The speech was translated to a variety of other languages and distributed in millions
worldwide by the U.S. Information Agency. The offensive on peaceful uses of atomic
energy peaked at the Geneva Summit in 1955 - (and would thus be of great importance
for the Swedish commitment to the peaceful use of nuclear energy).
8
The scientists came to play an outstanding role. Niels Bohr and several of the
nuclear physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project began before the end of
the Second World War to seek arouse public opinion against the weapons they
themselves had created. In The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists they informed and
debated about the implications of nuclear energy and various disarmament proposals.
In 1955 Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell published their famous manifesto; in
1957 Pugwash was founded; in Germany nuclear physicist refused to work on nuclear
weapons and announced this in a petition (Göttingen Appeal); in USA SANE started;
in 1958 Nobel laureate Linus Pauling managed to gather 9000 scientists from 43
countries in a petition against nuclear testing which was submitted to the UN Secretary
General Dag Hammarskjöld.
9
Lawrence S. Wittner, who for many years worked with an international survey
of peace movements in the fight against nuclear weapons, said in his book Resisting the
Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970, that the
US nuclear test of their largest bomb ever at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific on March 1,
1954 was the real alarm clock for international opinion. Indian Prime Minister
Nehru's forceful rejection, along with a large Japanese public opinion, and Labour
MPs' protest in London, etc., come to play important roles in forming public opinion
against nuclear weapons and nuclear tests. A variety of organizations were started in
the West European countries: the perhaps most famous of them all – CND, Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament – was established in England, with the Easter (or
Aldermaston) marches. In Sweden AMSA, Aktionen mot svenska kärnvapen, came to
play a prominent role during the years 1958-1963.
10
Had it been possible in the spring of 1963 to mobilize the international opinion
in support of a compromise in the negotiations of a comprehensive test ban? We may
never know the answer to this question, but by observing the internal situation in the
U.S. and the Soviet Union, everything spoke against that Kennedy and Khrushchev
would have pre-changed their positions, even with a large international public
pressure.
11
What instead happened was that the very strong opinion against nuclear
weapons gradually came to languish after the agreement in Moscow in the summer
1963 (it came to focus on South Africa and Vietnam in the years to come). "The
Partial Nuclear Test Ban Agreement appears to have blunted the edge of the CND
movement," wrote Bodil Annersten from London in an article in a Stockholm
newspaper. In Sweden Bertil Svahnström, one of the most prominent activists against
8
Ambrose, Stephen E.: Eisenhower. Vol. 2. The President, 1952-1969. New York 1984
9
All editions of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are available online:
http://books.google.se/books?id=9gsAAAAAMBAJ&redir_esc=y
10
Ziemann, Benjamin (ed.), Peace Movements in Western Europe, Japan and the USA during the Cold
War. 2008.
11
Se chapter 5 ”I Kubakrisens kölvatten” in my book Den första grinden. Svensk nedrustningspolitik
1961-1963. Santérus 2004. See also: Vojtech Mastny, ”The 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: A Missed
Opportunity for Détente”, Journal of Cold War Studies 10.1 (Winter 2008), p. 3-25, and Marc
Trachtenbergs review of Mastny’s article: http://ebookbrowse.com/trachtenberg-mastny-pdf-d138233751
27
nuclear weapons, stated: "It is obvious that it is difficult to maintain interest in a
matter that is taken off the agenda."
12
To mobilize world public opinion
The unanimous UN General Assembly decision in the autumn 1976, initiated by the
non-aligned countries, to hold a Special Session on Disarmament in May-June 1978
activated the peace organisations in many ways, as did the Carter Administration’s
decision on the “neutron bomb” in the summer of 1977. The Preparatory Committee
of the Special Session supported these activities. In March 1977, at the Committee’s
first meeting it was stated that the Special Session would involve “world public opinion
and the organizations, governmental and non-governmental, that are active in
mobilizing this opinion”. On its meeting on May 9, the Committee adopted by
consensus that:
A well-informed public opinion, be it at national or international levels, can
bring significant contributions toward progress in the field of disarmament.
The non-governmental organizations, whose dedication and interest in this field
is well-known and highly appreciated by the members of this Committee, could
play a stimulating and constructive role in channelling the public concerns in
this matter.
Many NGO representatives were appointed as members of the national delegations to
the Special Session
13
, and on June 12, 1978, representatives of 25 NGOs for the first
time in the General Assembly’s history were allowed to present their views on the
disarmament issue. In the Final Document of the Session, adopted by consensus,
several paragraphs discussed how to mobilize world public opinion (§§ 99--) and in
paragraph 123 it was stated: “The [UN] Centre [for Disarmament] should also increase
contact with non-governmental organizations and research institutions in view of the
valuable role they play in the field of disarmament.”
14
The role of NGOs
In 1969 the Conference of Consultative NGOs had set up a Special NGO Committee
on Disarmament, which in September 1972 had arranged the first International NGO
Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. At the same time another NGO Committee on
Disarmament was established in New York. The work of these committees, as well as
the International Peace Bureau’s 1974 Bradford Proposals for a World Disarmament
Conference, had laid the ground for the International NGO Conference on
Disarmament, which took place at Palais des Nations in Geneva, February 27 to
March 2, 1978, in order to “give total constructive support to the Special Session of
the General Assembly devoted to Disarmament”. This conference assembled 547
representatives from 85 international and 212 national organisations from 46
12
Annersten, Bodil, Annersten, Bodil: ”Ingen påskmarsch mot Aldermaston i år.
Antikärnvapenkampanjen på dödsbädden”, Stockholms-Tidningen 1964-03-28; Driver, Christopher,
“The Rise and Fall of CND”, The Observer Weekend Review 1964-03-22, 1964-03-29; Elmbrant, Björn,
”Antikärnvapenrörelsen”, Liberal debatt 1965:1, s. 12.
13
The Swedish government lead by Olof Palme had as early as 1975 appointed a representative of the
Swedish Peace Council [Sveriges fredsråd] to the Swedish delegation at the UN General Assembly’s
ordinary meeting as observateur to follow the disarmament discussions. Bo Wirmark (ed.), Nedrustning
under debatt 1978-1982, (Uppsala 1980), p. 9.
14
Final Document..., pp 524-547; NGOs and disarmament, pp. 666-680, in SIPRI Yearbook 1979
(London 1979); The World Disarmament Campaign and the role of public opinion, in The United Nations
and Disarmament: 1945-1985, (United Nations 1985), pp. 155-166.
28
countries.
15
In her opening statement ”Obstacles to Disarmament”, International NGO
Conference on Disarmament, Geneva on September 25 1972, Alva Myrdal said:
It is for me a great privilege and, truly, an inspiring experience to meet with
this huge and distinguished gathering of persons dedicated to disarmament. On
the call of your organizing Committee, we have assembled to work out plans
for how to arouse public opinion to become a more effective force to stop the
dangerous course of armaments. The peoples themselves must be wakened so
as to warn the decisionmakers that we are not going to tolerate the immense
risks they incur through a continuation of the arms race. The peoples
themselves must start to clamour loudly to obtain instead the equally immense
benefits that would be gained from an internationally agreed process of
disarmament.
16
Sean MacBride, who together with Philip Noel-Baker visited Olof Palme in Stockholm
in December 1977, invited him to address the NGO Conference in Geneva on February
27, 1978, on its opening plenary session. In his address, after having given a short
overview of the present dangers of the arms race, Olof Palme spoke on the role of
NGOs:
Public opinion must be made aware of the risks we run, but fear which
excludes hope may be counter-productive. There is a constructive alternative to
the arms race, but it is not always easy to see. Everybody pays lip-service to
disarmament, but the issue are clouded by technical details and secrecy, left to
the experts. But disarmament is much too important to be left to experts and
governments, who badly need the help of an informed and determined public
opinion. We need not to be defenceless victims of technical developments or
anonymous forces which seek to direct our future. In solidarity and
community, we can shape our future. Disarmament is possible if enough people
believe it. [...] NGOs represent a tremendous force for moulding opinion, and
must be in the forefront in informing people, and pressing governments to act
rationally.
17
This conference in Geneva was just one example of the many activities that forerun the
Special Session, SSD I, in the spring of 1978. Other meetings were held by for example
the World Council of Churches, the World Assembly of Youths, the World Peace
Council and the Socialist International.
To turn the tide – the Socialist International
In April 1978 the Socialist International held a conference on disarmament in Helsinki,
and as Olof Palme said in his Opening Speech, it was “no coincidence” that the
conference was gathered in Helsinki, the “symbol of the joint efforts to create a safer
and better Europe”. The Socialist International at its Geneva Congress in November
1976, when Willy Brandt became its chairman, and Olof Palme became one of its vice-
chairmen, had decided that the ultimate objective continued to be that of general
disarmament, and that one of the major tasks was “to help form public opinion in
15
Final Report. International NGO Conference on Disarmament, 27.II-2.III. 1978, Palais des Nations,
Geneva, Switzerland, 1978, pp. 1, 30. Se även: Rainer Santi, Hundra års fredsarbete. Internationella
fredsbyråns och andra internationella fredsföreningars historia, 1992, s. 52 ff.
16
Alva Myrdal’s archives, vol. 2.3:040
17
Manuscript in Olof Palme’s archives, volume 2.4.0 : 083.
29
favour of disarmament”. In its periodical Socialist Affairs Frank Barnaby wrote several
important articles on disarmament in the summer of 1977, and so did Willy Brandt
and Joop den Uyl.
Olof Palme’s Opening speech at the Helsinki conference was an essential survey
of the question of arms race and nuclear disarmament. In six points he discussed what
to do; the sixth and final point concerned public opinion and political will. Olof Palme
said:
If public opinion is to be mobilized, it has to be informed about the facts. In
this endeavour we all have our particular responsibilities. The United Nations
and other international organizations, international research institutes such as
SIPRI, governments and governmental agencies, political leaders and political
movements, groups and individuals, all have a responsibility to present the facts
to the general public as clearly and honestly as possible. [...]
My emphasis on the need to inform and mobilize public opinion derives from
my faith in the principles of democracy and in the sound judgement and reason
of ordinary people. I believe that the vital issues of our time can be grasped by
anybody who is in the possession of the basic facts. People need not be
defenceless victims of technological progress. And I believe in particular that
public opinion will react very strongly once it has been made aware of the
contrast between the needs of the poor and the waste of resources represented
by the arms race.
A strong and informed public opinion is also necessary in order to turn the
tide. It is essential to underpin and strengthen political will in the effort to
initiate the process of disarmament and development. It is now time to switch
over from a world economy based on the threat of war to one dedicated to
peaceful social construction and social needs – in a world, from an economy of
war to an economy of peace.
18
1980 – Appeals for Peace and Survival
On January 12, 1980, Olof Palme addressed the Stockholm Worker’s Commune
19
“on
the state of the nation in a time of unrest and conflicts, when folly seems to prevail
over sense, when the small states’ right to independence is threatened and trampled”.
Of course, it was primarily the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan he then discussed
and strongly condemned. But he also warned against the American reactions and the
consequences that could follow. There are forces in the USA, he said, which are against
détente and who “want to preserve American military superiority at all costs, no
matter how illusory this may be in the time of collective suicide”. These groups also
demand more nuclear weapons in Europe. “Thus we can be brought towards disaster
step by step. It is difficult to maintain the borderline between a cold and a hot war. But
it is absolutely necessary to avoid coming too close to that line in a world with a stock
of nuclear weapons large enough to annihilate humanity several times over. This is
why we live in the days of madness.” Olof Palme underlined that it was “particularly
important to stand up for détente”, and he said:
The peoples of Europe have a special cause to pursue détente and counteract
the arms race. The Warsaw Pact has started to spread the new SS-20 missiles.
Last December NATO decided to produce a new generation of ultra modern
18
Socialist Affairs, July/August 1978, No 4/78, p. 81-83. Later that year the Socialist International
appointed a special study group on disarmament under chair of Kalevi Sorsa, chairman of the Finnish
Social Democratic Party. This group left its report to the SI Congress in Madrid in the autumn of 1980.
19
The Stockholm branch of the Social Democratic Party.
30
nuclear middle distance missiles to be placed in Europe. The aim should be a
Europe free from nuclear weapons. The Afghanistan crisis must not be the
reason for giving up the efforts to stop this madness. The two super powers
must be persuaded to enter into serious negotiations in the field of
disarmament. The primary goal must be that the Soviet Union considerably
reduces her SS-20 missiles, that NATO does not locate its new missiles and that
NATO and the Warsaw Pact both reduce their forces in Europe. Experience
shows that what is now needed is a popular mobilization against the folly of
armament, that the people’s concern and yearning for peace is shaped to a
powerful and concrete demand for restraint, disarmament, peace and
solidarity.”
20
After Olof Palme’s speech, Sten Andersson, the chairman of the Stockholm Worker’s
Commune and party secretary of the Social Democratic Party, introduced an Appeal
for peace and survival. It said:
The center of the arms race is located in Europe. Here are ten thousands
nuclear weapons standing against each other. Both Warsaw and NATO pacts
have now decided to drastically increase their nuclear arsenals in Europe.
Herewith the risks of a further escalation of an insane arms race are increasing.
The spiral of armings can never lead to safety. Instead, the increased risks of a
nuclear war in Europe have implications for all peoples and states on our
continent.
In this situation, we call on all people of Sweden to support a Call for peace
and survival.
We urge the nuclear powers to start negotiations immediately allowing for a
reduction in nuclear levels and reduced armor instead of the dangerous
escalation that is currently underway. The détente process must continue and
deepen. The goal must be a real disarmament leading to a lasting peace.
In a statement to the Stockholm Worker’s Commune on September 9, 1980, Sten
Andersson reported on the answers from the United States and the Soviet Union to the
letter addressed to the governments of both countries. 80,000 individuals and a
number of organizations had signed the appeal.
21
END – European Nuclear Disarmament
22
In England Philip Noel-Baker and Fenner Brockway had initiated a World
Disarmament Campaign. “Our idea is to develop world pressure to ensure that the
Committee at Geneva shall carry out the radical recommendations of the United
Nations Special Assembly”, Lord Brockway informed Olof Palme in a letter of January
10, 1980. On April 12, 1980, the Campaign should be launched at “a great convention
to be held in the Central Hall, London”. Brockway and Noel-Baker “earnestly” asked
Olof Palme to come to it and speak. This was “no ordinary invitation”, it would be “a
memorable occasion, reflecting as never before the will of the people for an end to
nuclear weapons and for real disarmament.” Due to his schedule Olof Palme had no
opportunity to come to London at this occasion.
23
On May 2, 1980, Noel-Baker
reported that the launching of the Campaign had been a “quite remarkable success”.
20
Palme Commission’s archives, volume F 3 : 1.
21
Social Democratic Party’s archives, volume E 5 : 078
22
My warmest thanks to Patrick D.M. Burke, who send me his dissertation European Nuclear
Disarmament. A Study of transnational social movement strategy,University of Westminster, 2004.
23
Olof Palme’s archives, volume 4.2 : 152
31
The Central Hall had been “packed to the doors with 2,600 eagerly enthusiastic
delegates, each representing a society, church, trade union branch, co-operative society
or other non-governmental movement”.
24
On February 5, 1980, Ken Coates, from the Bertrand Russell Peace
Foundation, informed Olof Palme about how he and others were deeply worried about
the acute worsening of East/West tension which was taking place – “the worse the
tension becomes, the worse it will have to become”. They thought it was “burningly
urgent to find a way to create a European awareness of the dangers of nuclear war”.
And so he told Palme: “Accordingly, we have been discussing the possibility of a
campaign for a nuclear-free zone throughout Europe, from Poland to Portugal”.
Coates enclosed his article on this question “which was published this week in the
socialist newspaper, Tribune”. He also enclosed E. P. Thompson’s article in The
Guardian and Lord Zuckerman’s in The Times. Coates ended his letter: “We would be
profoundly grateful for your advice on this matter, and for whatever help you could
give in arousing discussion on this general question.”
25
On March 31 Olof Palme got the END appeal from Ken Coates
26
together with
a new letter in which Coates wrote: “It is our hope to overcome various divisions in
the peace movement, by generating a widely based campaign, the logic of which makes
possible the combination of the efforts of those who seek unilateral disarmament and
those others who believe in a multilateral approach.” As in the previous letter Coates
ended: “We should greatly value your advice and help with this project, if you were
able to give it.”
27
In his answer of April 24 Olof Palme told Coates of “the process [...] of looking
into the possibility of forming an independent commission for disarmament and world
security. [...] If this succeeds, I would be glad to be able to keep in touch with you on
these vital matters.” Palme also told Coates that he had been working on a similar
idea: “an effort to create a nuclear-free zone in Europe. I spoke about this at the
Socialist International Disarmament Conference in Helsinki two years ago”. Palme
enclosed a copy of that speech.
Protest and Survive
On June 20, 1980, Ken Coates wrote a new letter to Olof Palme, where he told him
about the END Campaign: “The beginnings of a remarkable movement have emerged
in Britain”. On July 18 he informed Palme that a Penguin book was in preparation and
would be published in the end of October. Coates enclosed his contribution to this
book in which he referred to Olof Palme: “But another part of the response must
involve a multinational mobilization of public opinion. In Europe, this will not begin
until people appreciate the exceptional vulnerability of their continent. One prominent
statesman who has understood, and drawn attention to, this extreme exposure, is Olof
Palme.” And Coates quoted Palme’s warning in Helsinki:
Europe is no special zone where peace can be taken for granted. In actual fact,
it is at the centre of the arms race. [Etc...]
Coates continued:
“He [Olof Palme] then drew a conclusion of historic significance, which
24
Ibid.
25
Palme Commission’s archives, volume E 1 : 01
26
At the same time Coates informed Alva Myrdal. She had then also started a correspondence with E. P.
Thompson.
27
Palme Commission’s archives, volume E 1 : 01
32
provides the most real, and most hopeful, possibility generating a truly
continental opposition to this continuing arms race: Today more than ever
there is, in my opinion, every reason to go on working for a nuclear-free zone.
The ultimate objective of these efforts should be a nuclear-free Europe [Coates’
italics]. The geographical area closest at hand would naturally be Northern and
Central Europe. If these areas could be freed from the nuclear weapons
stationed there today, the risk of total annihilation in case of a military conflict
would be reduced.”
28
In 1981 Alva Myrdal wrote in her essay The Dynamics of European Nuclear
Disarmament, published by END in support to the Scandinavian Women’s March for
Peace from Copenhagen to Paris this summer:
The people must be our concern – whatever their leaders are apt to say! And
END – European Nuclear Disarmament – is the present most sharp-edged
instrument for opening up a movement of protest among the peoples of Europe
– in hope of awakening also the consciences of the world leaders. [...]
We, the have nots, must realise that the only instrument of power which we can
mobilize is public opinion pressure on our leaders and, through them, on the
haves. The history of how we have used that power in order to restrain them is
sometimes uplifting, sometimes depressing ...
29
Freeze movement
When Randall Forsberg in April 1980 published her “Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms
Race” she had no idea that her proposals of a bilateral moratorium on nuclear
weapons production and deployment would raise the most impressive social movement
in the US history, and the biggest peace march ever on June 12, 1982, in New York
City.
30
The freeze movement’s ideas were to be used in different political arenas; in the
US Senate, a resolution was introduced by Edward Kennedy and Mark Hatfield on
March 10, 1982; in 1982 as well as in 1983 Mexico and Sweden sponsored a
resolution on a nuclear-weapons freeze in the United Nations General Assembly.
31
Women for Peace
People became more and more anxious about a future nuclear war. One group in
particular, women, took on responsibility in forming public opinion against the ever
more grotesque armament efforts of the superpowers. In the Nordic countries several
Women for Peace organizations were started. Important events were the peace march
from Copenhagen to Paris in the summer of 1981, the peace rally in Gothenburg in
May 1982 and the peace march from Sweden to Minsk in the Soviet Union in the
summer of 1982. In the UK the most famous of all actions by women started in
28
Coates note: The text of this speech is reproduced in the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation’s European
Nuclear Disarmament – Bulletin of Work in Progress, No 1, 1980. Also reprinted in ENDpapers Twelve,
Spring 1986, pp. 6-11. ; Ken Coates, For a nuclear-free Europe, in E.P. Thompson and Dan Smith (eds.),
Protest and Survive, (London 1980), pp. 227-245. In this book Alva Myrdal contributed with the chapter
“The Superpower’s Game over Europe”, pp. 77-109.
29
Alva Myrdal and others, Dynamics of European Nuclear Disarmament, Nottingham 1981, pp.216, 221.
30
Forsberg, Randall, A Bilateral Nuclear Weapon Freeze, in Scientific American, Vol. 247, No 5, Nov.
1982, pp. 32-41. Cf. Cortright, David, Peace Works. The Citizen’s Role in Ending the Cold War,
(Boulder, Oxford, 1993).
31
Theorin, Maj Britt, Det mexikansk-svenska frysförslaget i FN, in Barth, Magne (ed.), Frys. Om
frysbevegelsen og atomvåpen i Europa, (Oslo, 1983), pp. 44-47. (It could on this occasion be of some
interest to note that both Randall Forsberg and Mary Kaldor started their peace- and disarmament careers
at SIPRI in the 1960s. See: http://books.sipri.org/product_info?c_product_id=330 )
33
September 1981: the peace camp at Greenham Common aiming to stop the
deployment of cruise missiles at this air base.
The scientists
The role of experts and scientists was important for solving the disarmament issues,
Olof Palme stated on many occasions. The Palme Commission had scientific advisors
and consultants as staff, and at the Commission’s meetings many different papers by
outside experts were discussed.
32
At a visit to the USA in early December 1980 Olof
Palme gave a lecture at a MIT Seminar on the Arms Race and Disarmament. He then
said:
To help inform public opinion is a great challenge to the scientific community –
a community which is perhaps more internationally oriented than other groups
in our societies. But whether we are scientists or politicians or just concerned
citizens, we all have to present the facts about the arms race to the general
public in a way which make people understand clearly what goes on. We must
tell what will happen to us and to our civilization if nuclear war breaks out.
And we must also tell what we can have instead, if we could halt the arms
race.
33
At the proceedings of the Pugwash Public Forum in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on
August 30, 1981, Olof Palme served as chairman and moderator. In his own speech he
said:
The more I work and think about these things, I believe there is one last way
left to achieve peace. That must be to mobilize a broad public opinion against
the lunacy of war and the continued arms race. There are two parts to this task.
First is a matter of making the facts available. It is now becoming more and
more evident to ordinary people how dangerous this race for new weapons is.
Thanks to many scientists, like the Pugwash Movement, like Dr. Hiatt and Dr.
Chazov and many others, the scientific community has a tremendous challenge
in this task.
34
Olof Palme very often quoted scientists as Solly Zuckerman, but he was also
concerned. In his MIT-lecture on December 8, 1980, Olof Palme said: “I am
fascinated and worried by the fact that in many instances the scientific advisers are
overruled by the political and military leaders. David Halberstam gave one concrete
example in his book The Best and the Brightest. It showed how, in early 1961, people
like Jerome Wiesner and others were trying to slow down the arms race by putting a
temporary freeze on the number of US missiles.”
35
In his letter to Olof Palme on
February 5, 1980, Ken Coates wrote: “Lord Zuckerman, principal scientific adviser to
the British Government, recently pointed out that there was no technical formula for
victory in the arms race, and that the real problem to be resolved in the East/West
conflict remains a matter of ‘hearts and minds’. Nobody is listening to Lord
Zuckerman.”
36
32
Common Security, (London, 1982), pp. 186, 190-192.
33
Olof Palme’s archives, volume 2.4.0 : 093
34
”The Search for Peace in a World in Crisis.” Proceedings of the thirty-first Pugwash Conference on
Science and World Affairs, Banff, Alberta, Canada 28 August-2 September 1981 [1982], p. 335.
35
See David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, (London, 1974), p. 91
36
Coates to Palme, February 5, 1980, in Palme Commission’s archives, volume E 1 : 01; Cf. Richard
Maruire, Scientific Dissent amid the United Kingdom Government’s Nuclear Weapons Programme, in
34
‘International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War’ and
other professional organizations
The danger of a nuclear war resulted in the organization of a lot of professional groups
in the early 1980’s with the common goal to “spread information and increase the
public awareness of the horrendous effects of nuclear weapons”.
37
Olof Palme in his
Introductory Address to the international conference “Nuclear War by Mistake” in
Stockholm, February 15, 1985, gave these groups his tribute: “Without the courage
and moral strength shown by many physicians, engineers, lawyers, scientists,
psychologists, men and women of the church, journalists and other professionals, large
sections of the public would have been kept in the dark about this threat to our
survival.”
38
Trade Unions
The trade union and political labour movements also devoted more and more resources
to peace work in the 1980s. Arbetarrörelsens fredsforum [the Peace Forum of the
Labour Movement] was founded in 1981 with Alva Myrdal as chairman. Conferences,
seminars, publications and international contacts were used to disseminate information
on nuclear weapons and the consequences of nuclear war. The archives of the Swedish
Trade Union Congress contains documentation from the peace delegations of the
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the European Trade Union
College to Washington DC and Moscow, among other places, in the 1980s.
The Churches
The churches played a significant role in creating public opinion against the arms race
and for disarmament in the early 1980’s, and Olof Palme was often invited to speak to
their audiences. On December 7, 1980, together with Don Helder Camara, he was
invited to the Riverside Church in New York to speak at An Evening for Peace. Olof
Palme did not hesitate “to say that we live in the days of madness” and he thought
that, if nothing drastic was done, the uncontrolled arms race would lead to a nuclear
catastrophe. There was “perhaps only one hope for the future”:
That is that the people will learn the facts in time, and that an aroused public
opinion will force the politicians to gain control, to stop the nuclear arms race,
and to reduce armaments. There is a great risk that political leaders will not be
able to prevent a nuclear holocaust, even though, as I am sure, they really wish
to do so. I am equally convinced that if the public knew the truth about the
nuclear arms race, it would insist on action by its political leaders to stop this
insanity.
39
One year later, on the World Council of Churches’ Hearing on Nuclear Weapons and
Disarmament at the Free University, Amsterdam, 23-27 November 1981, Olof Palme
in his speech on November 23 said:
I follow the work of the World Council of Churches with great admiration.
History Workshop Journal, Issue 63 (2007), pp. 113-135. In his dissertation Containing Science: TheU.S.
National Security State and Scientists' Challenge to Nuclear Weapons during the Cold War, (The
University of Texas, 2008) Paul Harold Rubinson confirms Palmes pessimistic outlook.
37
Nuclear War by Mistake – Inevitable or Preventable? Report from an International Conference in
Stockholm, Sweden, 15-16 February 1985, (Stockholm, 1985), p. 3.
38
Ibid. pp. 4, 6.
39
Olof Palme’s archives, volume 2.4.0 : 093
35
Sometimes you are accused of idealism. On the plane to Amsterdam I read an
account of a conversation between Stefan Zweig and Jean Jaurès about Bertha
von Suttner, the great nineteenth-century pacifist, whom Zweig dismissed by
saying that she was just an idealist. Jaurès answered, smiling: ‘You have to be
exactly like her, hard-headed and persisting in your idealism. The great truths
are not perceived immediately in the brain of humanity; you have to hammer
them in, again and again, nail by nail, day by day. It is a monotonous and
ungratified work, bout how important it is.’ Yes, how important is the World
Council of Churches in the work for peace.
40
On April 20-23, 1983, participants from many churches in sixty nations met in
Uppsala, Sweden for the Christian World Conference on Life and Peace. During these
days they debated “with deep feeling and a sense of urgency issues of life and death,
war and peace, conflict and human dignity which affect people everywhere”.
41
Olof
Palme, whose address had a very great impact on the tone and the atmosphere of the
conference according to many delegates and journalists, said:
Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in the streets, collected
signatures, petitioned their governments. In this many Christians have played
an important part. It is often through the churches and their organizations that
the protest against the arms race has been channelled. The churches have made
a tremendous contribution to the cause of peace. This conference is part of this
effort.
42
New York 1982: SSD II
There is no time at this moment to discuss The Palme Commission and the results this
commission presented in their report Common Security in 1982. In his statement to the
UN Second Special Session on Disarmament in 1982, when the report was presented,
Olof Palme expressed “a special appreciation of the non-governmental organisations,
the popular movements, the peace groups, the churches, the doctors, the trade unions,
the scientists - all those that have together formed public opinion and have created
such a strong popular support for disarmament in the last two years or so”. He often
referred to the work and the pressure from public opinion as a precondition to change
reality. He said:
I certainly do not agree with all arguments, or all slogans or all proposals from
these groups but I think that we should all recognize what a great service they
have rendered. They have made us all much more aware of the dangers of the
arms race. They have questioned the necessity of a continued build-up in
nuclear weapons and the wisdom of common strategic thinking. They have
changed public opinion and thus influenced political leaders, for these are
normally sensitive to criticism. Many of the groups have often been small and
worked under difficult circumstances. Many have had limited financial means,
only large resources of idealism. I am convinced that without all these
arguments put forward in books and articles, at seminars and conferences and
40
Olof Palme, A Global View of the Political Aspects of Nuclear Escalation, in Abrecht, Paul and Ninan
Koshy (eds.), Before It’s Too Late. The Challenge of Nuclear Disarmament. The Complete Record...,
(Geneva, 1983), pp. 45-56.
41
The Message from the Conference, Uppsala 1983-04-24, p. 1; Olof Palme’s archives, volume 2.4.0 :
104.
42
Tal till den kristna världskonferensen Liv och fred, i Liv och fred. Kristen världskonferens i Uppsala
1983, ed. Olle Dahlén, (Stockholm, 1984), pp. 24-29.
36
without these marches and demonstrations we would not have been able to see
how negotiations that have been idle now are being revived. And we would not
have had the many proposals to reduce, to freeze, to cut or not to use nuclear
weapons, that have been put forward lately.
43
In a speech to the CD in Geneva Inga Thorsson discussed her experience of SSD II:
The powerful and broad-based people's peace movements in Western Europe
and North America, is what George Kennan recently called the early 80th
decade’s most striking phenomenon, since they already have influenced the
course of events. They were very much present during SSD II, and their
activities during these weeks were more impressive than anyone had expected.
Nobody who attended June 12, as I did, to the orderly, peaceful and exuberant
mass demonstration of 800,000 people for Disarmament and Peace, will ever
forget the role that individuals, concerned citizens can play, and will play in the
struggle for justice, decency and peaceful relations between nations. What some
have called the dismal failure of SSD II must never be allowed to overshadow
the compelling need for all people of good will to form an international
constituency for disarmament, to unite forces in order to achieve a safe and
peaceful world and improving the human condition everywhere.
44
“Against this...”, said the Swedish peace activist Ulrich Herz in his report ‘Can the
pressure of public opinion accelerate disarmament?’ “...contrasts the undeniable and
bitter fact that this strong and qualified popular public pressure practically in no single
respect could influence the session's end result. In a way, this seems quite
paradoxically, the most in regard to the responsible statesmen’s (with a few but
weighty exceptions) almost ad nauseam repeated assurances that it is now 'the people's
strong desire for peace' that must help to achieve disarmament."
45
Cf. Iraq anti-war movement
David Cortright, the American scholar and peace activist, wrote in his blogg on July
23, 2012: “In a recent article for the Mobilizing Ideas blog I tried to answer the
question: what happened to the Iraq antiwar movement? In February 2003 an
estimated 10 million people around the world demonstrated against the war, in the
largest single day of peace protest in history. The movement was described as a ‘second
superpower.’ Yet the Bush administration pushed ahead with its pre-planned invasion.
Antiwar protests and vigils continued for a couple years but then faded away. End of
story, right?
My view is different. The movement did not end but changed form—shifting
from street protest to conventional politics and electoral campaigns. Antiwar activists
were heavily involved in the 2006 congressional elections, helping to elect dozens of
new antiwar members to the House of Representatives and the Senate. Most important
was the movement’s involvement in electing Barack Obama in 2008.”
46
Questions to be discussed
I believe that it is necessary to see the peace movement in a perspective that
43
http://www.olofpalme.org/wp-content/dokument/820623_fn.pdf
44
Inga Thorsson, Tal i CD i Genève den 3 augusti 1982, i: Nedrustningskonferensen som blev en
folkväckelse. Rapport om FNs andra specialsession om nedrustning (SSDII), New York, juni/juli 1982, p.
142.
45
Ulrich Herz, ’Kan trycket från folkopinionen påskynda nedrustningen?, Ibid., p. 79.
46
http://davidcortright.net/2012/07/23/ending-a-war-by-electing-a-president/
37
includes not only the movement, but also a much broader range of activities in
the world today. One could group them all under the heading of a new global
consciousness, of the insight that the individual is responsible not only for
himself and those nearest and dearest to him, but also for the future of life on
Earth. This new consciousness is assuming concrete expression in various
‘movements’. The peace movement is one of them.
- Georg Henrik von Wright in a lecture held in Finlandia Hall, Helsinki,
on November 14, 1982
47
Let me just make a kind of summary: Disarmament negotiations and decisions are
processes where nations and governments and their agents, diplomats etc., are the
active parts. In the western democracies the governments are dependent on the
outcome of general elections to the parliaments. In these elections the political parties
play a decisive role.
In my research I am interested in how the social democratic parties in Western
Europe acted during the second cold war – and how they interacted with the public
opinion and the peace movements, with intellectuals, experts and scientists.
Let me therefore end with some questions: Had the public opinion and the peace
movements any impact on the disarmament process? Had the public intellectuals, the
experts and the scientists any influence? How did politicians, and the political and
state institutions interact with the peace movements? How can we investigate this?
How can it be measured? How can it be explained?
Holger Nehring and Benjamin Ziemann, two of the most prominent European
researchers in this field gave their answer in a recent published article: “[W]e have
sketched out a multi-faceted, multi-level and constructivist analysis of the interactions
between policy makers (who never acted in a vacuum), social movements and the mass
media, to name only the most important dimensions. Only such a perspective, which
takes the cultural context and the performative aspects of decision making both at the
top and at the grassroots level into account and that is interested in exploring the
connections between international relations and domestic policies can do justice to the
complexity of the relations between protest, policy-making and public opinion during
the Euromissiles crisis.”
48
47
Georg Henrik von Wright, The Threat of War, the Arms Race and the Peace Movement. Forssa1983
48
Holger Nehring and Benjamin Ziemann, ”Do all paths lead to Moscow? The NATO dual-track decision
and the peace movement – a critique, Cold War History, Vol. 12, No 1, February 2012, p. 15.
See also: Becker-Schaum, Gassert, Klimke, Mausbach, Zepp (Hg.), “Entrüstet Euch!”. Nuklearkrise,
NATO-Doppelbeschluss und Friedensbewegung, Paderborn : Ferdinand Schöningh, 2012.
38
Naval Arms Control: Positions of Sweden
Jan Prawitz, Senior Researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs
*
Abstract. In the period 1981 – 1991 Sweden was rather active in
promoting arms control measures relevant to the maritime domain.
But Sweden has been involved in such measures occasionally for a
long time. Naval arms proposals were pursued by Sweden on three
fronts: The Law of the Sea, the European Security Conference (today
the OSCE), and the United Nations. These efforts were only partly
successful, however. But when they were, the results achieved have
had - beside their general value internationally – specific security
importance for Sweden itself. This paper focuses primarily on the
time period 1970 – 1991. It was released on 1 January 2013.
Introduction
Since the emergence of the country of Sweden, her security has been dependent on the
maritime dimension. Sweden's long coastline in the Baltic Sea - today 2700 km but
before 1809 much longer - and the narrow straits leading to that sea, has determined
Sweden's maritime interests and need for sea-power. This was so in the days of the
Vikings thousand years ago and this is so today.
The current activities of Sweden in naval arms control issues started with an
initiative in the United Nations in 1983.
1
But naval arms control in the modern legal
sense was part of Sweden's foreign policy already in the 17th century. The 1658 Peace
of Roskilde between Denmark and Sweden stipulated in its article III that the parties
accepted an obligation to prevent foreign fleets from entering the Baltic Sea. This
measure that was in force for two years only, was intended to constitute the Baltic Sea
as a Swedish lake (Dominium Maris Baltici).
Various measures of a similar nature were agreed between Sweden and other
countries during the following 200 years.
2
Today, the Baltic Sea is considered an open sea freely accessible for warships of
all states. The beginning of this époque of freedom of navigation through the Baltic
straits was a multilateral agreement 1857 between the relevant states of the time:
"Traité pour l'abolition des droits du Sund et des Belts".
3
After the Napoleonic wars, when Sweden geographically and politically became
what it is today, the status of the Baltic Sea as an open sea (Mare Liberum) has been
considered essential for her security.
4
After this time, Sweden has pursued various policies of an arms control nature
in the maritime domain. To explain those policies, a few basic factors have to be kept
in mind.
*
The author is a research associate (em) of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, P.O. Box 27035,
SE-102 51 STOCKHOLM, Sweden. Tel.: +46-8-511 768 00, email jan.prawitz@ui.se. Views and opinions
expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not imply the expression of any position on the part
of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.
1
Resolution 38/188 G on an expert study on the naval arms race.
2
The author is grateful to Professor Ove Bring for information about the old agreements. Private
communication. (Memorandum 27 July 1990.)
3
Agreed on 14 March 1857 between Denmark, Sweden-Norway, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France,
Great Britain, the Netherlands, Russia, and the states of Germany.
4
The status of the Baltic Sea has been extensively analysed by B. J. Theutenberg in Folkrätt och
Säkerhetspolitik (In Swedish). Norstedts. Stockholm 1986. p. 137-211.
39
One is that Sweden has a long coastline in the Baltic Sea - the longest among
the states in the area.
Another has been Sweden's declared policy of neutrality based on a tradition as
old as the open sea status of the Baltic combined with a defence adapted to the balance
of forces between NATO and the Warsaw Pact which existed in Europe during the
cold war.
A third is that the concept of naval arms control must be defined in a broad
sense also taking into account that the Law of the Sea includes many provisions that
have had a confidence- and security-building effect long before those terms were
coined.
A fourth is the recognition that there would be two different categories of arms
control measures for promoting security at sea.
5
One would be effective measures of
nuclear and conventional arms control. The other would be to make naval forces and
capabilities contribute to effective ocean management policies for the peaceful uses of
the sea. The open sea status of the Baltic as a security measure is a good example of the
latter principle. Presence of naval forces in a specific area may be as important for
stability and confidence building as absence or limitations of such forces.
The expressed views and attitudes of Sweden also depended on the multilateral
context in which such views and attitudes were developed; with what countries Sweden
cooperated and made agreed or consensus language. In the United Nations and the
Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, Sweden belonged to the group of neutral
and non-aligned, in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE)
Sweden belonged to the similar NNA-group, and in the 3rd UN Conference on the
Law of the Sea Sweden belonged to the group of land locked and geographically
disadvantageous states (LLGDS). Therefore, Sweden sometimes has supported
proposals that may seem generalized and peripheral for her own immediate security
needs in exchange for support of proposed measures of greater importance for her.
After the Second World War, Swedish policies on naval arms control has been
pursued along three tracks; the law of the sea, the CSCE and the United Nations.
Old treaties in force
Many of the old treaties that Sweden became a party to had a limited duration or went
out of force for other reasons. Some remain in force today, however. One is the 1856
Paris Declaration respecting Maritime Law.
6
Another is the Baltic straits regime of
1857 referred to above. Sweden is also a party to five of the Hague Conventions of
1907 on the laws of war at sea, among them the important Convention XIII on Rights
and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War.
7
There are also two sub-regional regimes in force in the Nordic area. One is the
1920 Spitsbergen Treaty prescribing that the Spitsbergen archipelago with Bear Island
5
Compare the 1985 United Nations expert report Study on The Naval Arms Race. UN Document
A/40/535 (Sales No. E.86.IX.3). paras 322 and 324.
6
The declaration prescribes that privateering is and remains abolished; that neutral flag covers enemy
goods and that neutral goods are not liable to capture under enemy flag, in both cases with exceptions for
contraband of war; and that blockades must be effective in order to be binding. Sweden-Norway acceded
to the Declaration on 13 June 1856.
7
Sweden is also a party to Convention VI Relating to the Status of Enemy Merchant Ships at the
Outbreak of Hostilities; Convention VII Relating to the Conversion of Merchant Ships into Warships;
Convention IX Concerning Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War; and Convention XI Relative
to Certain Restrictions with Regard to the Exercise of the Right of Capture in Naval War. Convention X
for the Adaptation to Maritime Warfare of the Principles of the Geneva Convention of 1906 was later
replaced by the 1949 Geneva Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick,
and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea.
40
and its territorial waters would be placed "under the full and absolute sovereignty of
Norway". In addition Norway undertook "not to create nor to allow the
establishment of any naval base" in those territories, and "not to construct any
fortifications in the said territories, which may never be used for warlike purposes"
(Art 9). Other parties to the treaty (about 40) have "equal liberty of access and entry
for any reason or object whatever to the waters, fjords and ports" of the treaty
territory for peaceful purposes.
8
The other is the Convention on the Non-fortification and Neutralization of the
Aaland Islands, signed in 1921, proscribing the maintenance and establishment of
naval and air bases or "other installations used for war purposes" in the Aaland area.
No military, naval or air force of any power shall enter or remain in the zone. The
manufacture, import, transport or re-export of arms and implements of war in the
zone is forbidden. There are a few exceptions permitted if necessary to keep internal
order or to protect the neutral status of the area. Innocent passage in the zonal waters
is generally permitted.
9
After 1945.
The law of the sea track
Sweden took part in the negotiation on the law of the sea conventions adopted in 1958
and in 1982. Before signing the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
10
,
Sweden in 1979 extended its territorial water breadth - four nautical miles since 1779 -
to 12 nautical miles.
11
By that, not only Sweden became 10 % larger, about 40 000
km
2
of Baltic sea area also became neutral territory. The territorial sea of Sweden
extends from a system of straight baselines established in 1966.
12
In order to avoid negative consequences of the introduction of a transit passage
regime in certain areas of narrow waters in the case also Denmark would extend its
territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, it was agreed between Denmark and Sweden in
1979 that the territorial waters of the two countries in such areas would be limited so
that a six nautical mile wide corridor for free passage would be created.
13
Among the four recognized "historical straits" in the world which are
exempted from the transit passage regime according to UNCLOS (Art 35 c)
14
, two
relate to Sweden; one is the Oeresund between southern Sweden and Denmark based
on the 1857 treaty mentioned above and the other is the strait between Sweden and the
Aaland archipelago of Finland based on the Aaland Convention.
15
In these straits, the
old regime will prevail.
16
The addition of the Aaland Strait as a fourth to the three
8
The Spitsbergen Treaty entered into force on 14 August 1925 and has some 40 parties. Sweden is one of
9 original parties.
9
The Aaland Convention entered into force on 6 April 1922 and has 10 parties, among them Sweden.
10
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. UN Sales No.E.83.V.5.
11
Swedish regulation SFS 1978:959 (In Swedish). For an account of Sweden's territorial water claims in
the old days and related implications at the time, see T. Gihl, Gränsen för Sveriges territorialvatten. SOU
1930:6 (In Swedish).
12
The Law of the Sea. Baselines: National Legislation with Illustrative Maps. UN Sales No.E.89.V.10.p
299-305. Swedish regulation SFS 1966:375 (In Swedish).
13
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SÖ 1979:43 and Swedish regulation SFS 1979:1140 (In Swedish).
14
Art 35 c refers to "straits in which passage is regulated in whole or in part by long-standing
international conventions in force specifically relating to such straits".
15
The other two "historical straits" are the Straits of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the
Bosporus based on the Montreux Convention of 1936, and the Magellan Straits based on the Treaty
between Argentina and Chile of 1881.
16
Upon signing the UNCLOS on 10 December 1982, the delegate of Sweden referred to the historical
straits and declared that "the present legal regime in the two straits will remain unchanged after the entry
into force of the Convention". The delegate of Finland, referring to the strait between Finland (the Aaland
Islands) and Sweden made a similar declaration.
41
original historical straits followed an initiative by Sweden at the end of the negotiation
of UNCLOS.
Sweden has traditionally requested prenotification (48 hours in advance) from
other states which intend to let their warships use their right of innocent passage. This
rule applies to all Swedish territorial waters except the strait of Oeresund mentioned
above. Such prenotification is not explicitly mentioned in UNCLOS, but Sweden has
interpreted current law as permitting the coastal state to request such prenotification.
17
About 40 other states claim a right to exercise control of innocent passage in
their territorial waters through prior authorization, prenotification or a limit on the
number of warships present at anyone time.
18
Among those states are Denmark,
Finland, and Norway. Some states have established special rules for submarines, for
nuclear powered vessels, or for other special cases. Rules of this kind have been
disputed by some flag states.
19
There have been no serious incidents because of
Sweden's policy, however.
UNCLOS also gives the right to coastal states to establish "exclusive economic
zones" extending no more than 200 nautical miles from the baselines (Art 57). Because
the sea areas surrounding Sweden nowhere is wider than 400 nautical miles, Sweden
has entered into negotiations with all its neighbours to delimit available sea areas.
Those negotiations were started in the late 1960s and are now almost completed. In
due time the whole Baltic Sea and its approaches will be divided into economic zones.
There will then be seven three-country-corners established in the area. About 45 % of
the Baltic Sea will be within Sweden's exclusive economic zone.
The CSCE-track
When, in 1973, negotiations on confidence-building measures started within the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Sweden submitted proposals
covering also naval military activities. It turned out, however, that the resulting
agreement, the CSCE Final Act
20
of 1 August 1975, did address mainly land
manoeuvres. Amphibious forces included in such manoeuvres were the only naval
element to be covered. There was no provision related to independent naval exercises.
Sweden together with the other NNA-states tried again at the first CSCE follow
up meeting in Belgrade in 1977 to propose naval measures.
21
There was no success,
however.
At the second follow up meeting in Madrid 1980-83, Sweden prepared for a
new proposal on naval confidence-building measures. Together with the other NNA-
states, Sweden also tried to create a geographical concept, the "European Waters",
17
Swedish Regulations SFS 1982:755 § 3. IKFN 1984, Bil G 3:1.2 (In Swedish). Upon signing the
UNCLOS, the delegate of Sweden declared that "as regards those parts of the Convention which deal with
innocent passage through the territorial sea, it is the intention of the Government of Sweden to continue to
apply the present régime for the passage of foreign warships and other government-owned vessels used for
non- commercial purposes through the Swedish territorial sea, that régime being fully compatible with the
Convention".
18
Dr L.D.M. Nelson, UN Office for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. Private communication. 28
January 1991.
19
At a meeting 23 September 1989 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA, the foreign ministers of the USA and
the USSR agreed on a joint statement, Uniform Interpretation of Rules of International Law Governing
Innocent Passage, stating i. a that ”all ships, including warships, regardless of cargo, armament or means
of propulsion, enjoy the right of innocent passage...for which neither notification nor authorization is
required” (UN Document A/44/650 paras 12 and 13). The agreement is bilateral but may get wider
implications.
20
The Final Act is not a ratified treaty and is considered by the signatories as "politically" rather than
legally binding.
21
Document CSCE/BM/6.
42
where agreed naval CBMs would apply.
22
This approach was not successful either.
Instead agreement was reached in 1983 on a mandate for a Conference on
Confidence- and Security-Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe, to be held in
Stockholm, stipulating that agreed measures would "cover the whole of Europe as well
as the adjoining sea area and air space". The extension of the adjoining sea area was
defined in functional rather than geographical terms. Agreed measures would apply to
military activities in the adjoining sea area "whenever these activities affect the security
in Europe as well as constitute a part of activities taking place within the whole of
Europe which they will agree to notify". Again naval exercises independent of land
activities were not covered.
23
At the Stockholm Conference 1984-86 attempts to negotiate Confidence- and
Security Building Measures (CSBMs) applying to independent naval activities were
postponed to a later stage. There were, however, special provisions worked out for a
land application of a naval activity - amphibious landings. While the agreement arrived
at, the Stockholm Document,
24
generally provides for prior notification of military
activities exceeding 13 000 troops and invitations of observers to such activities
exceeding 17 000 troops, special strict provisions apply in case of amphibious landings
with corresponding limits of 3000 and 5000 troops respectively.
25
The functional definition of the concept "adjoining sea areas" implies e.g. that
prior notification of military activities on land in Europe would include also related
naval activities. Depending on the circumstances, activities in rather distant waters
might then be involved. On the other hand this formula would not require notification
of independent naval activities, that do not involve amphibious landings and other
land-related operations, however large they are or however close to European land
areas they operate.
In June 1984, Sweden intervened at the Stockholm Conference on the issue of
the status of the Baltic Sea.
26
The issue was whether the Baltic Sea should be considered
to be part of "the whole of Europe" or to be part of "the adjoining sea area".
According to the Swedish view, "the adjoining sea area and air space begin where the
territorial sea and air space above it end", thus making most of the Baltic Sea and the
North Sea belong to the adjoining sea area. Sweden insisted that agreed CSBMs should
not "in any way compromise the status of the Baltic Sea as part of the high seas".
At the two negotiations within the CSCE framework that began in Vienna in
March 1989, the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Negotiation between NATO
and Warsaw Pact states did not address naval forces according to its mandate, while
the CSBM Negotiations - a continuation of the Stockholm Conference - between all
CSCE states took place in accordance with the Madrid mandate.
27
Sweden participated
only in the latter talks. In those talks, Sweden together with the other NNA-states
made proposals
28
on exchange of information about naval and amphibious forces
22
Document CSCE/RM.21. The ”European waters” concept was defined to include ”the inner seas of
Europe, i.e. the Baltic, the North Sea and the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the ocean areas adjacent
to the territorial waters of the European participating States”. No metric extension of the latter was
indicated.
23
Concluding Document of the Madrid Meeting of Representatives of the Participating States of the CSCE
adopted 6 September 1983.
24
Document of the Stockholm Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures and
Disarmament in Europe adopted 19 September 1986.
25
The Stockholm Document paras 31.2 and 38.4, later embodied in the Vienna Document 1990 paras
38.2 and 45.4.
26
Statement by Mr P. Schori, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, at the plenary meeting of the Stockholm
Conference on 26 June 1984. Documents of Swedish Foreign Policy 1984, p.120.
27
The mandates for the two conferences are included in the Concluding Document of the Vienna Meeting
1986 of Representatives of the Participating States of the CSCE adopted 15 January 1989.
28
Document CSCE/WV.5 p.3. The proposal was sponsored by all nine NNA-states (Austria, Cyprus,
43
beyond the Stockholm Document but within the Madrid mandate. The scope of those
proposals was by necessity limited by the mandate. The NNA-states did also in this
proposal encourage prenotification of intentions to exercise the right of innocent
passage.
The NNA-proposal includes i. a. annual exchange of information on active
mobile naval units within the CSCE zone of application about
- The location of main naval basis;
- Number and type of main combat ships (displacement over 1000 tons), home
port and main armaments of each combat ship; and
- Number and type of ship-based helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft.
The continued CSBM-negotiations did cover several issues which also have a naval
dimension and are important and attractive to the NNA-states. Among those were a
more precise definition of the amphibious landing concept, official doctrine seminars,
regional hot-lines, and a mechanism for consultation and cooperation as regards
unusual military activities as well as hazardous incidents of a military nature.
At the CSCE Summit Meeting in Paris in November 1990, some of these issues
were codified in a new CSBM agreement
29
which includes new measures with those
prescribed by the Stockholm Document. Most of the navy-related proposals of the
NNA-states were left to continued negotiations in Vienna, however.
Sweden did at the time consider continuing to be active on the CSCE-track.
While the possibilities to develop new CSBMs in the maritime domain was limited by
the Madrid-mandate, the CSCE-process could possibly provide more generous
mandates in the future and thus open new possibilities. But an active participation in
such future negotiations would require further analysis of the issues involved. It should
then be recognized that the maritime domain is operationally and legally very different
from land areas and that a special treatment of naval issues may be necessary.
30
The UN-track
As an active participant in the disarmament deliberations and negotiations within the
United Nations and the Conference on Disarmament, Sweden took part in the drafting
of the first sea-related multilateral disarmament agreement in 1970, i.e. the Sea-Bed
Treaty banning the emplacement of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass
destruction on the sea-bed and the ocean floor and in the subsoil thereof. For a party,
the treaty applies to an area beyond 12 n.m. from the baselines of that party. At that
instance Sweden successfully requested that verification of the implementation of the
treaty in an area between the outer limit of the territorial waters (4 n.m. for Sweden at
the time) and 12 n.m. from the baselines would be the exclusive right of the coastal
state.
31
At the third review conference of the parties to the treaty in 1989, Sweden
supported the declaration that the application of the treaty's provisions would be
extended to all waters (the shore to shore formula).
32
While Sweden as a non-nuclear weapon state was never restricted from
Finland, Liechtenstein, Malta, San Marino, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia) and by Ireland.
29
Vienna Document 1990 of the Negotiations on Confidence- and Security Building Measures, adopted
on 17 November 1990.
30
For discussion see G. Wallén, Are Naval Forces Destabilizing? in Naval Confidence-Building Measures,
Disarmament Topical Papers. (United Nations, Sales No E.90.IX.10) 1990. p.87-98.
31
Document CCD/PV. 473
32
Document SBT/CONF.III/15, part II, para 13.
44
undertaking any planned activity by the Sea-Bed Treaty, that might change in the
future, because of the provision - not yet implemented - to negotiate a widening of the
scope of the treaty to cover further categories of weapons and other parts of the "sea-
space" than the sea-bed (Art V). The treaty may also be used, if need be, to
internationalise a verification exercise (Art III:5).
33
There has generally been a relative lack of interest in naval arms control after
world war two. The Sea-Bed Treaty is one exception. The limitation of the number of
strategic nuclear submarines (SSBN) agreed between the USA and the USSR is another.
But the very limited attention paid to arms control related to naval forces in general
seems not to be due to a lack of appreciation of their importance but rather to the fact
that the legal regime at sea was until the beginning of the 1980s not clearly defined.
There was an attempt during the Third United Nations Law of the Sea Conference
(1973-82) to raise the question of limiting the military use of the vast high sea areas of
the world, considered to be the common heritage of mankind. However, the issue was
considered to fall under the general mandate of the Geneva Disarmament Conference,
but that conference considered it difficult to deal with naval issues before the Third
United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea had defined the legal regime of the
sea. Without such a legal clarification it would be unclear who would be entitled to
agree on what.
The adoption of the UNCLOS in 1982 apparently lifted the long-time taboo on
discussion of naval arms control. One year later, in December 1983, the United
Nations General Assembly, on the initiative of Sweden, decided to carry out an expert
study on the naval arms race in order to "facilitate the identification of possible areas
for disarmament and confidence-building".
34
The report of the UN expert group was finalized in 1985.
35
It summarizes in
five categories the proposals for naval arms control and confidence-building that had
been put forward up to then: (a) quantitative restraints; (b) qualitative and
technological restraints; (c) geographical and/or mission restraints; (d) confidence-
building measures; and (e) modernization of the laws of sea warfare.
As a matter of principle, the UN report assigned no priorities among the listed
measures, but it stressed the general importance of nuclear weapon-related issues.
It is obvious that drafting policies on maritime arms control for the future
cannot appreciably draw on historical experience. There are several new factors that
make the problems of today fundamentally different from those that existed before
1945, including nuclear weapons and propulsion; command, control and
communications; electronics; the increasing independence of naval forces from weather
conditions; submarine and offshore technology; and the new law of the sea. This
general observation has one important exception, however: modernization of the laws
of sea warfare will have to be based also on international law adopted long ago.
The expert report further stated that because of the special problems arising
from treating naval armaments separately from land forces - which could be required
because of the very different legal regimes of land and sea areas - negotiating arms
control and disarmament in the maritime domain should be governed by four
"axioms" proposed by Sweden.
36
33
When the Soviet submarine U 137 in October 1981 stranded on a rock in southern Sweden assumingly
with a nuclear weapon onboard, there was at least theoretically a case for invoking the verification clause
of the Sea-Bed Treaty to clarify the case legally. This could have been done unilaterally, with assistance of
other parties, or through the United Nations (Art III:5). This possibility was not used, however.
34
UN Resolution 38/188 G.
35
The study was carried out by a group of seven experts from China, France, Gabon, Indonesia, the
Netherlands, Peru, and Sweden. The group's report, Study on the Naval Arms Race, UN Document
A/40/535 (Sales No. E.86.IX.3.) was adopted by the UN General Assembly by Resolution 40/94 F.
36
Study on the Naval Arms Race. para 285.
45
"First, disarmament measures should be balanced and should not diminish the
security of any State. But as naval forces are not independent of other military
forces, they should be considered in their general military context. There is no
such thing as an independent naval balance or parity. Disarmament measures
in the maritime field should thus be balanced in that general sense.
Second, this fact combined with the very differing geographical situations of
States could require multilateral measures of restriction for naval forces and
weapons to be numerically asymmetrical in order to maintain an overall
military situation in balance.
Third, because of the universal nature of the Convention on the Law of the Sea,
such measures should not take the legal form of amendments to the
Convention. They should be embodied in separate legal instruments in
harmony with the Convention.
Fourth, as in all arms control and disarmament, appropriate verification and
complaints procedures are essential for the proper implementation of agreed
measures."
These axioms were formulated in response to concerns that the military effect of naval
arms control measures could be severely unbalanced because one of the two major
military alliances - NATO - was by far more dependent on sea lanes of communication
(SLOCs) than is the other and that such measures could infringe generally on the
freedom of navigation. The axioms could be said to accommodate naval arms control
to land and general arms control.
When the expert report was discussed in the General Assembly in the fall of
1985, Sweden suggested five measures "that should be worked out without delay", all
based on concrete national interests:
37
- Long-range sea-based cruise missiles should be banned before they are
produced in large numbers;
38
- Tactical nuclear weapons on board warships should be taken ashore and not be
on board on routine patrol;
39
- The legitimate claim of coastal states to reasonable "seaboard security" should
be confirmed;
40
37
UN Document A/C.1/40/PV.4
38
It was the President of Finland, Dr U. Kekkonen, who in a statement in Stockholm on 8 May 1978
referred to the technology of cruise missiles and expressed concern that in the event of a conflict, "great-
power missiles equipped with nuclear weapons" could over fly the small Nordic countries "at the altitude
of a few hundred meters on their way to targets on the other side". See Yearbook of Finnish Foreign
Policy 1978. Helsinki. 1979.
39
Sweden experienced a "nuclear violation" of its borders in 1981, when the Soviet submarine U 137
stranded on a rock in southern Sweden with a nuclear weapon onboard. See M. Leitenberg, Soviet
Submarine Operations in Swedish Waters 1980-1986. Praeger. New York. 1987; and Countering the
Submarine Threat: Submarine Violations and Swedish security policy, Swedish Official Reports Series
1983:13.
40
Submarine intrusions and other foreign "brown-water operations" in Swedish waters in the 1980s have
created a strong feeling of a need for improved seaboard security. Compare previous note. The "seaboard
security" concept was introduced in the UN expert study, para 264, with the following wording: ” The
principle of freedom of navigation on the world's oceans makes a coastal state the neighbour across the
sea of every other coastal state, including all significant naval Powers. While naval forces have the
recognized legal right to cruise and operate off the coasts of foreign states, coastal states, particularly those
which are small or medium in size, have on the other hand a legitimate claim for a reasonable 'seaboard
46
- The inalienable right of all States to the freedom of the seas should not be
infringed upon by military activities;
41
- A modernization of the current laws of sea warfare should be undertaken.
In addition, it was pointed out that a multilateral agreement should be worked out
comparable to the 1972 Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents on and over the
High Seas between the USA and the USSR. The practice of the nuclear weapon flag
states of neither confirming nor denying (NiCNoD) the presence or absence of nuclear
weapons onboard specific ships at specific times was criticized as the opposite to
confidence-building, in fact "confidence-blocking". Abandoning of the NiCNoD policy
was urged.
As the initiator of the expert study, Sweden also initiated a follow up discussion
in the UN Disarmament Commission during the period 1986 to 1990. The political
development of the issue has been slow, however.
At its 1986 meeting, the Commission produced a document politically
endorsing the abovementioned "axioms" as guiding principles for future negotiations.
The possibility of negotiating a multilateral agreement on the prevention of incidents
was recommended for persuasion. The need for updating the laws of sea warfare was
acknowledged.
42
These statements were agreed by consensus "among those participating", i.e.
all states but USA. The US delegation tried unsuccessfully to prevent the issue of "naval
armaments and disarmament" to appear on the agenda of the meeting and did not take
part in consultations on the issue.
At the Commission's 1987 meeting, the issue of "naval armaments and
disarmament" was developed a little bit further. Confidence-building measures were
emphasized as important "at this stage". Prenotification of naval activities, exchange
of observers at such activities, and extended general information on naval forces of
states were measures mentioned as desirable subjects for future negotiations. The need
for updating the eighth Hague Convention of 1907 on the Laying of Automatic
Submarine Contact Mines was explicitly mentioned. It was also stressed that
maintenance of the freedom of navigation and other uses of the sea was an important
objective for all states neutral to or otherwise not involved in ongoing armed
conflicts.
43
At the Commission's 1988 meeting, Sweden proposed a set of objectives for
naval confidence-building measures with a matching list of measures:
44
a) “Objective: Peace-time security in relation to activities by military forces of
many States operating at sea to avoid incidents and confrontation.
Measures: Multilateral rules for prevention of incidents. Notification of naval
major activities and observation of such activities.
b) Objective: Security for non-military activities at sea, such as shipping, fishing,
off-shore activities.
security' and should not be subjected to power projection possibly originating from such activities. It
should be noted in this regard that the Convention on the Law of the Sea includes balanced provisions
which would meet security needs of both flag states and coastal states provided they are strictly
implemented. It should also be noted that the security of both categories of states could be further
enhanced by means of agreed confidence- and security-building measures in harmony with the Convention
and customary international law”.
41
During the second world war, the difficulties for neutral Sweden to use sea lanes of communication to
foreign countries for peaceful purposes became apparent and has been considered vital ever since.
42
UN Document A/CN.10/83.
43
UN Document A/CN.10/102
44
UN Document A/CN.10/101/Rev.1 para 10.
47
Measures: Rules guiding naval activities when in conflict with civilian activities,
in accordance with the regimes of the high seas, exclusive economic zones,
archipelagic and territorial waters.
c) Objective: "Seaboard security" - i. e. security of coastal States against threats
and military power projection from the sea.
Measures: General and regional rules such as notification of major naval
activities related to surface vessels, submarines and amphibious forces.
Measures relating to restraints on naval major activities could be also
considered.
d) Objective: War-time security at sea of vessels belonging to States neutral to a
conflict.
Measures: Steps to improve international respect and awareness of existing
international law with regard to the rights of vessels belonging to States,
neutral to a conflict.”
The Swedish proposals were later reflected in the resulting agreed document.
45
At the Commission's 1989 meeting Sweden tabled two concrete proposals, one
on a multilateral agreement for the prevention of incidents at sea, and one on a
protocol on sea mines.
46
At the same meeting, Sweden joined Finland and Indonesia
outlining the interests and preferred approaches for non-aligned states.
47
The
concluding document of the meeting
48
reflecting much of the substance of the joint
intervention also referred to the position of "several delegations that the current
practice of nuclear weapon states of neither confirming nor denying the presence or
absence of nuclear weapons onboard any particular ship at any particular time should
be abandoned".
At the Commission's 1990 meeting, Sweden came back to the issue of sea
mines, submitting a considerably revised draft convention.
49
At the same meeting that
was the last addressing the agenda item of "naval armaments and disarmament",
Finland, Indonesia and Sweden jointly tabled a program for possible action "in the
naval domain”
50
.
The part on naval arms control in the concluding documents of all these
Disarmament Commission meetings, including that of the 1990 session,
51
did more and
more reflect positions and interests expressed by Sweden. At the same time the
language of the reports became less and less consensus language. The USA did
demonstratively not take part in the deliberations. It is obvious that the case for naval
arms control cannot be developed further by more meetings of the Disarmament
Commission.
The five years of Disarmament Commission deliberations did produce,
however, a few conclusions, the most important of which can be summarized as
follows.
45
UN Document A/CN.10/113.
46
UN Documents A/CN.10/121 and A/CN.10/129. The prevention of incidents issue is described by S.M.
Lynn-Jones in Applying and extending the USA-USSR Incidents at Sea Agreement and by this author in A
multilateral régime for prevention of incidents at sea, both articles in R. Fieldhouse, Security at Sea: Naval
Forces and Arms Control. SIPRI. Oxford University Press. 1990. p. 203-225.
47
UN Document A/CN.10/130.
48
UN Document A/CN.10/134.
49
UN Document A/CN.10/141.
50
UN Document A/CN.10/139 paras 15 - 22. For text, see Annex of this paper.
51
UN Document A/45/42 Annex II.
48
- The issue of naval arms control is irreversibly established on the international
agenda;
52
- The fundamental conditions for naval arms control as embodied in the
"axioms" have been accepted;
- The priority of CSBMs "at this stage" is recognized;
- A catalogue of issues considered significant has been reported.
That was the basis for further action within the international community, action that
must be defined in concrete terms before negotiations can commence at such fora as
the Conference on Disarmament, the CSCE or others.
As a separate issue, Sweden also supported the initiative of Iceland for reducing
the risks connected with seaborne reactors
53
.
NWFZN
The issue of establishing a nuclear weapon free zone in the Nordic area (NWFZN) has
been discussed since the late 1950s. The proposed zone has essentially been considered
as including the land territories of the Nordic states,
54
while denuclearization of sea
areas raised special problems.
55
But since 1978, the government of Sweden has
suggested that the whole of the Baltic Sea should be part of such a zone when
established.
56
In 1987, the NWFZN project became the subject of a joint study by a group of
foreign affairs officers of the five Nordic countries. The group concluded its work in
early 1991.
57
The group discusses various concepts of geographical extension of a zone
all of which includes the territorial waters of the zonal states and some of which also
would include other sea areas. Among the latter are the Baltic Sea, where relatively few
nuclear weapons are present, and "northern sea areas" (the Norwegian Sea, the
Greenland Sea, the Barent Sea and the Arctic Sea) where nuclear weapons are
potentially present in large numbers.
The report points out that flag states have the right to innocent passage for
ships through the territorial waters of other states regardless of the weapons they may
carry, and that an absolute absence of nuclear weapons in the territorial waters of the
zonal states would require the consent of the nuclear weapon states. The same is true
for various denuclearization and "thinning-out" measures applied to sea areas outside
territorial waters. The report also makes a detail analysis of the status of the Baltic Sea
and its approaches and provides a description of how the Nordic states handle the
NiCNoD problem. The report generally concludes that there is a strong strategic link
between the fast developing situation in Europe in general and what restrictive
52
In December 1990, the UN General Assembly decided to inscribe the item "Naval Armaments and
Disarmament" on next year's agenda with 152 votes in favour, one (USA) against and no abstentions
(General Assembly decision 45/416).
53
The issue of safety guidelines for seaborne nuclear reactors was raised by the Minister of Foreign Affairs
of Iceland, Mr Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson, in the UN General Assembly on 4 October 1989 (A/44/PV.19)
and again on 24 September 1990 (A/45/PV.4). The same issue was the subject of a joint Nordic initiative
in the IAEA General Conference in September 1990; see IAEA Documents GC (XXXIV)/COM.5/84 and
GC (XXXIV)/949.
54
The Nordic states are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The Faroe Islands and
Greenland are Danish territories. The Spitzbergen archipelago and the Jan Mayen island are Norwegian
territories.
55
An analysis of the problem of denuclearizing Northern sea areas is contained in J. Prawitz, Regional and
Subregional Denuclearization, in K. Möttölä (Ed.), The Arctic Challenge. Westview Press 1988.
56
The first official statement to that effect was made by Foreign Minister Hans Blix in November 1978.
Utrikesfrågor 1978. (In Swedish) p. 92.
57
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Nordic Area. report from the Nordic Senior Officials Group. March
1991.
49
measures could be feasible in northern waters.
The report was a semi-political investigation. No recommendations were made
except that the discussion should go on.
The NiCNoD issue
One aspect of naval confidence-building is visits by warships in foreign ports. While
based on a long tradition, such visits were implicitly referred to in the Helsinki Final
Act (1975) where exchanges among military personnel and visits by military
delegations were considered confidence-building. Sweden also have a long tradition of
receiving visits by foreign warships and of sending her own ships to visit foreign ports.
However, in recent years such traditional visits in Swedish ports by warships
from nuclear weapon states have become controversial because of the practice of
neither confirming nor denying (NiCNoD) the presence or absence of any nuclear
weapons onboard any particular ship at any particular time.
58
Since 1983 a permission
to visit a Swedish port includes the information that "there is a general prohibition
against foreign naval vessels carrying nuclear weapons when visiting Sweden" and
"that the Swedish government takes it for granted that this prohibition will be strictly
observed".
The Swedish government has repeatedly stated that it has no reason to assume
that this condition has ever been abrogated. But the uncertainty about compliance that
the NiCNoD practice creates has become a source of constant irritation in domestic
politics.
In the fall of 1987, the NiCNoD principle was put on the agenda of the
Swedish Parliament by those who wanted a compromise between two discussed
options, one in favour of the current procedure and one positive to the New Zealand
way of acting i.e. to deny all visits when certainty about the visitor's non-nuclear status
could not be obtained. The resolve of the Parliament was that Sweden should act in
international fora to persuade the nuclear weapon states to abandon their NiCNoD
principle. If such an effort should prove unsuccessful, other measures should be
considered in order to remove the uncertainty often connected with visiting warships
under the flag of a nuclear weapon power. Implicit in this decision was a
recommendation that the current procedure should continue for a period of three
years, to provide the time for international diplomatic efforts.
59
The position of the Swedish government on the NiCNoD issue was later stated
in the UN General Assembly by Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson in June 1988 referring
to the secrecy applied to naval nuclear arms as "confidence-blocking".
60
58
For an analysis of the NiCNoD issue from a Swedish perspective see J. Prawitz, The Neither Confirming
Nor Denying: Thoughts on a Principle, in S. Lodgaard, (Ed.), Naval Arms Control, Sage. London.
1990.p.240-257. For a Nordic perspective, see Nordic Study Group on Port Call Policies, The Port Call
Issue: Nordic Considerations, Bulletin of Peace Proposals, Vol.21 No.3, Sep 1990. p.337-352; and P.
Joenniemi, The Port Call Issue; Finnish Policies in a Nordic Perspective, Occasional Paper No.43.TAPRI.
1991.
59
The Parliament. Foreign Relations Committee 1987/88. No 1. October 1987 (In Swedish).
60
UN Document A/S-15/PV.2 (1 June 1988). The statement of the Prime Minister reads:
The huge number of tactical nuclear arms that are routinely carried around the world by the naval vessels
of the nuclear-weapon States in itself constitute a threat to international security. Additionally, it causes
the increasing and legitimate concern of public opinion when nuclear-capable ships call at ports. The
secrecy traditionally surrounding the deployment of nuclear weapons at sea does not build confidence. On
the contrary, it is confidence-blocking. Therefore the nuclear-weapon Powers should abandon their
outdated policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence or absence of nuclear weapons on board
any particular ship at any particular time. In Sweden we do not permit visiting warships to carry nuclear
arms and we will work internationally for a new policy where assurances against such visits would be
given."
50
In 1990, after the three year period elapsed, the NiCNoD practice was pursued
unchanged. It had been criticized, but there was no indication of any movement on the
part of Western nuclear weapon powers. In this situation, the Swedish Parliament
decided that Sweden should continue the current procedures and at the same time
continue to work internationally both for the abandonment of the NiCNoD principle
and for naval arms reductions. No time limit was indicated.
61
Some remarks
When the issues of "naval arms race" and "naval arms control" were reintroduced by
a small neutral state - Sweden - in the UN process in 1983, that was met with
scepticism by many maritime powers. At the time, there were solid expressions of
political interest and very few thoroughly worked-out proposals on the table. The issue
was in a brainstorming stage. At the same time this effort legitimately created concern
among many of those responsible for security about how this still unborn animal
would finally look like. The "axioms" removed some of the concerns but not all.
The cautious and negative attitude of the most important maritime power, the
USA, to multilateral approaches should be understood in this context. As by far the
biggest power at sea, the USA could easily be the one who would have to pay the
biggest share of the bill, if measures to be agreed were not adapted to a world situation
of complex balances. At the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea,
however, the USA actively contributed to a number of the security and sovereignty
related provisions that now have a considerable confidence-building effect. The USA
has also put forward several proposals on CBMs and other measures for application at
sea in the bilateral talks on nuclear weapons with the USSR.
In a report of April 1991
62
, the US Department of Defence (DoD), concludes
that "the U.S. must be very cautious about placing constraints on its naval forces, the
most flexible instrument of national power". The report observes that "recent changes
in U.S.-Soviet relations notwithstanding, the Soviet Navy will remain the only maritime
force that could hold at risk our ability to use the seas in time of crisis" and that,
therefore, "most naval arms control proposals focus on the capabilities and operations
of the U.S. and Soviet navies". But the report also recognizes that "U.S. naval forces
have global maritime responsibilities apart from the European region and outside the
U.S.-Soviet context". Indeed, "in over 240 crises since World War II, the U.S. Navy has
responded to more than 200”. While generally cautious on naval arms control, the
DoD report points to a few measures bilaterally agreed between the USA and the USSR
as successful, i.e. the 1972 Prevention of Incidents Agreement, the 1979 Prevention of
Dangerous Military Activities Agreement, the 1988 Ballistic Launch Notification
Agreement, the 1989 joint statement on respective rights of innocent passage through
territorial waters, and the exchange of port visits by the U.S. and Soviet navies.
63
61
The Parliament. Foreign Relations Committee 1990/91:UU 4 (In Swedish). In September 1990, the
Congress of the Social Democratic Party, in power at the time, decided "that if the nuclear weapon powers
have not abandoned the NiCNoD principle within two years, the Swedish government should request
visiting warships under nuclear weapon power flag to declare explicitly that there are no nuclear weapons
onboard. Such a declaration must be requested before permission to enter Swedish territory would be
granted, unless the ship is obviously not nuclear weapon capable." Party Congress decisions apply to the
Party Board, the Chairman of which was Sweden’s Prime Minister at the time of decision.
62
Report on Naval Arms Control submitted to the Senate Committee on Armed Services & The House
Committee on Armed Services. DoD. April 1991.
63
The US position also seems to have an important domestic dimension, the US Navy frequently being
described as "independent-minded" and as attempting to avoid involvement of diplomats and politicians
in naval affairs. The apparent success of the bilateral US - USSR Prevention of Incidents Agreement of
1972 has been described as a consequence of the fact that its implementation is handled by "men in
uniform talking to men in uniform".
51
It is dubious if limitations on blue water forces of the major maritime powers
will have much value for the international situation at large. Nuclear missile
submarines of the superpowers serving the central nuclear balance could be an
exception. It is also true that even dramatic measures of this kind would not
significantly help small and medium-sized coastal states, because naval forces of major
powers, even if substantially reduced, could during a limited period of time easily be
concentrated off a coastal point for "gunboat diplomacy" against an overseas
neighbour. Thus, for smaller coastal states, confidence- and security-building measures
would be more interesting.
It should be noted, however, that modern industrialized states like Sweden
would generally not be vulnerable to gunboat diplomacy in the classical sense; only if
the naval forces used for such power projection include nuclear weapons or a
substantial number of marines.
From a small country's point of view the general objectives of naval CSBMs
would be to provide seaboard security and to guarantee safe access to the seas and
oceans for ships and aircraft of states, neutral to or otherwise not involved in ongoing
conflicts.
For the purpose of defining CSBMs selectively addressing nuclear weapons the
NiCNoD practice is clearly an obstacle. To get rid of this obstacle in order to pave the
way for nuclear CSBMs is generally more important than to solve the port call
problems, however spectacular these problems have become.
A general conclusion is that globally applicable measures should be generally
preferred before regional approaches. The primary negotiating forum would thus not
be the CSCE process or other regional fora but the Conference on Disarmament in
Geneva. Regional arms control mostly centers on a land region with an adjoining sea
area more or less precisely defined. A system of regional régimes spread over the world
could then give raise to ambiguous and complex legal situations where such régimes
meet or overlap. In addition, naval forces could easily be transferred in and out of a
specific region. This observation does not exclude, however, that special régimes could
be practical in very special cases, like measures applied in narrow close-to-coast waters
or in the ice-covered Arctic.
When regional measures within the CSCE context are developed in the future,
it is important that such measures are adapted to be in harmony with both existing
global regimes and the law of the sea. The current dynamic development of the
politico-military situation in Europe makes any prognosis difficult. It could be
foreseen, however, that CSCE institutions will be important in the future and that
further negotiations within the CSCE may be based on new and broader mandates
making both naval and nuclear issues possible to address.
The relations between the law of the sea, the laws of sea warfare, and
agreements on arms control are not harmonized, and the implementation of these sets
of norms, particularly in tense situations, could be subject to interpretations. Related
problems have since some time been the subject of analysis and debate in both
academic and political fora. The scope of the problem is considerable and
harmonization and modernization would be desirable to avoid conflicts. It should be
noted that UNCLOS is a modern law, while some of the laws of sea warfare were
drafted a century ago. As stated above, the law of the sea includes provisions with
CSBM effects. But the prime purpose of UNCLOS - "the Constitution for the Oceans"
- is to provide a legal order for the peaceful uses of the seas and oceans, while the
validity of its provisions in times of war is not crystal clear. In addition, in the case of a
war at sea involving a limited number of states, peace would prevail for all other states,
and UNCLOS would continue to be the general instrument of legal order. However,
52
the belligerent states may claim rights in accordance with the laws of sea warfare
which could contradict and limit the rights that other states neutral to the conflict
would have according to UNCLOS.
The Swedish policies on various naval arms control issues were developed as a
process. The fact that the issue of "Naval armaments and disarmament" after 1989 has
not appeared on the agenda of the UN Disarmament Commission made it necessary to
express Sweden's views on the UN-track in other ways. At that time, plans and
priorities were outlined by the Swedish government in several separate statements in
1990
64
.
According to these statements, Sweden intended to continue pursuing her old
specific issues on the UN-track, i.e. a multilateral agreement on the prevention of
incidents at sea and a modernization of the existing protocol concerning sea-mines.
But the major new effort planned at that time was to pursue the proposal to
prohibit all nuclear weapons on all ships and submarines, other than those classes
specifically designated by agreement. It was the understanding that such a ban should
include all sea-launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. An initiative to that
effect was made in November 1990 in the UN General Assembly.
65
Furthermore, at the 1990 UN General Assembly the view was expressed that a
demand for reliable information about possible nuclear weapons onboard ships using
their right of innocent passage would be legitimate.
66
Related to these views is a possible nuclear CBM proposed long ago,
67
that will
improve the seaboard security of coastal states. The rule being complementary to the
law of the sea, would prescribe that passage through the territorial waters of foreign
states with nuclear weapons onboard would not be considered innocent implying the
need for prior notification and the consent of the coastal state as a condition for the
passage. Between countries members of the same military alliance, standing procedures
for such passages could be worked out. (The transit passage regimes of international
straits would not be affected.)
68
Annex
The relevant text of the naval arms control program suggested in May 1990 by
Finland, Indonesia, and Sweden reads:
”------------
15. An important measure in the nuclear sphere would be to seek the prohibition of all
nuclear weapons on all ships, whether surface vessels or submarines, other than those
classes specifically designated by agreement. Such a ban should include all sea-
launched cruise missiles with nuclear warheads and could be achieved either through
64
The Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Mr Sten Andersson, addressed a UN seminar in Helsingör,
Denmark, on 13 June 1990, reproduced in Naval Confidence-Building Measures, Disarmament Topical
Papers 4, United Nations, (Sales No. E.90.IX.10), 1990, p.275-281; the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs,
Mr Pierre Schori, addressed a Greenpeace Hearing on Naval Nuclear Weapons in Stockholm, Sweden, on
4 September 1990, reproduced in Documents of Swedish Foreign Policy 1990; and the Chief Disarmament
Negotiator, Ambassador Maj Britt Theorin addressed the UN General Assembly on 15 October 1990
(A/45/C.1/PV.3).
65
UN Document A/C.1/45/8/Rev.1.
66
UN Document A/C.1/45/PV.3.
67
UN Documents A/CONF.13/C.1/L.21 (1958) and A/CONF.62/C.2/L.1 (1974).
68
Compare J. Prawitz, Application of CBMs to a Nuclear Naval Environment, Disarmament (UN), Vol
XIII No 4, 1990. p.105-112, and in Naval Confidence-Building Measures, Disarmament Topical Papers 4.
(United Nations, Sales No E.90.IX.10) 1990. p.117-123.
53
negotiations or through reciprocal unilateral measures.
69
16. In parallel, negotiations should be undertaken to ensure that progress achieved in
agreements involving land and/or air forces - conventional as well as nuclear - are not
circumvented by measures affecting naval forces.
17. Measures in order to increase openness and transparency concerning the navigation
of vessels carrying nuclear and conventional weapons should furthermore be
considered.
a) The possibilities for exchange of information and greater openness concerning all
types of military structures and major activities, including amphibious operations and
joint operations of land, air and/or naval forces, should be further explored, drawing
on experiences gathered inter alia within the framework of the Conference on Security
and Co-operation in Europe.
b) The possibilities to share information gathered through observation by satellites or
other observation means over international waters should be studied separately as well
as in conjunction with similar projects involving national territories.
18. The experience gained from bilateral agreements on the prevention of incidents at
sea beyond territorial sea is encouraging. The proposal at the 1989 session of the
Disarmament Commission for a multilateral agreement on the prevention of incidents
at sea (A/CN.10/129) should be subject to appropriate negotiations. In this context it
should be noted that a multilateral agreement is not intended to replace or supersede
existing bilateral agreements.
19. By posing a threat to the marine environment, nuclear-powered vessels present
particular problems. Several reported accidents involving nuclear-propelled submarines
demonstrate the need to extend the existing regime concerning the notification of
nuclear accidents to include accidents with nuclear-powered military vessels in
international waters even if these accidents do not have transboundary effects. In
addition, safety guidelines for seaborne nuclear reactors should be considered.
20. A certain modernization of the law of naval warfare could be considered in order
to enhance security at sea and to protect civilian maritime activities. Existing laws of
naval warfare are in some respects outdated owing to technical developments. A case
in point is the 1907 Hague Convention Relative to the Laying of Automatic Submarine
Contact Mines.
21. Steps to ensure respect for existing international law with regard to the rights of
vessels belonging to non-belligerent States or States neutral to a conflict could be
envisaged.
22. Rules guiding naval activities when in conflict with civilian activities in accordance
with the current law of the sea should be elaborated
.-----------”
69
This proposal was adopted from A World at Peace. The Palme Commission on Disarmament and
Security Issues. Stockholm. April 1989. p.25. (UN Document A/44/293 - S/20653, para 72).
54
Olof Palme and Nuclear Disarmament: A Work in
Progress
Lubna Qureshi, PhD, US Diplomatic History, University of California, Berkeley, guest
researcher at Södertörn University, and lecturer at the Department of Economic History,
Stockholm University
Abstract. My paper will explore Prime Minister Olof Palme's
philosophical approach to nuclear disarmament, as well as the
efficacy of his policy. The sources will be the diplomatic
correspondence found at Riksarkivet in Arninge, and the papers of
Alva Myrdal, the prime minister's distinguished advisor in the field of
disarmament. Eventually, this paper will serve as the basis of a
chapter in my planned book on Palme's foreign policy.
This essay is a blueprint for a chapter in my future book on the statecraft of Prime
Minister Olof Palme. Admittedly, I came to this country last year full of admiration
for the late prime minister, planning to chronicle his singular achievements in Swedish
foreign policy. Once I began my research, however, I found that Palme was largely
dependent on a highly capable team in the execution of that foreign policy. This was
true in his approach to the American intervention in Vietnam, as well as his promotion
of nuclear disarmament, the subject of this paper.
The contributions of his subordinates did not diminish Palme’s contributions as
an international activist, which did not even cease with the temporary interruption of
his prime ministership in 1976. Four years later, he established the Independent
Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, informally known as the Palme
Commission, thanks to his chairmanship. Its final report, Gemensam Säkerhet: Ett
Program för Nedrustning, was published in 1982.
1
In his introduction to the report, Palme described his 1981 visit to the Japanese
city of Hiroshima, where he had encountered a photographer. The man described the
aftermath of the world’s first atomic bomb attack thirty-six years earlier:
It was a gathering of ghosts and I couldn’t release my shutter on such a
miserable scene. But I steeled myself and finally clicked the shutter...After
taking a few photographs, I felt I’d done my duty and I couldn’t stay there
anymore. So I called out to the suffering people ‘Take good care of yourselves’.
And I went back home. But even today I still hear the voices asking feebly for
water. It was hell on earth. It was an inferno. Was this the real world?
2
1
Den Oberoende Kommissionen for Nedrustnings- och Säkerhetsfrågor, Gemensam Säkerhet: Ett
Program för Nedrustning. Stockholm: Tidens Förlag, 1982. I found the Swedish translation of the report
at Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek. Since I will eventually publish my book in English, I plan to also
to consult the original report, Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1982.
2
I found the English version of the photographer’s comments in Olof Palme, “40 Years after Hiroshima,”
Speech at the Labour Movement’s Peace Forum on 6 August 1945. Regeringskansliet,
Statsrådsberedningen, Föredrag, Statsministrar, 1985 B3B: 11, Riksarkivet, Arninge, Sweden. It is unclear
whether the photographer spoke English or Japanese, so this is the Swedish version: “Det var som en
samling spoken och jag kunde inte förmå mig att fotografera en så miserable scen. Meg jag förhärdade
mig och tryckte till sist på slutaren....Efter att ha tagit några foton ansåg jag att jag hade fullgjort min
plikt och jag kunde inte stanna längre. Så jag ropade till dessa lidande människor att de skulle ta väl vara
på sig och sedan återvände jag hem. Men ännu i dag hör jag deras roster som bönfaller om vatten...Det
var helvetet på jorden. Det var helvetet på jorden. Det var ett inferno. Var det den verkliga världen?”
55
Regretfully, Palme noted that in 1981 “the ‘real world’ of nuclear war perhaps seemed
more distant that it does today. There was very little debate about the possibilities of
putting an end to the arms race – to now not talk about making real disarmament a
reality.”
3
Palme’s vision of a substantial disarmament entailed several proposals. In
addition to the elimination of chemical arms from Europe, and the reduction of
conventional weapons from the same area, the commission also advocated negotiations
in Europe to reduce political tensions of more general nature, the very tensions that led
to military conflict in the first place. The other proposals probably carried the greatest
weight. “We have worked a broad program for how the threat of nuclear weapons
should be reduced, including sharp reductions of all types of strategic nuclear weapons
systems,” Palme wrote. “We also propose the establishment of a zone free from so-
called tactical nuclear weapons, beginning in Central Europe.”
4
Incidentally, the
Swedish term Palme used for tactical nuclear weapon was slagfältskärnvapen. In
addition, the Palme Commission favored the demilitarization of space, a particularly
important stand against U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or
what critics referred to as “Star Wars.”
The reduction in nuclear weapons systems would require thorough negotiations
between the two major nuclear powers, Washington and Moscow. Of course, this
reversal would depend on two factors: a freeze of armament levels and a
comprehensive moratorium on nuclear testing.
5
Palme maintained his commitment to nuclear disarmament once he reclaimed
power in 1982, and until the end of his life. Late in 1984, Palme spoke before the
Foreign Policy Association in New York. “Those possessing nuclear weapons have the
power to decide over life and death,” Palme boldly lectured his American audience.
“But not only their own life and death. They also have the power to decide over the
life and death of the non-nuclear-weapon states.”
6
Although the upcoming summit
between the two superpowers in Geneva pleased the prime minister, “...the dialogue
on these vital issues must not be confined to the superpowers alone. The non-nuclears
must also have a say.”
7
At the very least, the non-nuclears did try to have their say with the Five
Continent Initiative. Led again by Palme, India, Argentina, Mexico, Tanzania, Greece,
and his own country of Sweden called a comprehensive test ban. A full ban was
necessary because the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which was signed by the Americans,
the British, and the Soviets in 1963, only prohibited atmospheric and underwater
testing. Kennedy was the President of the United States, and his eventual successor, the
fading Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan, had not even dreamed of Star Wars yet. As a
result, underground testing continued. In the 1980s, Palme argued that the
international community could enforce a comprehensive ban: “We in Sweden have
long worked to bring about an international control system, and we know that one
with such a system can expose even the smallest nuclear explosions.”
8
Gemensam Säkerhet, 11.
3
Ibid. “Kommissionen inledde sitt arbete 1981 vid en tidpuntk då kärnvapenkrigets ‘verkliga värld’
kanske föreföll mer avlägsen än den gör i dag. Det förekom också mycket litet debatt om möjligheterna
att få slut på kapprustningen – för att nu inte tala om att få till stand verkling nedrustning.”
4
Ibid., 14. “Vi har utarbetat ett brett program for hur kärnvapenshotet skall minskas, inclusive kraftiga
reduktioner av alla typer of strategiska kärnvapensystem. Vi föreslår upprättandet av en zon fri från s k
slagfältskärnvapen, med början i Mellaneuropa.”
5
Ibid.
6
Olof Palme, “The Non-Nuclears Must Also Have a Say,” Address to the Foreign Policy Association in
New York, 3 December 1984. Regeringskansliet, Statsrådsberedningen, Föredrag, Statsministrar, 1984
B3B: 9. Riksarkivet.
7
Ibid.
8
Olof Palme, “Svensk säkerhetspolitik,” Utrikespolitiska institutet. Regeringskansliet,
56
At a time of dangerously re-escalating tension between the United States and the Soviet
Union, Palme seemed almost revolutionary, certainly courageous. Nevertheless, his
proposals were not new. Another Swede had promoted the same ideas several years
earlier, former Disarmament Minister Alva Myrdal. Originally appointed by Prime
Minister Tage Erlander in 1966, Myrdal served continued her service under Palme
until 1973. She continued to make herself heard on disarmament issues long after her
retirement. Writing in 1977, Myrdal argued that the presence of nuclear weapons in
Europe threatened the continent’s security rather than protected it. The Cold War, in
her view, was a conflict entirely external to the economic and cultural realities of
Central Europe, despite the concentration of American and Soviet forces there. “Take
only one example that I learned on my visit to Hungary: around 80,000 Hungarians
visited West Germany last year and 350,000 West Germans visited Hungary,” Myrdal
noted. “And clearly with fairly great mutual appreciation.”
9
As Palme would also later repeatedly emphasize in his speeches, Myrdal
contended that the Cold War left the smaller states entirely vulnerable to the
machinations of the superpowers. She remained focused on the Central European
countries. If war ever broke out between the United and the Soviet Union, Myrdal
believed that hostilities would commence beyond Europe, possibly the Middle East,
but would then spread to Europe. It would be relatively easy for the United States to
consider nuclear war in Europe because geographic distance gave it a sense of
invulnerability. Of course, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have now
banished that sense forever. Going back to the late Cold War, though, Myrdal
doubted the Americans would ever make Western European security concerns a
priority. After all, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had threated the Soviet
Union with “massive retaliation” through the use of nuclear weapons during the
administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
10
Nevertheless, fear of massive
retaliation did not inhibit the Soviets in in their reconquest of Hungary in 1956 and
Czechoslovakia twelve years later. Moreover, NATO’s successive strategy of flexible
response, which would have involved the graduated employment of conventional
weapons, tactical nuclear weapons, and then strategic nuclear weapons, also left
Western Europe “in reality insecure.”
11
Years after President John F. Kennedy
launched the contingency policy of flexible response, Myrdal feared the threat of
tactical nuclear weapons:
The outcome...of this sort of war that they call ‘limited’ would just as
prominent political leaders have earlier pointed out and scientists have begun to
map out for our part of the world, and for Central Europe most directly, is
nothing less than terrible devastation, genocide of a population, particularly in
cities and probably a nearly total destruction of the possibilities of economic
and social survival.
12
To avert this terrifying possibility, Myrdal offered a proposal that closely resembled
Statsrådsberedningen, Föredrag, Statsministrar. 1985 B3B:11. Riksarkivet. “Vi i Sverige har länge arbetet
med att få till stand ett internationellt kontrollsysem, och vi vet att man med ett sädant kan avslöja uave
små kärnvapenexplosioner.”
9
Alva Myrdal, “Törs man inte diskutera Europas säkerhet?,” Tiden (1977): 609. “Tag bara ett exempel
som jag lärde mig vid besök i Ungern: omkring 80 000 ungrare besökte förra året Västtyskland och 350
000 västtyskar besökte Ungern. Och tydligen med ganska store ömsesidig uppskattning.”
10
Myrdal uses the Swedish expression “massiv vedergällning.”
11
Ibid., 611.
12
Ibid., 612. “Utgången...av den sorts krig som de kallar ‘begränsat’ skulle ju som framstående politiska
ledare tidigare påpekat och vetenskapmän nu börjat klarlägga för vår världsdel, och mest direkt för
Centraleuropa, vara intet mindre än fasansfull ödeläggelse, massmord på befolkiningen, särskilt i städerna
och ett nara nog totalt förintande av ekonomiska och sociala överlevnadsmöjligheter.”
57
the one later offered by Palme and his commission. She called for the creation of a
nuclear-free zone in Northern and Central Europe. Eventually, this zone would spread
to the rest of the continent. Granted, England and France were fiercely protective of
their own nuclear stockpiles. Still, Myrdal believed the existence of a nuclear-free zone
would make it easier to convince the two countries to disarm. She failed to explain
how the two nuclear superpowers would accept this idea. “The road is naturally fairly
long,” she acknowledged.
13
I anticipate that her book, Spelet om nedrustningen (The
Game of Disarmament), examined this dilemma more fully.
Alva Myrdal died on February 1, 1986. Shortly before his own assassination
on the 28
th
of the month, Palme paid tribute to her disarmament work:
She knew the conditions of peace work. One must have knowledge. She
placed hard demands on demands on herself in that respect. One must be
strong. The weak seek violence. The strong want peace. One must have
patience and a burning conviction.
14
Reading the lines of that eulogy, one gets the sense that Myrdal had placed hard
demands on the prime minister as well as herself. As Professor Lars Ingelstam has
observed, Palme’s relationship with Myrdal is key in understanding his own work on
nuclear disarmament. Her collection of personal papers are available at
Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek in Flemingsberg. Because the Labour Movement
Archive literally reopened a week ago as of this writing, I have only started to read her
documents. Thanks to the advice of archivist Stellan Andersson, I will study her
correspondence, among other materials, over a period of several months.
Now that I have begun my researching Myrdal’s papers, I have discovered that
Palme depended on yet another subordinate in his international disarmament
campaign. Maj Britt Theorin served as special ambassador on disarmament issues and
as chairman of the Swedish disarmament delegation to the United Nations. Just like
Palme, she honored Myrdal’s contributions. Speaking to the Committee on
Disarmament in Geneva in 1983, Theorin recalled that the former disarmament
minister demanded in 1962 “an immediate stop to all testing – today.”
15
Myrdal had
called for a comprehensive ban on testing long before Theorin, or their mutual
superior. Both Myrdal and Theorin deserve greater attention from international
scholars.
Within the American historical profession, there exists a tendency to fixate on
the powers of the presidency at the expense of the other two branches of government.
What I hope to avoid now in my own study of Swedish history is to glorify Palme as
head of government. After all, statecraft is essentially a team effort, and the prime
minister had to delegate responsibility. While Palme spoke in very vague terms of an
international control system to monitor nuclear testing, Theorin impressed me with her
command of the technicalities:
The suggested arrangements for international exchange of seismological and
other data are based on the work of the Ad Hoc Group of Scientific Experts.
13
Alva Myrdal, “Törs man inte diskutera Europas säkerhet?,” 619.
14
“Olof Palme vid minneshögtid över Alva Myrdal den 16 februari 1986,” Regeringskansliet,
Statsrådsberedningen, Föredrag, Statsministrar, 1986 B3B:12. Riksarkivet. “Hon kände fredsarbetets
villkor. Man måste ha kunskaper. Hon ställde härda krav på sig själv i det avseendet. Man måste vara
stark. De svaga söker våldet. De starka vill fred. Man måste ha tålamod och en brinnande övertygelse.”
15
“Statement by H.E. Ambassador Maj Britt Theorin, MP, Head of the Swedish Delegation to the
Committee on Disarmament on Tuesday, 14 June 1983.” Fred och nedrustning, 1983. 4.1.16: 153.
Handlingar från Alva Myrdals verksamhet. Alva och Gunnar Myrdals arkiv. Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och
bibliotek, Flemingsberg, Sweden.
58
The international system has three basic elements, national recording stations,
the data exchange system to be carried out through the Global
Telecommunication System of the World Meteorological Organization and
finally international data centres. Each party should have the right to
participate in the international data exchange by providing data from the
stations in its territory and by receiving all data made available through the
exchange.
16
Upon Theorin’s return from a study trip to the United States, she sent a copy of her
report to Myrdal with a lovingly inscribed personal note. Her report describes a
United States that I vaguely remember but no longer exists. In 1982, the American
public favored a nuclear freeze by eighty percent. Labor unions broadly supported the
nuclear freeze movement, as did the political party who enjoyed their support. “The
Democratic party has decided that the “Freeze”-demand is one of key issues in the fall
election,” Theorin wrote.
17
The disarmament movement has now faded into insignificance in the United
States. This year, the main Democratic candidate was President Barack Obama. For
the sake of this paper, I suffered through his foreign policy debate with his Republican
opponent, Mitt Romney, for the second time. At no point did either candidate propose
a policy of American nuclear disarmament. Instead, both Obama and Romney
gleefully celebrated the “crippling” sanctions employed to punish Iran for its alleged
nuclear ambitions. Even though Israel is the only country in the Middle East to
possess nuclear weapons, its arsenal never came up as an issue.
18
No comprehensive
test ban treaty has been fully ratified to this day.
This leads to a troubling question that I hope to answer in the course of my
research. If Palme had survived, would the nuclear disarmament movement have made
greater progress? Would the superpowers have really listened to him?
Finally, I would like to obtain classified documents from Regeringskansliet
(government chancellery), but it remains to be seen if they will be declassified.
I would appreciate any suggestions on sources or advice on my thematic
approach. Thank You.
16
Ibid.
17
Maj Britt Theorin, “Rapport från Studieresa till USA 1982.” 4.1.16: 153, Fred och nedrustning, 1983.
Handlingar från Alva Myrdals verksamhet. Alva och Gunnar Myrdals arkiv. ARAB.
18
Complete Third Presidential Debate on Foreign Policy 2012, The New York Times:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tecohezcA78
59
PART III.
Theoretical perspectives on
disarmament
60
A feminist reading of nuclear disarmament
Emma Rosengren, PhD Candidate, Department of Economic History, Stockholm
University
This conference paper is based on my ongoing work with one out of
four forthcoming articles, together constituting my doctoral thesis. The
overall aim of the thesis is to explore the role of gender in the making
of nuclear disarmament policy during the cold war, by analyzing how
masculinities and femininities are created in, and contribute to the
construction of, nuclear disarmament policy. In this article I explore
the making of nuclear disarmament in multilateral disarmament fora
during the cold war, and analyze how the concept has been filled with
meaning through diverse and competing interpretations of what
disarmament actually is about. I also explore how feminist IR theory
can contribute to, and perhaps even facilitate, our understanding of
disarmament, by focusing on the valuation of nuclear weapons,
definitions of security, and rationales for disarmament in multilateral
policy making. Presented here are different theoretical approaches to
disarmament, as well as thoughts on how feminist theory can
contribute to the overall understanding of armament and disarmament.
Introduction
In this study I argue that the most dominant international relations (IR) theories
1
have
tended to focus more on war than on peace, and similarly more on armament/military
strength than on its opposite (even though it is worth mentioning here that there is no
self-evident relationship between war and armament nor between peace and
disarmament). This biased focus on war and armament leads to an immanent difficulty
to understand peace as more than the absence of war, and of disarmament as
something more than bilateral or multilateral arms control.
2
Therefore, disarmament
needs to be scrutinized from perspectives encompassing other tools than the ones
traditional perspectives have been able to provide. Critical feminist theory has
contributed greatly to IR theory by providing a thorough critique of assumptions
about state interests, sovereignty, military strength and defense inherent in traditional
IR theory. In sum, critical feminist theory highlights that traditional analytical IR-
frameworks both have a biased focus on men’s activities, and privilege masculinized
understandings of basic concepts such as security, militarism and defense. This field of
research especially elaborates on how war, armament, military strategies and armed
violence are strongly connected to a masculine identity sprung from the gendered
assumption that strong, armed men are supposed to protect vulnerable, unarmed
women. Nuclear weapons has a central role in military doctrines since their mere
existence is being defended with the theoretical assumption that deterrence a) works;
and b) provides a reasonable and rational security strategy–only by possessing a larger
1
When I refer to traditional IR theory, I especially have realism/neorealism and idealism/liberal
institutionalism in mind. These theoretical approaches will be further explained below.
2
For example, Oliver Richmond elaborates on the position of peace in IR theory, and highlights that “IR
as a discipline tends to deal with peace implicitly, through its theoretical readings of international order, of
war, and history. The empirical events that mark IR tend to be associated with violence, rather than
peace.” Following his argument about how peace is constructed, I consider disarmament to be a concept
with various meanings. Richmond, Oliver P. (2008). Peace in international relations. London: Routledge,
p. 8
61
number of nuclear warheads, with a higher capacity than that of the enemy, can states
(men) protect its vulnerable citizens (women and children) from attack. These
assumptions are clearly based on gender stereotypes, and are likely to influence the
making of both disarmament and gender. Thus, feminist theory provides highly
relevant analytical frameworks and insight for the study of disarmament from a new
angle. However, critical feminism has not adequately developed a conceptual
understanding of disarmament and the role of gender in the making of nuclear
disarmament policy. This study therefore aims to analyze the making of nuclear
disarmament policy from a critical feminist perspective, and thereby also to advance
the theoretical and empirical basis of this approach.
Aims and scope
In this study I argue that the analysis and framing of disarmament using gendered
analytical tools merely developed for the study of war blurs the distinction between
armament and disarmament, leading to a prevalent risk that the two concepts are
interpreted as being about the same thing. Against the background presented above,
the aim of this article is to explore the making of nuclear disarmament–the seemingly
opposite of armament–from a critical feminist perspective, in order to make visible
how gender is involved in the making of disarmament, and consequently how
disarmament is involved in the making of gender. If armament is based on a masculine
identity, is disarmament consequently connected to its contrast, to femininity? What
ideologies interact in the making of nuclear disarmament policy, and how do they
reflect ideas about gender? In order to answer these questions I analyze two opposing
voices in multilateral disarmament negotiations during the Cold War: the nuclear
weapon state (NWS) the US and the non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS) Sweden. I
especially focus on what is often referred to as the cornerstone of multilateral
disarmament–the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the
processes within which this treaty has been (re)negotiated since its entry into force in
1970 until the end of the cold war.
Theoretical approach
I regard multilateral disarmament policy as something constructed, and as such, as
something that can and should be critically scrutinized. Following this approach, I
consider disarmament to be a concept with various meanings depending on interests,
identities, power and resources inherent in approaches and perspectives being used by
the actors involved in the making of disarmament policy.
3
This process of making
policy includes various actors, such as government representatives and diplomats, but
also civil society representatives and activists. However, in this study the focus is on
state processes. My explicit assumption is that multilateral disarmament negotiations
are inherently gendered, which is likely to have consequences for participation,
conceptualizations and outcomes. This assumption is based on the fact that
historically, men have been disproportionally overrepresented in parliaments around
the world and international decision-making bodies such as the ones to be found in the
multilateral disarmament machinery consequently follow the same trend.
4
When
women do participate in international decision-making, they tend to do so in specific
spheres considered to be feminine, such as health, education and welfare. On the
contrary, women rarely participate in spheres considered to be masculine, such as
3
Richmond (2008), p. 16
4
Connell, Raewyn W (2003) Om genus, Göteborg: Daidalos p 11; Charlesworth, Hilary and Christine
Chinkin, The boundaries of international law – A feminist analysis, Manchester: Manchester University
Press 2000
62
national defense including the military and arms control.
5
This is apparent in the
Conference on Disarmament (CD) where a large majority of state representatives
during recent years have been men.
6
The predomination of certain men on positions of
power in the public leads to the incorporation of certain perceptions of masculinity
within states and international institutions; they get masculinized.
7
In effect, ideals
strongly connected to a masculine identity influence discussions and decisions. That is
how numerical gender imbalance has a hidden effect on policy, leading to gendered
institutional power.
8
While reasoning about the connection between rationality,
masculinity and militarization, Cynthia Enloe offers a possible explanation to the
predomination of men and masculinized ideals in disarmament affairs; “It has been
imagined that anyone wanting to be taken seriously in the field of national security – in
government agencies, in think tanks, in graduate schools – has to be 'rational.' The
opposite of rational has been imagined to be 'emotional.' This conventional
assumption – combined with the common belief that 'manly' men are the most rational
beings, while less manly men and virtually all women are prone to being 'emotional' –
has made a certain kind of masculinity the entry ticket into national security
discussions.”
9
According to her, militarized understandings about national and
international security lead to the predomination of masculinized ideas at negotiation
tables. Consequently, both gender imbalance and gendered understandings about
security and the role of nuclear weapons in security politics influence the
conceptualization of disarmament, as well as its outcomes.
Disarmament in International Relations theory
The international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime institutionalized
in the NPT, the cornerstone of international disarmament endeavors, is an interesting
phenomenon in the international security sphere. Different theories and scholars
provide diverse explanations to why and how states engage in this kind of cooperation,
and what challenges and benefits international disarmament regimes face. In this
section I will present the main features of the two most dominant approaches to
armament and disarmament–neorealism and liberal institutionalism. Thereafter I will
present the feminist critique of these approaches, followed by examples of how a
gender perspective has been used to analyze one category of weapons; Small Arms and
Light Weapons (SALW).
Neo-realism: the voice of rational actors
Neorealism is sprung from the realist position with its negative view on the nature of
human beings. Neo-realists consider rational states to be the primary actors in an
anarchic world order characterized by mistrust, security competition, a constant
struggle for power and the immediate possibility that war will break out, but they
differ from realists in that they stress structural constraints resulting from the anarchic
5
See for example Pease, Kelly-Kate S., International organizations: perspectives on governance in the
twenty-first century, 2. ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2003, p. 91, Charlesworth & Chinkin
(2000), p. 6, 174f.
6
Rosengren, Emma, Influencing Disarmament Negotiations, Gendered Obstacles and Possibilities, Master
thesis, Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen, Stockholms Universitet 2009
7
Charlesworth & Chinkin (2000)
8
Charlesworth & Chinkin (2000); Connell (2003); Enloe, Cynthia, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: making
feminist sense of international politics, Berkeley, California: University of California Press 2000; Enloe,
Cynthia H, Globalization and militarism: feminists make the link, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md.,
2007; Pettman, Jan Jindy, Worlding Women: a feminist international politics, London: Routledge 1996;
Steans, Jill, Gender and international relations: Issues, Debates and Future Directions, Cambridge: Polity
Press 2006; Tickner, Ann J, Gendering world politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era,
New York: Columbia University Press 2001.
9
Enloe (2007) p. 40
63
world order rather than from a state of nature. Since the international system is
characterized by anarchy and a struggle for power, war is an immediate possibility and
this is something states have to constantly prepare for. Consequently, states invest large
amounts of money in military means in order to secure their survival, since the
emphasis on the survival of self-reliant states leads to an immanent dependency on
militarism. However, rational states can also temporarily align with other states with
superior armed forces as a way to advance security.
10
Nuclear weapons possession is
strongly connected to the principle of deterrence. Deterrence is an example of how neo-
realists argue that investments in military capacity decreases the risk of war; the more
advanced and destructive weapons a state possesses, the less likely is a hostile attack.
This is the logic of mutual assured destruction and the key to why some traditional
scholars think that nuclear weapons can guarantee security–no country will want to
attack another nuclear weapon state with these cards at hand.
11
As a result of the
destructive consequences of their use, nuclear weapons are sometimes even described as
“agents of peace”.
12
Within the neo-realist framework, states engage themselves in international
nuclear disarmament negotiations for certain reasons. For them, cooperation is always
dependent on considerations of relative gains and concerns about cheating.
International cooperation and institutions –“set[s] of rules that stipulate the ways in
which states should cooperate and compete with each other”–are merely considered to
reflect relations of power, and are created to serve the interests of powerful players,
thus have no normative influence on state behavior.
13
Following a neorealist logic, the
main reasons for a state to promote disarmament would be to secure its survival, for
example by limiting the military capacity of other states in comparison to the own
capacity, or by gaining security guarantees under a nuclear weapons umbrella.
However, a too strong military or nuclear weapons possession could also be counter-
productive and reduce national security if there is a risk that it would provoke
preemptive attack.
According to Maria Rost Rublee, the strongest argument against realism is that
its basic assumptions do not match with the fact that after the entry into force of the
NPT, only four states have acquired nuclear weapons and now stand outside of the
treaty. All other states having had the capacity to possess nuclear weapons have
restrained and joined the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states. If nuclear weapon
possession would deter attack and guarantee stability, and if second-strike capability
would even prevent conventional attacks, then wide-spread nuclear proliferation
would have been a fact.
14
On a more basic level, critical scholars also criticize the
paradox inherent in the logic of deterrence in that it aims to “prevent disaster by
threatening it”.
15
Neo-realists respond to this critique by emphasizing the stabilizing
effect of the bipolar cold war world order, and by arguing that if nuclear possession
would make a country a target, and if the potential nuclear force would not be of
second-strike capacity, it would probably not be in the security interest of the state to
acquire nuclear weapons.
16
10
For an overview of realism and neo-realism, see for example Richmond (2008);
11
Mearsheimer, John J., “The False Promise of International Institutions”, International Security, Vol. 19,
No. 3, Winter (1994-95; Rublee, Maria Rost, Nonproliferation norms: why states choose nuclear
restraint, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 2009; Goldblat, Jozef, Arms control: the new guide to
negotiations and agreements, 2nd ed., Sage, London, 2002
12
Richmond p. 53
13
Mearsheimer (1994-95), p. 8
14
Rublee (2009)
15
Gusterson, Hugh Nuclear rites: a weapons laboratory at the end of the Cold War. Berkeley, Calif.: Univ.
of California Press, 1996, p.2f
16
Goldblat (2002); Mearsheimer (1994-95); Rublee (2009)
64
Liberal institutionalism
In contrast to its realist critiques, idealists take off from a positive view on human
beings. Resting on “internationalism and interdependence, peace without war,
disarmament, the hope that war could be eradicated eventually, the right of self-
determination of all citizens, and the possibility of world government or a world
federation”, idealists emphasize the positive gains of cooperation and the possibility to
prevent violence through the establishment of international norms, law, regimes, and
institutions.
17
However, the failure of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and the fall of the
League of Nations certainly undermined the arguments of idealists. Eventually, and in
contrast to the rise of neo-realism, one path of the idealist position transformed into
liberal institutionalism, incorporating a more compound understanding about the
complex interdependence between states sprung from increased international trade and
cooperation. According to them, these complex relationships facilitate cooperation and
help states overcome the security dilemma, and thus it is in the national interest of
states to conform to regimes, organizations and institutions.
18
In sum, liberal
institutionalists, like neo-realists, consider states to be the primary actors of the
international system, but they differ from neo-realists in that they argue that
institutions can serve state interests by providing “information, reduce transaction
costs, make commitments more credible, establish focal points for coordination, and in
general facilitate the operation of reciprocity”.
19
Even though liberal institutionalists
conform to neo-realist assumptions about rational states, interests and the world order,
they put emphasis on the possible gains provided by cooperation for both security and
the economy. Following the liberal argument, cooperation on nuclear disarmament and
non-proliferation can be a matter of national interest by providing monitoring and
transparency necessary for increasing security and preventing violence.
20
Deconstructing security–the feminist critique of traditional IR theory
Constructivists challenge both neorealism and liberal institutionalism by arguing that
they provide too narrow concepts of interests, actors, and strategies. Even though
liberal institutionalists emphasize the economic gains provided by conforming to
disarmament regimes, they do not take issues such as status into consideration.
Alexander Wendt also notes that the rational approach of both theories makes it
difficult to explain changing interests, behavior and identities.
21
Maria Rost Rublee
especially emphasizes how nonmaterial incentives contribute to changing state interests
in a socially constructed international environment.
22
Critical feminist IR theory builds
on the constructivist critique but emphasizes that assumptions immanent in both
neorealism and liberal institutionalism have a biased focus on men's activities due to
the emphasis on states and state institutions which traditionally have been numerically
dominated by men, leading to the marginalization and exclusion of women from the
analysis. In this regard, feminists highlight that men’s predomination of positions of
power in the public also leads to the incorporation of perceptions of masculinity within
states; they get masculinized. International institutions composed of states are
characterized by the same trend.
23
The state centric approach to security of both
theories has also been criticized for being unable to include the security of individuals.
17
Richmond, p. 23
18
For an overview of idealism and neo-liberalism, see for example Richmond (2008).
19
Keohane, Robert O. and Martin Lisa L, “The Promise of Institutional Theory”, in International
Security, Vol. 20, No 1, Summer 1995, pp.39 – 51; p. 42
20
Rublee (2009) p. 10
21
Wendt, Alexander, “Anarchy Is What States Make of It”, in International Organization Vol. 46, No. 2,
Spring, 1992 pp. 391-425
22
Rublee (2009)
23
Connell (2003); Charlesworth and Chinkin (2000)
65
Critical feminists argue that the very belief that military action and/or the threat to use
armed force can bring about security is based on the assumption that armed men shall
protect unarmed women. The paradox of this reasoning, apart from that it is based
upon dichotomous assumptions about strong men – the protectors; and weak women –
the protected; is that even if the military is supposed to bring about security, the use of
armed forces always come with great suffering among civilians, including rape as a
weapon of war, trafficking and exploitation.
24
Feminist scholar and activist Cynthia
Cockburn traces the feminist critique of militarism back to anti-militarist feminist
formulations and actions of peace, anti-war and anti-militarist movements, and argues
that it is founded in a thorough critique of capitalism, patriarchy and ethno-
nationalism, all three inherently characterized by masculinized violence; “capitalism by
the imperative to control markets, nationals by its cultural and territorial ambitions,
patriarchy by its dependence on a form of masculinity honed for combativeness,
authority and ascendancy.”
25
As mentioned above, critical feminist studies merely focus on armament policy
and gendered valuation of nuclear weapons in security strategies. Still, these studies
provide important contributions to the understanding of basic assumptions about
nuclear weapons and security present in cold war nuclear disarmament negotiations. In
a report published by the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), Carol
Cohn, Felicity Hill and Sarah Ruddick argue that NWS value nuclear weapons
possession positively in terms of power, potency and strength, and that this is a sign
that images of nuclear weapons are strongly connected to a masculine identity. They
also argue that nuclear weapon experts use a language that reduces nuclear weapons to
be a question of weapon capacity, without including considerations about
humanitarian consequences in the analysis. They call this language the strategic
expert/techno-strategic discourse, and they emphasize that this discourse is deeply
connected to a masculine identity in terms of strength, protection and rationality. To
talk about nuclear weapons in wordings that are ”impulsive, uncontrolled, emotional,
concrete, upset and attentive to fragile human bodies” is according to them associated
with a feminine identity.
26
In a previous study, Cohn further explains that by making
the weapons the subjects of analysis, humanitarian consequences are automatically
being reduced as “collateral damage”. To talk about human aspects is to turn from the
masculinized discourse that limits the conversation to be discussed in clinical and
abstract terms, and is connected with unprofessionalism and lack of the correct
terminology. Thus, the techno-strategic discourse leads to exclusionary practices.
27
Even though these studies are about nuclear armament policy, they provide important
insights about the language surrounding nuclear weapons. Furthermore, these findings
inspire further research on the symbols and images of nuclear weapons present among
those who defend and those who oppose them.
Gendering SALW – highlights from previous research
Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW)
28
are the most commonly used weapons in
24
For further information about critical feminism, see for example Enloe (2000); Enloe (2007); Pettman
(1996); Steans (2006); Tickner (2001). For information about armed violence against women, see Farr
Vanessa, Henri Myrttinen and Albrecht Schnabel (ed), Sexed Pistols: The Gendered Impacts of Small Arms
and Light Weapons, Hong Kong: United Nations University Press 2009
25
Cockburn, Cynthia., Anti-militarism: political and gender dynamics of peace movements, Palgrave
Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2012, p 245
26
Cohn Carol, Felicity Hill and Sarah Ruddick, The Relevance of Gender for Eliminating Weapons of
Mass Destruction, The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission Report nr 38, 2005 p. 5
27
Cohn, Carol, ”Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals”, Signs, Vol. 12, No.4,
Summer, 1987, pp.687-718
28
SALW includes weapons carried by one or two people, like AK-47’s and guns.
66
contemporary conflicts, and as a consequence of the lethality they bring about they are
often referred to as the real weapons of mass destruction. However, only a few studies
have sufficiently addressed the relationship between gender and SALW. One exception
is the anthology Sexed Pistols: Gendered Impacts of Small Arms and Light Weapons
by Albrecht Schnabel, Vanessa Farr and Henri Myrttinen. In this section I briefly
elaborate on different levels of analysis that have been identified, and I thereby aim to
explain how gender can contribute to improved policy if the experiences of men/boys
and women/girls are taken into account.
In their study on gender and attitudes in the regulation of SALW, included in
the anthology mentioned above, Wendy Cukier and James Cairns identify five areas of
concern regarding gender and SALW; 1) gendered consequences of small arms use; 2)
armed domestic violence; 3) gendered consumption; 4) gendered attitudes; and 5)
gendered policy processes. I will use these levels to briefly explain the relevance of
gender in the study of armed violence.
Gendered consequences of small arms use: Even though the majority of armed violence
victims are men, they have a disproportionate effect on women’s lives. Both in times of
peace and of conflict, guns are used to threaten and murder women, to facilitate
sexualized violence including rape, and to hinder women from escaping violent
relationships. Thus, gun use and its consequences are gendered.
Armed domestic violence: Gun violence is also gendered in its location; men are most
likely to be attacked on the street or the battlefield, whereas the person pulling the
trigger towards a woman is most likely someone she knows, and the location is her
home. A high level of guns in societies significantly increases the risk of deadly
outcomes of domestic violence.
Gendered consumption: The majority of people involved in manufacture and transfers
of small arms are men. Men also constitute a large majority of buyers. Furthermore,
cultural practices constantly connect guns with men, and thus reproduce the link
between guns and masculinity. Hence, consumption patterns are inherently gendered.
Gendered attitudes: As noted above, the link between small arms and concepts of
masculinity influences both attitudes and consumption. However, differences between
different groups in communities and between communities in different locations are
sometimes bigger than the differences in attitudes between men and women. Thus,
small arms attitudes are gendered but also affected by other aspects.
Gendered policy processes: Cukier and Cairns identify that “As men dominate political
structures in most countries and global institutions such as the United Nations, notions
of masculinity can have “invisible” effects on the ways in which policy debates and
research are constructed.”
29
Hence, they make a connection between numerical gender
imbalance, conceptions of masculinity and policy outcomes.
30
These levels of analysis are all important in the study of arms. If the different
experiences of men/boys and women/girls are not taken into account, only a limited
part of populations is likely to benefit from disarmament endeavors. However, the fifth
level of analysis mentioned by Cukier and Cairns is of especial importance in my study,
since I focus on the role of gender in nuclear disarmament processes. The necessity of
29
Cukier Wendy and James Cairns, “Gender, attitudes and the regulation of small arms: Implications for
action”, in Farr et al. (2009) p. 19
30
Farr et al. (2009)
67
approaching nuclear disarmament policy from a gender perspective was stressed by the
Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission in their report from 2006; “Women have
rightly observed that armament policies and the use of armed force have often been
influenced by misguided ideas about masculinity and strength. An understanding of
and emancipation from this traditional perspective might help to remove some of the
hurdles on the road to disarmament and nonproliferation.”
31
Thus, I hope to
contribute with theoretical and empirical understanding about the role of gender in
nuclear disarmament policy processes, and with conclusions on how to overcome
gendered obstacles to nuclear disarmament.
31
Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, Weapons of terror: freeing the world of nuclear, biological
and chemical arms, Fritzes, Stockholm, 2006, http://www.blixassociates.com/final-report/
68
"A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand"
1
-
Swedish disarmament policy and weapons exports,
investigated from a Large Technical Systems
perspective.
Lars Ingelstam, Professor Emeritus
2
Abstract. The intention of this paper is to suggest a side-stream in the
project under preparation: the mainstream being Swedish
Disarmament Policy. I suggest that it would be possible and
interesting to take into account weapons exports and international
cooperation for military hardware (which are also subject to state
policy and supervision) and investigate links and dependencies (if
any) between disarmament policy in a strict sense
3
and these wider –
armament-related – issues in foreign and security policy.
Outline of problems
The period of Swedish neutrality (strictly speaking: non-alignment with the purpose of
staying neutral in case of war) extends from the late 1940:s into the beginning of the
1990:s. Disarmament Policy (in a precise sense, see note 3) was a strong element in
foreign policy and part of the national identity during the same period. The neutrality
principle also influenced industrial policies and technical development in many fields,
among them aircraft and nuclear engineering, but also e g ICT and agriculture.
4
The
hard core was, however, weaponry for the national defence. Strong industries were
built under close private/public partnership: Saab, Bofors, Kockums, Hägglunds... One
important actor (FFV) was 100 % state owned. Exports were in principle forbidden.
Exceptions were allowed on an deal-to-deal basis and also to some extent encouraged,
but under very strict rules. The doctrine stated that Swedish defence interests had
absolute priority, and also that recipients had to fulfil very strict criteria (jokingly
described as “they must prove that they do not really need weapons”). The economic
logic was that Swedish arms producers needed longer series in order to spread
development and production costs.
There seems to have been a general consensus during this period that
disarmament policy did not in any way contradict the arms exports policy. One factor
that certainly facilitated “tolerance” in this respect was that the former dealt primarily
with nuclear weapons
5
, while Swedish weaponry and exports (with only minor
exceptions) consisted of conventional weapons. The first significant rupture in that
consensus seems to have come with the two “Bofors affairs” (they became known
1984 and 1986 respectively; the first led to sentences for illegal export, and in the
second bribes were suspected and top politicians in both Sweden and India were
mentioned).
After the important events (the fall of the Berlin wall, the Soviet union
dissolved, Sweden becoming an EU member) in the period 1989-1995 the conditions
for non-alignment and neutrality changed radically, as did the preconditions for arms
1
Abraham Lincoln, 1858
2
Former Professor of Technology and Social Change, Linköping University. Mail: lars@ingelstam.se.
3
As outlined in Thomas Jonter: Swedish Disarmament Policy – a brief background. September 2012
4
Lundin, Stenlås, Gribbe (eds): Science for Welfare and Warfare. Sagamore Beach 2010
5
Sweden took a firm decision in 1968 to abstain from nuclear weapons
69
production and weapons exports. The key industries became privatized and eventually
foreign-owned (with Saab as a part-exception). How this happened is still, to my
knowledge, an open research question. The demand for weaponry for the Swedish
armed forces declined and was gradually internationalized. After 2000 (at that time
disarmament was no longer a high-profile question in Swedish foreign policy) arms
exports have increased considerably, and towards the end of the decade Sweden is now
the largest exporter of weapons per capita (SIPRI data). Together with “the Saudi
affair” (March 2012- ) and renewed public attention to Human Rights weapons export
issues are placed rather high up on the political agenda.
6
Theoretical approach: Large Technical Systems
I suggest that these historical processes could fruitfully be analysed in the framework of
Large Technical Systems (LTS).
7
This in turn is a sub-field of systems oriented research
in general. A system is, by definition, a set of components and relationships between
these components. Some components can be systems/subsystems in their own right.
Examples of systems which have been successfully studied within this greatly
varied field of historical and sociological studies are: classical infrastructure systems in
transportation, energy and communications (railroads, road systems, electrical
networks and telecommunications systems: telephone, telegraph, telefax), as well as
airlines, the defence industry, district heating systems and computer systems. Some key
concepts from that cluster of theories are the following:
Technical core
The relationship between “the technical” and “the social” is crucial in all theories
relating to technology and social change. In this respect the LTS tradition takes a
relatively conventional standpoint, and is willing to identify a technical core. The idea
that the system as a socio-technical system is defined – not by, but through – its basic
set-up of artefacts and technical hardware is problematic. One of the problems is that
it tends to define the systems boundaries in a too narrow way.
Momentum
Hughes and his followers have stressed the importance of history in the evolution of
systems: the concept of momentum points forcefully to the impact of the past on the
future direction of a system. This means that after a period of system growth and
consolidation a technical system has acquired a large mass, velocity (rate of growth)
and direction to provide it with substantial momentum.
System builders and entrepreneurs
In the LTS approach, individuals and groups do have a special position, for example as
”system-builders”. System-builder(s) is the concept used by Hughes for those
purposeful, highly entrepreneurial professionals who have a dominant role in system
development and growth. In Hughes’ treatment, the concept of system-builders refers
to the inventors, industrial scientists, engineers, managers, financiers, and in certain
6
The implications for a future export policy, with special regard to a ”democracy criterion”, is being
investigated by a government-appointed committee, expected to report by late 2014
7
The classical text is Hughes, Thomas P (1983): Networks of Power. Electrification in Western Society
1880-1930. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. The most frequently read and quoted text is
probably Bijker, Wiebe E., Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch (1987): The Social Construction of
Technological Systems (SCOT). New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. The MIT
Press, Cambridge, England. Swedish researchers who have published in the field are e g Arne Kaijser, Jane
Summerton, Lena Ewertsson, Lars Ingelstam. An overview article by Ewertsson and Ingelstam is found in
Olsson, Mats-Olov & Sjöstedt, Gunnar (eds) (2004): Systems approaches and their application: examples
from Sweden. Boston, Mass.: Kluwer Academic. See also a Swedish text Ingelstam, Lars: System: att tänka
över samhälle och teknik. Eskilstuna 2012.
70
cases politicians, regulators and others who develop, support and sustain
sociotechnical systems.
Reverse salients and critical issues
As technical systems evolve and grow, additional system components are ”drawn in”
from the environment (including new technology, additional interests and actor
groups, and, with them, new institutional elements, information, beliefs and values), at
the same time as some components are perhaps replaced by new. Reverse salients is a
metaphor developed by Hughes to denote the kind of problems that occur in
expanding systems when components in a system are (presumed as) lagging behind or
are out of phase with the others, thus constraining continuing expansion or progress.
Once a reverse salient emerges and is identified, system-builders translate it to a set of
critical problems, which when solved will correct it.
Technological style
This concept is used to elucidate that technical systems and the development of their
uses are human constructs, interacting with their environment and therefore subject to
variations, characterized by specific contextual and circumstantial factors. The wide
variation in shape and style – the differences – that one type of technical system takes
(”the essence of style”) is something that Hughes assigns to local conditions external to
the technology: ”the non-technological factors of the cultural context”. Examples of
circumstantial factors that influence the development and style of a (local, regional,
national, etc.) system are: geography, resources, politics, economics and social, legal,
cultural and historical conditions.
The “system”: a first attempt to describe an LTS
The Large Technical System under consideration here can be defined as the total of
Swedish organizations in the fields of foreign policy, security and defence. They
become a system in the sense that they are linked together by political and
administrative rules, (partially) shared cultural assumptions and in addition “hard”
technical and economic links. The system contains a technical core of arms, weapons
industries, technical knowledge and systems competence.
For the analysis we might distinguish four (plus one) subsystems (widely different in
size):
1. The weapons industry (presently four major industries, but in total some 30-
100 different factories and companies; their technical core consists of weapons
and related hard-ware, with a strong ICT component)
2. The Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF, Försvarsmakten) (with light and heavy
weapons plus military ICT as its technical core)
3. The organization(s) for defence research (mainly FOA, now FOI)
4. The Government offices: the Ministries of Foreign affairs (MFA, UD) and
Defence (MoD, FöD) being the most relevant for our problem
Then, in view of the intended research agenda we should also recognize a
“disarmament subsystem” (System D). In a concrete sense it is part of System 4, but it
has important links to System 3 (see below) and other systemic relationships as well.
I have put them here in numerical order according to size (personnel), which of
course does not necessarily mean order of importance. A “total” systems picture would
be far more complex (with more subsystems such as ISP, civil society organizations,
opinion-builders etc and a large number of relationships). But since the idea at this
stage is to point out shifts over time that suggest researchable problems a more
71
elaborate systems picture would create more confusion than clarity.
There is also no reason to dwell here in any length on the “rise and fall” of
subsystem 2
8
(though it might be interesting to apply Hughes three-phase theory
9
on
the formation and expansion of an LTS to the defence system). However the gradual
but non-dramatic shrinking of subsystem 2 from the middle of the 1990:s forms a
background in the arguments that follow.
Any system has a boundary. In this case the convenient and conventional
boundary is the nation: our systems are Swedish systems. International factors and
elements are of course of decisive importance, but will for analytic purposes be
assigned to the environment of the system.
10
Here the UN, USA, Soviet and the
Warsaw pact and (in particular during the more recent periods) EU will of course
emerge as important elements and actors affecting the total system.
Issues worth studying
The intention of the following notes is to initiate discussion on issues that seem to be
• Important: might have influenced disarmament policy: directly or indirectly
• Relevant: not least in relation to policy issues on to-days political agenda
• Researchable: with particular attention to the theoretical and conceptual setting
of a LTS.
Disarmament as such is present and visible in all aspect, but – as can be expected –
does not always play a decisive or even a clearly articulated role. I start with a grand
sweep over a long period, and come back later to some more specific issues.
From politics to industry: changing entrepreneurship and system-building over 60
years
In the aftermath of WWII the build-up of military capacity as well as the industries
supporting this effort continued.
11
The suspected post-war depression never
materialized, partly because the state continued to allocate funds to defence and
national industries on grounds of non-alignment – not only to defence purposes in a
narrow sense.
12
All said, the government (system 4) took the lead and acted as
entrepreneur and system-builder: the large systems 1 and 2 were formed after political
intentions and the call of the day was expansion and nationally generated technical
achievement on the highest international level (including nuclear weapons and nuclear
energy). This politically led system building went on at least until the middle 1970:s.
During the same time a small but visible system D was built, to support active
Swedish efforts in international negotiations. Even here the government was the
system-builder with Östen Undén and Alva Myrdal as entrepreneurs. From the very
beginning system 3 (in particular nuclear arms competence inside FOA) was linked up
with system D. The timing and other particulars of this build-up will be dealt with in
greater detail in the proposed project (see also below). From the point of view of an
8
This question is still controversial and not well understood. Professor Wilhelm Agrell, historian
specialized in intelligence analysis, describes in a recent book the SwAF from around 1988 as being in
”decline and fall” (Fredens illusioner, Atlantis: Stockholm 2010)
9
Hughes 1983, Bijker & al 1987
10
Regarding standard terminology and modes of thought in systems research, I refer the reader to the
extremely influential book by C W Churchman: The Systems Approach (first published in 1967) but also
to Ingelstam 2012 (see also note 7).
11
See e g W Agrell: Alliansfrihet och atombomber. Kontinuitet och förändring i den svenska
försvarsdoktrinens utveckling 1945-1882 (Liber, Stockholm 1985) for an account of system 2 during this
period.
12
Lundin, Stenlås, Gribbe eds (2010), see note 4
72
LTS a distinct systems structure emerges from 1961 and onwards.
It is quite clear that in these two parallel processes the government – the
political sphere – was the lead entrepreneur and was in charge of building the systems.
There are also very few indications that contradictions between the logic and aims of
the two systems – defence: 1,2, 3 and parts of 4; disarmament: D, 4 and 3 – were
considered or regarded as a problem. This, however, should be carefully investigated in
the proposed research.
Arms exports were allowed as exceptions from the general ban. They were held
under very strict rules, derived from the non-alignment doctrine. System 4 took the full
responsibility for any and all exports from the country.
With a quick leap to the first decade of the 2000s it is clear that then the
pattern (the configuration of the system) is radically different. Some of the more drastic
systems changes are the following.
• The systems 1 and 2 no longer live in strict symbiosis. System 1 is by and large
foreign-owned and its entrepreneurship becomes more and more oriented
towards the market, similar to entrepreneurship in other high-tech sectors of
industry. It positions itself internationally and strives for exports. It succeeds in
exporting for 14 GSEK yearly while system 2 buys less and less (a recent figure
is 9 GSEK, of which a part is imports). Weapons exports increase in
importance and the impression is that the industry has taken over the initiative
(for a more elaborate discussion, see below)
• System 2 has been gradually (but not dramatically) slimmed, during a process
lasting for more than 20 years. The system now prepares for military
operations both in our own and neighbouring territories (where at present no
immediate threat can be identified) and in international crises. It has moved
from territorial to “mission-oriented” defence (Sw: insatsförsvar). In
combination with the end of conscription one can say that this government-led
system is in a phase of controlled but radical configuration.
13
• The disarmament system, system D, maintains in principle its structure from
the outset (see below on its technical core), but controls fewer resources, is no
longer personified through well-known political figures and does not occupy a
front seat in foreign policy.
14
In terms of LTS theory, some further observations can be made: None of the sub-
systems is presently in a build-up or expansion phase (with a certain exception for
system 1). Reconfiguration and change inside constant or shrinking frames is what
characterizes the present situation.
Entrepreneurship is thus no longer a clear-cut issue. Industry (with system 1 as
a core) seems to have taken over the initiative in many respects. The government gives
tacit and sometimes explicit support but seems to have reduced its role to reacting
rather than acting when it comes to system building and systems change. Military
aircraft is one area where government entrepreneurship (or the lack thereof) is put to
test. The armed forces still maintain a relatively high level of expenditure for
commissioning and buying new weapons, but hardly enough to influence the basic
nature of system 1, which becomes more and more orientated towards an international
market.
13
J Summerton (ed): Changing Large Technical Systems. (Vadstena Conference 1992). Westview Press
1994
14
How this change happened and how it can be understood will be a core research question in the
proposed project on Disarmament Policy. Hence I will abstain here from any attempts of my own to
explain it.
73
The potential tension or conflict between arms transfers (exports in particular)
on the one hand, disarmament efforts and policy on the other hand, is not often
formulated in to-days debate. Why this is the case is interesting in itself. I am
convinced that this is almost impossible to understand without a broad historical
understanding, that in certain respects should go all the way back to the pioneering
days of disarmament policy (before 1960).
On the way from now to then some key influencing factors (significant enough
to generate systems changes) can be noted (here listed in reverse time order):
• The steep rise of arms exports from Sweden (2001 to the present)
• The reorientation of System 3 (FOI) first from an independent research institute
to commissioned research (financed to a dominant degree by the SwAF) and in
the 2000s strong efforts to get other customers (even international) on board.
Whether the internationalization of defence related research is large or small, or
in any way problematic, is an open question (see below, on System D and its
technical core)
• The internationalization (“mission defence” for dual use, in our neighbourhood
and abroad) of the SwAF (final decision 2008) and actual engagements: in
Afghanistan, Libya, Kosovo etc and in the NBG.
• The sell-out of defence industries to private business, and eventually to foreign
weapons conglomerates (a step-by-step process; the sell-out of Celsius in 1999
represents a significant step in systems change)
• Sweden joining the EU 1990-1994 (which affected all systems, not least system
D in very profound ways; this will no doubt be analysed in the mainstream of
the research project.
• The fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet empire 1989-1991 (which of course
had consequences for all systems, but with considerable delay and a split
vision)
15
• The two “Bofors affairs”: “Singapore” became publicly known in 1984 and
“India” surfaced in 1986-87. It is clear that they affected the image of Sweden
and our self-understanding. To what extent they also led to systemic change is
an interesting question where more research is needed.
• The Data-Saab affair in the 1980s (exports of computer equipment for Moscow
airport, without permission from the US) strained diplomatic and commercial
relations with the USA during several years.
16
I am convinced that several more “milestone” type events will emerge in the process of
the research.
To this preliminary sketch I will only add two more systems research proposals,
dealing with more limited issues within the broad research agenda outlined above.
Why do arms exports from Sweden increase?
The dramatic increase (from 2001 until now) in the value of arms exports from
15
Several authors have noted the radical change in long term planning (form as well as content) initatied
in 1996 in the SwAF headquarters (Agrell 2010, Ehliasson 2005) while the Defence Commissions
(Försvarsberedningarna) seem to have drawn less drastic conclusions from the new situation.
16
Ulrika Mörth och Bengt Sundelius: Interdependens, konflikt och säkerhetspolitik. Sverige och den
amerikanska exportkontrollen. Nerenius och Santerus: Stockholm 1998. This ”affair” is interesting in
itself, and can be seen as the tip of an iceberg. It is no secret that Swedish industries in System 1 (not only
Saab) have established long-time technological dependencies of the USA. For this reason the USA enjoys a
privileged position also in terms of weapons exports. This is widely recognized but rarely admitted in
public debate (but it happens!).
74
Sweden has caused indignation, but eventually also some (more or less blunt) attempts
for explanation. One of these has been that armaments in general, and arms transfers
as a consequence, increased in the turmoil after the 9/11 event in 2001.This does not
seem well supported by figures or facts (cf SIPRI).
Another explanation is that the Swedish control agency (ISP) for some reason
has become more lenient, and that the government has accepted and supported this.
This may or may not be true, but from a systems perspective it is does not explain
anything.
The most plausible explanation (to be tested in serious research) is that
Sweden-based military industries have built a production capacity suitable for the
former, non-aligned period.
17
Since the custom from the SwAF (technically from FMV)
has decreased gradually and has also been diverted by increased OTS buying
internationally the productions capacity of Sweden-based industries is simply over-size.
Since major traditional customers (such as the UK) also hold back, an excess capacity
seeks new market. From that perspective it is not unnatural that new and somewhat
problematic customers (such as Thailand and Saudi Arabia) come into the picture. If
this turns out to be the case, we have a rather clear case of momentum in an LTS: the
system progresses along its historical path, even though external factor may have
changed.
It is natural to ask what kinds of reverse salients that System 1 experiences,
when it comes to expansion (or even holding their own) in terms of volume and
profits. From available information export controls do not seem to raise any serious
obstacles. Public opinion, however, demands higher moral standards in terms of
Human Rights and democracy in customer countries. On the international level, the
work on an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has encountered (temporary?) difficulties but is
not dead. It seems however that interests representing System 1 in Sweden are quite
confident about a possible application of stricter moral and political constraints:
actually they actively welcome an ATT. This is not all that surprising. Neither the
envisioned changes in Swedish policy nor the ATT are disarmament measures in the
sense that they intend to hold back volumes. They are codes of “good behaviour” and
will – other things equal – probably give Sweden-based industries some advantage over
competitors with less shining armour, looking to their track records.
If this holds, the major reverse salient for System 1 is “the extent of the
market” rather than issues related to arms control. Some organized gradual reduction
and reorientation of production seems a reasonable response, but except for Saab few
movements in this direction are known.
18
Whether the defence industry sector will
survive or will go the same way as textile and shipyards is an open question, probably
dependent on industrial policies of the government. If steps (national or international)
towards negotiated disarmament in conventional arms will be taken, this would of
course set the stage differently.
The disarmament system and its technical core
Alva Myrdal, in her book on her own period as disarmament negotiator, puts strong
emphasis on the support from a group of technical and scientific specialists from
FOA.
19
System D was from the outset strongly linked to defence related research in
Sweden.
Regarding the first period the observation has been made that the competence
base that had been created for possible Swedish nuclear weapons came in handy as
17
Cf Lundin, Stenlås, Gribbe (eds) 2010
18
An early and careful analysis of the problem how industrial production and employment should be
planned in order not to block disarmament was done by State Secretary Inga Thorsson and a secretariat in
1983-84: Med sikte på nedrustning. SOU 1984:62, 1985:43
19
Alva Myrdal: The game of disarmament. Pantheon 1967
75
disarmament expertise, when the bomb program was dismantled.
This is just one aspect of the important question how a technical core was
created and husbanded through all the years of disarmament negotiations. One rather
straightforward question is who keeps the knowledge base up to date. During a rather
long stretch of years, FOA regarded it as a national interest to pursue nuclear arms-
related research, including such aspects as detection of tests and enrichment
technology, that are directly relevant to disarmament negotiations. Since FOA/FOI
became more customer-dependent and the SwAF no longer wanted to finance research
of the kind just mentioned, the government made this a part of the direct grant to FOI
(which is totally 170 MSEK, about 15 % of FOI:s budget).
20
While it is interesting enough that the need for a technical core in the
disarmament system has been recognized and faithfully upheld, it is also interesting
how and in what areas the expertise became most relevant. There must have been
crucial feed-back from the diplomatic side to the scientific, and vice versa. During the
UN missions in Iraq, where Hans Blix and later Rolf Ekeus played key roles, Swedish
experts on weapons of mass destruction formed part of the effort. I assume that it is
now possible to account for the diplomat/science interaction even in these phases.
To my knowledge, there have been no serious conflicts of scope (or of interest)
in System 3 regarding researcher involvement in international disarmament
negotiations, but the question should be addressed in research. Intensified research
cooperation primarily with EU but also with the US, and the new market orientation
of FOI (which might involve concrete participation in weapons-related assignments in
other countries, such as Saudi Arabia) are system-changing factors. It cannot be taken
for granted that the disarmament assignment will be completely and harmoniously
compatible with other goals and strivings in System 3 (FOI).
Technological style and a Swedish systems tradition
While it is easy enough to identify contrasts and even contradictions in the LTS
discussed here, in particular between systems 1 and D, there is also a common feature
that should be given some attention in the project.
It is generally recognized (by research and in professional debate) that a
characteristic of those Swedish high-tech industries that have been successful and
internationally competitive is their systemic competence. Their technological style
21
has
not been dominated by brilliant inventions or quick responses to consumer whims. The
strength has been an ability to build systems, recognizing the importance of high
quality components and the intricate interaction of these components in order to form
a viable and often quite complex whole.
22
Examples from our technical and industrial
history are fighter airplanes (Saab), power systems (hydro and nuclear; ASEA), telecom
systems (Ericsson) and computer systems (Data-Saab and Luxor!). The approach is
pragmatic and it pays much attention to technical and functional detail, while always
keeping the larger whole in clear view. But it is dependent on a reasonably stable
environment, and is not easily compatible with unfettered and short-term workings of
the market.
23
It can be claimed that the Swedish efforts in the disarmament field – system D –
shares some of these characteristics. It has taken a pragmatic approach, integrating
20
In the budget bill: ”Anslaget finansierar även forskning avseende skydd mot kemiska, biologiska,
radiologiska och nukleära stridsmedel (CBRN) samt forskning och analysstöd för regeringens behov.”
21
This analytical concept was introduced by Hughes (1983)
22
See e g Ingelstam, Lars ed (1996): Complex Technical Systems. Stockholm: Forskningsrådsnämnden och
NUTEK. FRN Report 96:5 and Arthur, W Brian (2009): The Nature of Technology. Ann Arbour:
University of Michigan Press
23
This was recently strongly pointed out by Swedish industrialist Marcus Wallenberg, in his foreword to a
book on Saab and JAS Gripen: Gunnar Eliasson: Synliga kostander, osynliga vinster. Stockholm 2010.
76
political, diplomatic, scientific and geographical elements. There has been careful
attention to detail, while the wider systemic relationship (the terrifying picture of an
enormous capacity for destruction, cold war and incompatible economic doctrines)
was always present and analysed. Persistence was indeed more important than rhetoric
or quick fixes.
It would be interesting to include some attention to technological style and the
systematic and systemic approach in the research agenda of the project. If further
analysis confirms the hypotheses formulated above, it leads to challenges for the future:
• Can the tradition and “style” be reinforced – as a national asset?
• Does it have any important implications for industrial policy?
• Can it be brought to even better use in foreign policy, including disarmament?
77
Political Regimes and the Politics of Peace in
Sweden: From “The Fortified Poorhouse” to “The
Swedish Quandry”
i
Jonathan Michael Feldman, Associate Professor, Department of Economic History
Stockholm University
Sweden is regarded as one of the most peace loving nations in the world, but is at the
same time one of the world’s greatest exporters of weapons on a per capita basis. Such
arms exports clearly are linked to the cycle of violence and have periodically led to
what journalists have termed “the Swedish Quandry.”
ii
This “quandary” refers to how
a neutral, “peace loving” and progressive country ended up exporting a lot of weapons
throughout the globe. Yet, the cycle of violence and Sweden’s profile as an ethical or
progressive country are related. For example, one study of Swedish arms exports to
countries at war between 1980 and 1994 found that many of these same countries
contributed to refugees that later moved to Sweden: “between 1980 and 1994, two out
of three asylum applicants in Sweden had left recipient countries of Swedish exports.”
iii
This is not a new development, nor is the “Swedish Quadry,” a problem that actually
dates back to the 1930s.
iv
Therefore, the relevant question becomes how such a
contradiction developed, with ethical dilemmas emerging against a backdrop of
profitable arms exports on the one hand and Swedes’ profile as a nation embracing
peace and solidarity with other nations on the other.
One explanation is that different political groups have shaped different sides of
Sweden’s profile. Some groups focused on ideas of realism and threats, others focused
on the problems associated with solidarity, militarism, and disarmament solutions.
These political splits have been reflected with the Social Democratic Party, with trade
unions sometimes holding the balance of power regarding which ideas are dominant.
v
At times, there has been a convergence as a political majority embraced refugee policies
or nuclear disarmament, but the idea of “neutrality” has been a contested one (used by
realists to support and peace factions to oppose weapons development).
vi
Despite
Sweden’s newer posture as a “militarily non-aligned” (as opposed to a “neutral”)
country, the country’s reputation as progressive or peace-oriented has persisted.
Sweden remains formally outside of NATO, still has generous refugee policies and has
a significant foreign aid program.
vii
It also has noteworthy NGOs which contribute to
the country’s peace profile, e.g. the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The country’s welfare state is still far more important than its warfare state, with
domestic military expenditures lowering significantly after the Cold War.
viii
At one
point, Sweden had the fourth largest Air Force in the world.
ix
More, recently potential
cuts led some to suggest the country could have a smaller Air Force than even
Norway.
x
The history of some Swedes’ pursuit of disarmament, peace and alternatives to
the military economy can be trace over a period lasting more than one hundred years,
with this pursuit having success in some areas, but failures in others. The successes,
such as the pursuit of unilateral nuclear disarmament, a charitable policy of civilian
economic aid, and a generous refugee policy have tended to overshadow the failures,
the primary one being an aggressive arms exports regime.
xi
Sweden has sold weapons
to dictatorships and nations with problematic human rights records. In 2011, 60
percent of Swedish arms sales went to Thailand, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan and the
United Arab Emirates.
xii
Such policies have been condemned by the peace movement
78
and religious leaders at home and abroad.
xiii
Sweden’s arms exports regime can partially be explained by a basic principle of
economic accumulation and profit making. In The Fiscal Crisis of the State, James
O’Connor argues that “the capitalistic state must try to fulfill two basic and often
mutually contradictory functions—accumulation and legitimization.” In this balancing
act the state “must try to maintain or create the conditions in which profitable capital
accumulation is possible.” In addition, “the state also must try to maintain or create
the conditions for social harmony.” States could not simply use their “coercive forces
to help one class accumulate capital at the expense of other classes.” By extension, we
can say that profit making in arms production can’t take place without some reference
to peace forces (albeit at the rhetorical level at least). All things being equal, the state
that did that “loses its legitimacy and hence undermines the basis of its loyalty and
support.” Nevertheless, “a state that ignores the necessity of assisting the process of
capital accumulation risks drying up the source of its power, the economy’s surplus
production capacity and the taxes drawn from this surplus (and other forms of
capital).”
xiv
The balancing act between accumulation and legitimacy is maintained in part
by a system of political displacement, i.e. legitimacy is maintained by ignoring,
forgetting or marginalizing persons or ideas that challenge the status quo.
Accumulation of profits and jobs via arms exports becomes easier if the lack of moral
legitimacy associated with the practice is somehow obscured. The operative principle
for explaining how this done is displacement, a term Sigmund Freud used to show how
central psychic phenomena are pushed to the periphery. His book, The Interpretation
of Dreams, contains many useful metaphors for explaining both displacement and the
ways in which consciousness can be distorted away from basic realities. Thus, “the
dream-work practices displacement, transferring emotional intensity from the centre of
the dream-thought to its marginal components.”
xv
The most “valuable” and
“essential” elements in dream-formation, “charged though they are with intense
interest, are dealt with as if they were of little value, and instead their place is taken in
the dream by other elements which certainly had little value in the dream-thoughts.”
xvi
In dreams, reality becomes condensed, such that the true identity or meaning of ideas
becomes concealed, confused with elements which are sometimes their opposites.
There is a substitution effect.
xvii
In dreams symbols replace actual elements, in the
arms export debate certain kinds of language is used to deflate morally illegitimate
actions. So, the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, explained that Sweden
could continue to export to countries whose regimes were not liked, because “we
should have a dialogue with them too.”
xviii
Thus, the idea of “dialogue” (often
associated with peace and conflict studies) is now used as a symbolic prop in
maintaining the legitimacy of weapons exports.
In dreams we see the same elements of camouflage and repression of symbols
(ideas, ethical principles) as occurs in the political realm. The politics at hand concerns
the ascendency of a peaceful image and the suppression or marginalization of anti-
militarist critics. More formally, the process of repression has been called a form of
“social amnesia,” because ideas are not just marginalized but also forgotten.
xix
In this
context the ideas stand for Swedish disarmament traditions as embodied in peace
champions, their scholarship and biographical trajectories.
xx
As Russell Jacoby
explains, reification “refers to an illusion that is objectively manufactured by society.”
Yet, “what is often ignored in expositions of the concept...is the psychological
dimension: amnesia—a forgetting and repression of the human and social activity that
makes and can remake society.”
xxi
By extension, if displacements of impulses shape
character traits of an individual,
xxii
one can begin to see how displacements of social
ideas, shape the character of society. It is also relevant to note that the psychological
79
metaphor of addiction has been applied to the military economy, with one book on the
U.S. military economy aptly titled, Defense Addiction: Can America Kick the
Habit?
xxiii
One solution to the displacement problem is not simply interpretation, as in
Freud’s theory of dream interpretation, but also a therapy achieved by overcoming
social amnesia: “Freud thought it necessary to trace his patients’ symptoms back to
more remote memories, to the early and seemingly normal amnesia” of an earlier
age.
xxiv
In fact, Freud recognized “therapy as moral pedagogy.”
xxv
Politics and
morality can be joined, as “philosophy...has resulted from the attempt to produce a
synthesis of science and religion,” historically most philosophers’ “ethical opinions
involved political consequences.”
xxvi
In essence, therefore, we can address defense
addiction by recounting the displaced ideas of the past. This would require, however,
recounting the arguments of the critical activists and journalists who problematized
Swedish militarism. This can be thought of as an exercise in “political anthropology,”
digging up the past related to thinkers whose ideas have been marginalized or
“buried.” For example, one essay examining British psychogeography notes: “as
nostalgia became marginalized within mainstream radicalism it became available as a
provocative resource for ‘counter-cultural’ interventions.”
xxvii
Some would argue, however, that Sweden’s defense and arms exports posture
does not simply represent “militarism,” but also concerns for realism (external threats)
and neutrality. These concerns have been an important part of both the security
landscape and political discourse or both as “threats” can be “socially constructed,”
i.e. defined and mediated by exaggerated or false claims to support the military
economy and war-making institutions.
xxviii
Given the potential for real threats to
Swedish security, one could simply argue that Sweden’s right to self-defense must be
balanced by potential costs of its defense establishment to other nations as well as
Swedish society itself. For example, an analysis in 2011 noted that “for thirty years
Sweden exported military equipment to Tunisia and more recently Egypt.”
xxix
The
zero sum game between Sweden’s traditional security posture (centered on a relatively
large and scale dependent local arms production leading to arms exports) and the
security of others’ is a major focus of this paper.
I will refer to this problem of the excessive social or economic costs of military
spending as military externalities, i.e. the problem associated with “the negative
externalities” associated with domestic arms production and Sweden’s permanent arms
economy.
xxx
These so-called “externalities,” inherent in the system of domestic
weapons production, have both an economic and political side. On the economic side,
there is the question of the cost of weapons production to the countries that make and
receive weapons. On the political side, there is the problem of how arms production
contributes to both the “cycle of violence” and leads to insecurities by other states, the
so-called “security dilemma.”
xxxi
With the holocaust and era of New Wars (or at least
persistent civil wars), we see how the security dilemma can be recast, i.e. security for
one state and people potentially leads to insecurity among the people in another state.
Alliances or trade among states and firms in different countries may harm third parties,
e.g. by helping to arm militaries that can be used against the domestic population or
other states. I refer to these economic and political costs as “military (political-
economic) externalities” or “militarism.” The balance of this paper will point to
various examples of these military externalities, cases where the ethical costs of
Sweden’s military economy are apparent, even if this economy was nominally (or
actually) tied to the country’s security policy (or needs).
We need to begin with the early critics of Swedish militarism who largely have
been subject to intellectual marginalization and social amnesia. Among these early
critics were Fredrik Ström and Zeth Höglund, two intellectual figures who pointed out
80
the social costs of Swedish military expenditures. Ström and Höglund, leaders of the
antimilitarist left, argued that Sweden’s security debate should not just be about realist
constrainsts or neutrality, but also about the costs of war (military accumulation). In
1906, the Social Democratic Youth Association (with which Höglund was associated),
attacked military expenditures “on the grounds that the money thus wasted could be
used for the benefit of ‘the small agricultural concerns, for the education of the people
and for insuring the workers.’”
xxxii
They argued that Sweden’s military investments
came at a high domestic, social cost. In 1913, Höglund co-authored a pamphlet, The
Fortified Poorhouse: Antimilitarist and Socialist Handbook (in Swedish, Det befästa
fattighuset - Antimilitaristisk och socialistisk handbok) with Fredrik Ström and
Hannes Sköld.
xxxiii
The “fortified poorhouse” was an expose of the costs of Sweden’s
military, suggesting that military expenditures created significant opportunity costs for
the Swedish population. One might even call this a case of “surplus realism,” i.e.
military security achieved at the costs of economic security as Sweden became both a
fortress and poorhouse. The pamphlet was despised by “bourgeois” politicians and
media.
xxxiv
The First and Second World Wars helped to put discussions of Swedish
militarism further on the margins. These wars appeared to reveal the workings of
realist constraints, external threats and the naiveté of the anti-militarists. In fact,
recent scholarship on Sweden’s relationship with Germany suggests that Sweden had
little choice but to comply with Nazi demands (realist constraints).
xxxv
The impression
left at times by various scholars is that Swedish militarization appears to reflect realist
constraints (or neutrality policies) as opposed to domestic, economic and political
interests who had other choices.
xxxvi
This impression, based in part on sins of omission or emphasis, is contradicted
by the historical record. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles was supposed to place limits
on offensive weaponry in Germany, but Germany used foreign firms to overcome
these limits. One aircraft historian notes that: “hardly was the ink dry on the hated
Diktat, however, before companies began seeking ways to circumvent the strictures
imposed upon them.” Junkers Flugzeugwerke, based in Dessau, was one of these
companies.
xxxvii
German military industry developed “significant interests in Swedish
munitions in the early 1930s.”
xxxviii
One key Swedish company with German ties, AB
Flygindustri i Limhamn, was not alone. Germany also had a strong interest in military
producers AB Bofors as well as AB Landsverk in Landskrona.
xxxix
Thus, “63,000 out of
in all 198,000 shares in the great armaments works Bofors belonged to the Krupp
works.”
xl
The Bofors Company had “acquired certain patent rights and designs from
Krupp in order to be able to fill repeat orders from Krupp’s foreign customers.” As a
payment Bofors issued “shares to a Swedish holding company, A. B.
Boforsintressenter, organized February 12, 1921, with a nonentity as sole director.”
xli
Bofors was one of Germany’s “best assets for [its] secret rearmament drive,” but
Krupp was forced to sell its shares after the Riksdag passed a bill on July 1, 1935.
xlii
These accounts suggest that German militarism depended in part on Swedish actions.
In his book, Stalwart Sweden, published in 1943, Joesten further documented
this argument. There he wrote: “There may be bigger armament centers than Sweden’s
Bofors, but there is none that matches it for quality. And in guns, it’s quality that
counts.” He pointed to the complex surrounding Bofors, a “huge complex of mines,
furnaces, steel mills, forges, workshops, and laboratories where some 10,000 people
work night and day, in three shifts, while in the stately head office building of the
Aktie-bolag Bofors a staff of more than a thousand designers, constructors, engineers,
and clerks strives hard to cope with the mounting flood of orders.”
xliii
Bofors was
part of an arms race connected to military profits (or what O’Connor called the system
81
of economic accumulation): “The rhythm of the great armament race that preceded
this war is strikingly reflected in the yearly returns of the Bofors company.” In 1934
Bofors “delivered civilian and military goods for 41,000,000 kronor”, 17 million US
Dollar (2013). Bofors “was pouring out, guns and ammunition only, to the tune of
156,210,000 kronor, 602 million US Dollar (2013) by 1939.” The company’s “net
profits in one year increased 150 per cent, from 10,970,000 kronor in 1938,
4,6 million US Dollar (2013) to 16,530,000 kronor, 2,5 in 1939. Dividends were 12
per cent.”
xliv
The early Social Democratic Party had the opportunity to challenge Bofors as a
source of military externalities, but instead favored the company as part of its growth
project. In the 1920s, “the general depression after World War I” threatened Bofors
with ruin. Sven Gustaf Wingquist, a Swedish inventor and industrialist, was asked to
salvage the company. After becoming the managing director, Windquist eventually
was “able to persuade the then Labor Government of Sweden, at that time anti-
militarist and seeking disarmament, to invest in re-armament.” As a result of
Windquist’s efforts, “he developed Bofors from a third-class arms factory to a world
purveyor of many arms, including anti-aircraft guns.”
xlv
In a comprehensive study on clandestine rearmament under the Weimar
Republic, E. J. Gumbel, a Professor of Statistics at the University of Heidelberg from
1923 to 1932, wrote: “Many of the major German arms manufacturers had
subsidiaries in the countries neutral in the First World War, particularly Sweden,
Holland, Switzerland, and Spain.” These subsidiaries “served as branches of the
German parent companies engaged in armament production, research, and
development.” For example, “the Swedish branch of Junkers, A. B. Flygindustri, in
1931 tested a pioneer two-seater fighter.”
xlvi
Gumbel concluded his study by writing:
The Weimar Republic was killed by the great depression, which brought a revival of
illegal party armies and their fight for power. When the Nazis took over, the secret
armament stopped because armament became legal; the great powers had accepted the
Nazi breach of the Versailles Treaty. The secret armament under the Weimar Republic
is a link between the defeat of 1918 and the holocaust of the Second World War.
xlvii
The appeasement of Nazi Germany is usually deployed by realists as an
historical case to debunk anti-militarist intellectuals. Yet, Gumbel has shown why
active cooperation with Weimar Germany helps make the case for comprehensive
disarmament policies. These policies were supported by disarmament intellectuals like
Seymour Melman and Marcus Raskin in the United States, Philip Noel Baker in the
United Kingdom, and Alva Myrdal and Inga Thorsson in Sweden. These thinkers
argued that peace requiring planning and preparation for it.
xlviii
They are the
intellectual descendants of an earlier wave of anti-militarist intellectuals like Karl
Liebknecht in Germany and the aforementioned Swedes Ström and Höglund.
In summary, Sweden has faced realist constraints and tried to portray itself as
neutral. Yet, prior to the most severe constraints on Sweden’s neutrality during the
Second World War, the Swedish arms industry was driven by economic accumulation
interests as well. These interests not only compromised solidarity, but also neutrality,
aligning Sweden with Germany’s military interests. Prior to the Nazi rise, Sweden
aided the German war machine, helping the Germans break the Versailles accords
(during the Weimar government). The contributions of Sweden to Germany during
this period have been neglected by historians criticizing Sweden’s early anti-militarists,
recent analysts of Sweden’s role in the Second World War (by neglecting the earlier
period where Sweden had more choice), and discussions of Social Democrats’
participation in disarmament discussions. While many have argued that neutrality has
led to armament, Swedish armament policy has more often than not rhetorically
exploited neutrality to promote armament. Given that arms export economic
82
accumulation is still a consideration in Swedish policy, ideas about economic
alternatives to the arms race, as advocated by more recent disarmament advocates are
highly relevant even today. Unfortunately, the advocates are largely neglected by
contemporary discussions of Swedish security policy, i.e. they are a product of
displacement and social amnesia.
xlix
i
This essay is part of a larger research project related to the history of U.S., Swedish and British security
policy, particularly concerning questions of military production, civilian conversion and disarmament.
The author can be contacted at: jonathanmfeldman@gmail.com.
ii
William D. Hartung and Dena Montague, “U.S. Amrs and Training Programs in Africa,” New York:
World Policy Institute, Special Issue Brief, March 22, 2001. Accessible at:
jhttp://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/update032201.htm. See Steve Lohr, “The Swedish
Quandry: Arms Deals or Pacifism?,” The New York Times, May 17, 1987.
iii
Henrik Westander, Vapenexport – svenskt stål biter, Stockholm, Sweden: Gotab, 1995 as cited in Lina
Eriksson, “Western European Arms Export and Asylum Immigration: A Connection? On the
Determinants of Asylum Immigration to Western Europe,” Masters Thesis, Department of Political
Science, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, The University of Waterloo, 2010.
iv
In an article, “All Europe Bids for Swedish Arms: Northland National Controls One of the Foremost
Armament Sources in the World,” Sweden was described as nation “of unruffled peace for the last 123
years and a brilliant record in every sphere of human progress.” Yet, the article noted “another side to the
picture, an aspect of Sweden much less advertised.” Sweden was described as “pacifist to the core,” but
able to “throw a heavy sword into the scales” of the balance of power within Europe. Military experts
across the world regarded Swedish arms producer Bofors as ranking “foremost among munitions makers”
(see Joachim Joesten, “All Europe Bids for Swedish Arms,” The New York Times, February 6, 1938: 4).
This account reveals gaps in later suggestions that Sweden was a minor military player in the 1930s.
v
One account, which simplifies matters, is nevertheless useful to note here: “The Social Democratic Party
dominated Swedish politics both before and after the war. Traditionally, the Social Democrats were anti-
militarists. The war, however, had created a markedly more defence-friendly attitude among leading Social
Democrats, with a resulting rift with the Social Democratic Party between ‘hawks’ and ‘doves.’” See:
Niklas Stenlås, “Military Technology, National Identity and the State: The Rise and Decline of a Small
State’s Military-Industrial Complex,” in Science for Welfare and Warfare: Technology and State Initiative
in Cold War Sweden, Per Lundin, Niklas Stenlås, and Johan Gribbe, eds., Sagamore Beach, MA: Watson
Publishing International, LLC, 2010: 65. This account leaves out the issue of Swedish-German military
cooperation prior to the outbreak of the Second World War and overseen by Social Democrats. See the
discussion below.
vi
Note that Swedish trade unions have rallied around incumbent (already established) industries, like
military aircraft production, which created ongoing constituencies and a political base in the trade union
movement, via military corporatism.
vii
http://www.government.se/sb/d/11725/a/122836
viii
See for example, Stenlås, op. cit.
ix
“The growth of the Air Force,” Military Aircraft Museum, Malmslätt, Sweden, May 1, 2010. Accessible
at: http://www.flygvapenmuseum.se/en/Restaurant/About-the-Swedish-Air-Force-Museum/The-growth-of-the-
Air-Force/. Accessed January 5, 2013.
x
Gerard O’Dwyer, “Sweden’s Possible Gripen Cut Prompts Force Capability Fears,” Defense News,
November 19, 2012. Acccessible at:
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121119/DEFREG01/311190008/Sweden-8217-s-Possible-Gripen-Cut-
Prompts-Force-Capability-Fears. Accessed January 5, 2013.
xi
This of course depends on the time period in question and the impacts of various media outlets.
Generous refugee policies can also be contrasted with limited success in immigrant integration, although
even here Sweden’s policies are superior to those of other nations where xenophobic forces are even more
on the ascendancy.
xii
“Swedish weapons sold to dictatorships: agency,” The Local, February 22, 2012. Accessible at:
http://www.thelocal.se/39268/20120222/#.UOgnM-TAeSo. Accessed January 5, 2013.
xiii
See for example the editorial by Anders Wejryd, Archbishop of the Swedish Church,”Vapenexport inget
verktgy för dialog med dictaturer,” [Weapon Exports are not a Tool for Dialogue with Dictators,”]
Dagens Nyheter, February 5, 2011. Accessible at: http://www.dn.se/debatt/vapenexport-inget-verktyg-for-
dialog-med-diktaturer. Accessed January 6,2013.
xiv
James O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973: 6
xv
Ritchie Robertson, “Introduction” in Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999: xiv.
xvi
Freud, in ibid.: 233-234.
xvii
Ibid.: 87-88, 255. In international relations, substitution effects are found when countries displace the
constraints on war identified by Immanuel Kant in his essay on peace used by democratic peace theorists.
83
See: Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Political Writings, Hans Reiss, ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1970. Among these are for example the use of modern technologies to reduce battle deaths, i.e. a
substitution of technology for personnel. In this case, where technologies themselves are put into potential
battle zones rather than people, technology can’t displace technology. As a result, displacement takes
place in the discursive, rhetorical or media sphere. It should be noted, however, that Sweden’s recent
military engagement in Afghanistan and Libya has been contested by some, but the number of battle
deaths was minimal and hardly influenced public opinion.
xviii
Reinfeldt as quoted in Wejryd, op. cit.
xix
Russell Jacoby, Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing, Boston:
Beacon Press, 1975: 1.
xx
On the lost lineage of a group of more critical intellectuals, including antiwar intellectuals, in an
American context, see: Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals, New York: Basic Books, 2000.
xxi
Jacoby, Social Amnesia, op. cit.: 1.
xxii
See Philip Reif’s discussion of Freud in Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, New York: The Viking Press,
1959: 46.
xxiii
Sanford Jacoby, Defense Addiction: Can America Kick the Habit?, Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1996.
xxiv
Reif, op. cit.: 40.
xxv
Ibid.: 304.
xxvi
Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950: 3.
xxvii
Alastair Bonnett, “The Dilemmas of Radical Nostalgia in British Psychogeography,” Theory, Culture
and Society, Vol. 26, No. 1: 45-70.
xxviii
For the United States case, see Jonathan M. Feldman, “Public Choice, Foreign Policy Crises, and
Military Spending,” in The Socioeconomics of Conversion From War to Peace, Edited by Lloyd J. Dumas,
Armonk, New York, M. E. Sharpe: 1995: 233-264.
xxix
Wejryd, op. cit.
xxx
The term “externalities” is somewhat misleading. As an economic term, it correctly assesses costs that
a company does not have to pay for, i.e. they are “external.” In terms of sociological and political
understanding, the term is a misnomer. The decisions to pollute or export weapons (and the resulting
consequences) are internal to the design and managerial choices of the firm. See Seymour Melman, “The
Impact of Economics on Technology,” Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1975: 59-72.
xxxi
One explanation for the “security dilemma” links this problem in part to the construction of a military
industrial base. As states prepare to protect themselves, they take “self-help” measures. These include
“building a strong industrial base, constructing armaments, mobilizing a military.” This leads other states
to become “less secure.” These other states respond by engaging in “similar activities, increasing their
own level of protection but leading to greater insecurity on the part of others.” This viscous cycle, the
“security dilemma” has been explained as follows: “in the absence of centralized authority, one state’s
becoming more secure diminishes another state’s security” (see Karen A. Mingst, Essentials of
International Relations. Fourth Edition. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2008: 208). Arms
exports can generate such security dilemmas, particularly when they are a viewed as a necessary
accompaniment to national defense. In the Swedish case, Swedish security is tied to weapons production
which allegedly requires exports to reduce costs and make domestic use of weapons possible. Swedish
arms export policy was associated with decreased domestic orders in some cases. Thus, the exports
partially reflected a failure in civilian industrial policy. Such a policy would create civilian profit
alternatives for defense firms. For an example of how civilian conversion of Swedish defense firms’
capacities has sometimes can be successful, see: Jonathan M. Feldman, Can Saab Diversify?: Lessons
from Civilian Spinoffs in the 1970s and 1980s, Working Paper, Number 206, Department of Technology
and Social Change, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden, March, 1999: 206.
xxxii
Karl Liebknecht, Militarism and Anti-Militarism, Cambridge: Rivers Press Limited, 1973: 101.
xxxiii
Zeth Höglund, Hannes Sköld and Fredrik Ström, editors, Fattighuset: Det befästa: Antimilitaristisk
och socialistisk handbok. Stockholm: Fram, 1913.
xxxiv
“Zeth Höglund.” 2012. Wikipedia. Accessible at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeth_H%C3%B6glund.
Accessed November 17, 2012; Per Anders Fogelström, Kampen för fred: Berättelsen om en folkrörelse.
Stockholm: Svenska Freds- och skiljedomsföreningen, 1983: 135.
xxxv
See for example: Birgit Karlsson, ”Avslutande Discussion,” in Martin Fritz, Birgit Karlsson, Ingela
Karlsson and Sven Nordlund, En (O)moralisk Handel?: Sveriges ekonomiska relationer med
Nazityskland, Skriftserie #2: 2006, Stockholm: Forum för Levande Historia, 2006: 184-190. One
limitation to this comprehensive study of Sweden’s economic relations with Nazi Germany seems to be
based on an improper framing of the time sequence as to how to consider Swedish-German relations, i.e.
the need to consider the Weimar period prior to the Nazi rise when Sweden had more “free will.” In
contrast, see Thorsten Velben, “The Economic Consequences of the Peace,” in Essays In Our Changing
Order, Leon Ardzrooni, ed., New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers: 462-470. This Veblen essay was
originally published as a review in The Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 35, September, 1920: 467-472 of
84
John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe:
1920. Here Veblen noted that: “Even such conservative provisions as the Treaty makes for indemnifying
the war victims have hitherto been enforced only with a shrewdly managed leniency, marked with an
unmistakable partisan bias in favor of the German-Imperial status quo ante; as is also true for the
provisions touching disarmament and the discontinuance of warlike industries and organization – which
provisions have been administered in a well-conceived spirit of opéra bouffe [i.e. defined by comedy,
satire, parody and farce]. Indeed, the measures hitherto taken in the execution of this Peace Treaty’s
provisional terms throw something of an air of fantasy over Mr. Keynes’s apprehensions on this head”
(Veblen, ibid.: 470).
xxxvi
Stenlås makes three claims about the period up to and including the Second World War which while
not incorrect are nevertheless incomplete. First, Germany’s violations of arms treaties triggered a
militarization drive that forced Sweden as a relatively passive actor to react. Second, Sweden was a
relatively weak military supplier. Third, Swedish militarization appears to reflect realist constraints (or
neutrality policies) as opposed to domestic, economic and political interests. See: Niklas Stenlås,
“Technology, National Identity and the State: Rise and Decline of a Small State’s Military-Industrial
Complex,” Arbetsrapport, Stockholm: Institute för Framtidsstudier, 2008: 7. Stenlås has written about
Sweden’s military industrial complex, considering domestic constituencies. The problem I have with his
account concerns how (German) external threats are viewed somewhat autonomously from prior domestic
Swedish investments (in Germany’s war machine). Compare Joesten, “All Europe Bids...,” op. cit. on
Sweden’s power as a military supplier and the discussions throughout this essay.
xxxvii
John Weal, Junkers Ju 87: Stukageschwader Mediterranean and North Africa, London: Osprey
Publishing, 1997: 6.
xxxviii
Lars Fälting, Högtflygande Planer i Debatten om Arlanda 1946, Working Papers in Transport and
Communications History, Umeå and Uppsala: The Research Group: “Transports and Communications in
Perspective,” Departments of Economic History, Umeå University and Uppsala University, 1995: 2.
Accessible at: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:128614. Accessed November 14, 2012.
xxxix
Inger Ström-Billing, “Die Behandlung der deutschen Interessen in der schwedischen Rüstungsindustrie
1934-1935,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 57, Bd., H. 2, 1970: 231-254.
xl
Bjarne Braatoy, The New Sweden: A Vindication of Democracy. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons,
Ltd., 1939: 88; Joachim Joesten, “All Europe Bids...,” op. cit.: 4.
xli
Marquis W. Childs, Sweden: The Middle Way, New York: Penguin Books, 1948: 87-88.
xlii
Joesten, “All Europe Bids...,” op. cit.: 4.
xliii
Joachim Joesten, Stalwart Sweden, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc.
1943: 88-89.
xliv
Ibid.: 89.
xlv
“Sven Wingquist, 76, SKF Founder, Dies.” 1953. The New York Times, April 19. Accessible at:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10D15FA3D5A117A93CBA8178FD85F478585F9. Accessed
November 16, 2012.
xlvi
E. J. Gumbel, “Disarmament and Clandestine Rearmament Under the Weimar Republic,” in Inspection
for Disarmament, Seymour Melman, ed., New York: Columbia University Press, 1958: 215.
xlvii
Ibid.: 217.
xlviii
See, for example: Seymour Melman, The Demilitarized Society: Disarmament and Conversion,
Nottingham: Spokesman, 1988.
xlix
The publication of external editorials opposed to Sweden’s arms export policy suggests that the critique
of Swedish militarism is alive and well. The problem, however, is that these critiques have often not
embraced the ideas of earlier intellectuals like Melman and Thorsson who embraced a comprehensive
program of disarmament and conversion or who showed how conversion and diversification of defense
firms might mitigate pressures for arms exports. See Paul Quigley, “Arms Exports: The Stop-gap Alternative
to Pentagon Contracts?,” Security Dialogue, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1988: 21-32 for a relevant discussion.
85
Disarmament as a humanitarian obligation
Gunnar Westberg, Professor emeritus, Sahlgrenska Akademin Göteborg
Abstract. The phrase “Humanitarian consequences of nuclear war”
was much used in the seventies and eighties, but has since given way
to words such as anti-proliferation, abolition, legal framework etc. In
the last two years concern about the humanitarian impact of any use
of nuclear weapons has been emphasized in e.g. the resolutions of the
Red Cross and the NPTRev Conference of 2010. The use of or threat
to use nuclear weapons is clearly illegal according to the definitions
used in international humanitarian law, e.g. by the ICJ. Their place in
military doctrines is as threats. Thus their existence can be seen as
illegal. The nuclear weapon states are required to negotiate the
abolition of their nuclear weapons. They are not conducting such
negotiations and can thus be said to violate international
humanitarian law. The enormous cost of today’s arms drains
resources from the creation of a more secure world, with e.g. better
child health. Weapons are generally treated as the main, often the
only, means available to solve conflicts. Disarmament should be
followed by a development of alternative methods for conflict
prevention and mitigation. That too is a humanitarian obligation.
The word Humanitarian has returned in such contexts as Humanitarian consequences
of nuclear weapons, inhuman weapons or International humanitarian law. Such
expressions were often used in the work for nuclear disarmament in the 1970-ies and
1980-ies. In the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)
we used the expression frequently. In the two recent decennia we have talked more
about survival, arms reduction, climate change, abolition, proliferation etc. but not
often talked about humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.
“Humanitarian” came back very strongly in the resolution by the ICRC, the
International Red Cross resolution, in 2011
1
:
...to raise awareness...of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any
use of nuclear weapons, the international humanitarian law issues that arise
from such use ...[and work for] the prohibition of use and for the elimination
of such weapons...
In the final document of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in 2010 we find the
same referral to “humanitarian consequences”:
2
The conference expresses its deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian
consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and reaffirms the need for all
states at all times to comply with applicable international law, including
international humanitarian law.
The inclusion of this phrase in the final document of the NPT Review Conference
1
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/resolution/council-delegates-resolution-1-2011.htm.
2
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=NPT/CONF.2010/50%20(VOL.I)&referer=http://ww
w.un.org/en/conf/npt/2010/&Lang=E.
86
caused considerable irritation from some nuclear weapon states.
The phrase recalls the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice,
ICJ, of 1996 regarding international humanitarian law
3
.
Weapons [that] would generally be contrary to the principles and rules of
humanitarian law [are]:
weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military
targets.
...[weapons that] cause unnecessary suffering to combatants
The Court concludes that any use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is in general
illegal.
Nuclear weapons are illegal for similar reasons as antipersonnel mines, cluster
weapons or chemical or biological weapons, but the reasons are even more convincing
for nuclear weapons.
We can use but do not need these legal definitions to see that nuclear weapons
are against everything we call humanitarian:
“The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-human, outright evil thing
that man has ever made...(Arundhati Roy)
As said, the use or threat to use these weapons is against humanitarian law. However,
they are not prohibited. They are allowed to exist.
The ICJ also ruled that the nuclear weapon states are obliged to pursue in good
faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its
aspects under strict and effective international control.
Proliferation
To abolish these weapons that in their effects go against humanitarian law is thus
reasonably a humanitarian duty, a duty which the nuclear weapon states, those inside
and those outside the NPT, do not heed. This disregard for international laws and
agreements decreases the respect for these states when they demand that other states,
namely the nuclear weapon free states, should obey the rules. The nuclear weapon
states have not even cared to explain why they do not intend to meet their
responsibility. And, as a rule, we, the nuclear weapon free, do not ask.
There are other reasons than the concern for international humanitarian law
why disarmament is a humanitarian requirement, such as the risk of proliferation.
If the nuclear weapon states do not abide by international law or honour their
pledge to disarm, their demand that other states abstain from nuclear weapons loses
credibility. Thus, the risk for nuclear proliferation increases:
The contempt for international humanitarian law shown by nuclear weapon instates
weakens their arguments against proliferation.
“As long as nuclear weapons exist in the world the USA will maintain a safe,
secure and effective nuclear arsenal” (Pres. Obama, Prague speech)
4
“It defies credibility to expect that nuclear weapons can be allowed to exist in
perpetuity without being used” (Canberra Commission)
5
3
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/95/7495.pdf
4
http://www.cfr.org/proliferation/obamas-speech-prague-new-start-treaty-april-2010/p21849
5
http://www.ccnr.org/canberra.html
87
Cost of arms vs. cost of human security
Furthermore, the enormous cost of armaments means less funds will be available for
humanitarian needs. This applies of course also to the cost of non-nuclear arms.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the USA states this with great
emotional impact
6
:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signify in
the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed.
The President here refers to the Bible, Matthew 25:31-46. In these words Jesus says
that those who do not feed the hungry will be sent away to eternal punishment. There
are Christian fundamentalists who would do well to ponder the reasons why the
President referred to the Gospel.
The total cost of armaments in the world .in 2011 is estimated by SIPRI to be
1738 Billion US dollars. The USA carries about 40% of that cost.
7
In order to reach the UN Millennium goals, MDG, an additional 40-60 Billion
US $ is needed annually according to a recent World Bank report.
8
That sum
corresponds to less than 3% of the World military Expenditure.
For the MDG of reducing infant mortality by two thirds by year 2015 the
World Bank quotes a cost of only 40-60 $ per life saved.
Certainly money is not the only requirement for reaching the MDG, but
without additional monetary resources it can certainly not be done.
The world leaders see additional weaponry as a contribution to security, but
not additional funds to save the health of children. Mothers of children in poor
countries see the concept of security differently.
Develop peace
I wish to bring one additional example of the humanitarian need to disarm, namely to
find alternatives to military thinking. As long as we have these enormous arsenals of
weapons and people trained to use them we tend to approach conflicts with military
thinking and military means. As long as we trust in weapons, we will not develop other
means of preventing of mitigating conflicts. “If the only tool you have is a hammer,
every problem will look more and more like a nail”. In the conflicts that have been
handled by the UN Security Council in the last decades very little has been done to try
to solve the problems before weapons are considered. No institutes for training of
mediators or arbitration facilitators, no scientific methodology for solving conflicts
have been supported by the Security Council.
Summary
I have given some reason to consider disarmament, especially of nuclear weapons, a
humanitarian obligation.
The exists a legal and a humanitarian obligation to abolish especially inhumane
weapons, such as nuclear weapons;
Nuclear disarmament is necessary prevent proliferation, which would increase
6
Eisenhower on the Opportunity Cost of Defense Spending", Harper's Magazine, November 12, 2007
7
http://www.sipri.org/yearbook
8
http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/mdgassessment.pdf
88
the risk of a nuclear war;
The money spent on weapons prevents work to increase the security of the
population, e.g. child health care;
The enormous supply of weapons prevents the development of non-military
means to sole conflicts.
89
PART IV.
Comparative perspectives
90
India and the Atom: Non-alignment, Disarmament
and Nuclearity
1
, 1954-1974 and Beyond
Jayita Sarkar, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
This paper is a draft. Please do not cite without permission.
Abstract. Nehru’s proposal at the UN for a “standstill” agreement
on nuclear testing in April 1954 preceded the Bandung Conference
of 1955 by a little over a year. The proposal although never
materialized, made India the first country in the world to propose a
nuclear test-ban. By then, India had already become proactive on the
international fora calling for universal nuclear disarmament.
Simultaneous events during the same period included the 1955 UN
Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva and the
1956
Conference for the Negotiation of the IAEA Statute in New
York – in both cases India played a very
active role. During this
period, India’s foreign policy vis-à-vis atomic energy operated as a
three-pronged strategy that included (a) non-alignment, (b) advocacy
for universal nuclear disarmament and (c) promotion of peaceful uses
of atomic energy. Nonalignment allowed it to seek assistance in
atomic energy from both blocs, while disarmament advocacy coupled
with its promotion of the “peaceful atom” ensured that it received
nuclear technology from those promoting it. This three-pronged
strategy worked very much to its advantage until its refusal to sign
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 followed by its
underground nuclear test in May 1974, when international
castigation was followed-up by severe technological sanctions. The
paper aims to provide a sophisticated analysis of “nuclear
dissidence” in particular reference to India. In order to understand
“nuclear dissidence”, a distinction must be made amongst the
nuclear pariah, the nuclear citizen and the nuclear dissident,
where the prefix “nuclear” denotes that we are talking about the
global nuclear order and the pariah, the citizen and the dissident are
in fact sovereign states. Using documents from the IAEA archives in
Vienna, National Archives in Kew and the Archives Diplomatiques
in La Courneuve, this paper analyses the trajectory of India’s
transition from a “nuclear citizen” to a “nuclear dissident” in the
global nuclear order, the nature of its “nuclear dissidence” and the
usefulness of this concept in research on national and international
nuclear histories.
1
For the term ‘nuclearity’ see Gabrielle Hecht, Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012, 14.
91
Introduction
The trajectory of India’s nuclear history is long and complex. It began in 1948 with the
adoption of the Atomic Energy Act and the subsequent creation of the Atomic Energy
Commission. India, along with France, remains one of the few countries that began its
nuclear programme for explicitly peaceful purposes, at a time when no country had
produced commercially viable electricity from atomic energy.
2
Until then, the only uses
of atomic energy that the world had witnessed were the bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. In other words, Nehru’s decision to steer clear of the bomb was a
maverick policy for his time, comparable perhaps to his policy of non-alignment to
steer clear of Cold War blocs. With Eisenhower’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ speech at the UN
General Assembly on 8 December 1953, and the establishment of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1957, the ‘peaceful atom’ diffused into international
discourse.
3
India had always been an important proponent of universal nuclear
disarmament. As early as April 1954, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called
for a ‘standstill’ agreement between the superpowers on nuclear testing. Although such
a proposal fell on deaf ears of the international community, it became the first call ever
for a nuclear test ban.
Benoît Pelopidas argues that US proliferation experts’ skewed reading of
history has led to an overemphasis on proliferation history as opposed to histories of
nuclear reversal, disarming and rollback.
4
The US-led nuclear non-proliferation regime
seems to believe in a sort of Murphy’s Law of ‘nuclear fatalism’: if a country can build
nuclear weapons, then it most certainly will. The US-led nuclear non-proliferation
regime that operates with this Manichean world view has a clear demarcation of the
‘other’ - those states that did not enter the exclusive five-member nuclear club by 1968,
according to the temporal criterion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
5
In
addition, the regime mobilized an expansive institutional apparatus revolving around
control and surveillance, or ‘safeguards’ and ‘verification’ as the IAEA terminology
would have it. The outcome of this was an environment of deep suspicion of the
actions of the ‘other’ and castigation (by the United States and the IAEA) if the
suspicions were even partly proven right.
Hand in hand with this nuclear fatalism, what also permeates the regime is
what Hugh Gusterson calls ‘nuclear Orientalism,’
6
i.e. nuclear weapons seem more
dangerous in the hands of states of the non-West since they are automatically identified
with authoritarian governments and therefore capable of irresponsible behaviour. The
2
It was not until 1951 when the Experimental Breeder Reactor-I in Idaho produced world’s first usable
amount of electricity by lighting four electric bulbs. “Argonne National Laboratory: History,” Argonne
National Laboratory, http://www.anl.gov/history (last accessed 27 November 2012).
3
As a matter of interest, the IAEA’s emblem was initially that of a lithium atom until it was realized that
lithium is a metal used in the hydrogen bomb. Therefore, in December 1958 the emblem was changed for
a ‘harmless’ beryllium atom. Paul Szasz, The law and practices of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(Vienna: IAEA, 1970), 1001-3.
4
Benoît Pelopidas, “The Oracles of Proliferation: How Experts Maintain a Biased Historical Reading that
Limits Policy Innovation,” The Nonproliferation Review 18 (Mar. 2011): 301-3.
5
French physicist Bertrand Goldschmidt who was the French Governor on the IAEA’s Board of Governors
from 1958 to 1980, and also headed the International Relations Division of the French Commissariat à
l’énergie atomique wrote, “If the Indian explosion had taken place, like the Chinese one, before the entry
into force of the NPT, it would certainly have created less commotion. For the first time, such an
operation had proved counterproductive for a country – at least in the short term...” Bertrand
Goldschmidt. The Atomic Complex: A Worldwide Political History of Nuclear Energy (La Grange Park,
IL: American Nuclear Society, 1982), 404.
6
Hugh Gusterson, “Nuclear Weapons and the Other in the Western Imagination,” Cultural Anthropology
14 (1999): 111-43.
92
restraint exercised by the superpowers and their rationality that constitutes the
backbone of deterrence, would not be replicable by these countries leading to a nuclear
war and eventually to a nuclear apocalypse that would end the world. Gusterson’s
thesis is a highly interesting and attractive one and is not without merit, since the
‘irrational’, ‘irresponsible’, ‘maniacal’ are the adjectives that policymakers use to
criticize each time a non-nuclear weapon state
7
crosses or is suspected of crossing the
nuclear Rubicon. The main lacuna in his argument is perhaps also the lacuna in
Edward Saïd’s Orientalism, i.e., how does the Orient or the non-West exercise agency
under these constraints, because it does. The Indian nuclear trajectory is a valid case in
point.
As mentioned earlier, India embarked on a peaceful atomic energy programme
before the cause of the ‘peaceful atom’ became prevalent. Soon after Eisenhower’s
proposal for ‘Atoms for Peace’ in 1953, when the First UN Conference on Peaceful
Uses of Atomic Energy was held in Geneva in August 1955, the chairman of the Indian
Atomic Energy Commission, Homi J. Bhabha was chosen to preside over the
Conference. Throughout the 1950s India received technical assistance in atomic energy
from the United Kingdom, France, United States and Canada. Canadian assistance to
India began in 1954 under the Colombo Assistance Plan, which was originally
conceived as an arrangement to provide aid to the developing countries of the British
Commonwealth. That year, Canada supplied India with a vertical tank-type research
reactor in Trombay near Mumbai, which became known as the CIRUS. It is believed
that India used plutonium produced as a by-product from this reactor for the
underground test codenamed the ‘Smiling Buddha’ in May 1974.
While India was highly criticized by the international community for what the
former claimed to be a ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ (PNE) and which the latter refused
to believe, PNEs have constituted an important component in the discussions that took
place at the IAEA throughout the 1960s and are also enshrined in Article V of the NPT
signed in 1968. In 1974, both the superpowers had conducted what they termed as
PNEs. The first completely underground test took place in the United States in 1957
and in 1961 in the Soviet Union.
8
In other words, it may well be argued that despite
the technological sanctions on India that followed after May 1974, PNEs as a category
had both relevance and prevalence in the international discourse on atomic energy.
Unlike other postcolonial countries from the developing world India had been
proactive on the international platforms related to atomic energy, including the
negotiations in 1956 leading to the IAEA statute and those between 1965 and 1968
leading to the NPT.
The purpose of this paper is to portray the normative opposition exercised by
India vis-à-vis the nuclear non-proliferation regime since May 1974 by failing to
undertake immediate steps towards a weapons programme, and thereby disproving the
conventional wisdom of the Murphy’s Law of ‘nuclear fatalism’, which still continues
to form an important pillar of the regime. The first part of the paper explores the
immediate reactions that emanated from the United States soon after the test and
India’s rebuttal. The second part, divided into four sub-sections, investigates the matter
further by studying the possible temptations for weaponization. The sub-sections read
as ‘nuclear prestige’, ‘the domestic tumult’, ‘unstable regional security environment’
and ‘strained relations with the United States’. The third part looks at India’s
7
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty created a temporal criterion that bestowed the status of “nuclear
weapon state” (NWS) on those countries that have tested nuclear weapons before 1968. This included
only five states, namely, the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and People’s Republic
of China. Those that did not fit into this category were the “non-nuclear weapon states” (NNWS).
8
Robert S. Anderson, “The Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Debates,” paper presented at NPIHP conference
of the University of Vienna, 16-18 September 2012.
93
involvement at the international fora during this period, namely the proposals calling
for the ‘new international economic order’ and promoting disarmament. Finally, the
paper concludes with observations on the implications of this Indian nuclear inaction
until the development of its integrated guided missile development programme
(IGMDP) in 1983, on the edifice of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. While the
decision to begin a weapons programme is roughly placed at 1988-9, when the
IGMDP was showing signs of good progress, this paper focuses till the beginning of
this missiles programme.
I. Inside the Smiling Buddha
On 18 May 1974 at 10 a.m., Indian Foreign Secretary Kewal Singh called the
American chargé d’affaires David T. Schneider to inform him that India had ‘carried
out a peaceful nuclear explosion’ two hours earlier. Singh explained that the PNE was
necessary ‘to keep India abreast of the technology...for such purposes as mining and
earth moving’ and that India remained ‘absolutely committed against the use of nuclear
energy for military purposes’. He also added that the United States Embassy was being
informed ahead of all other diplomatic representatives. Schneider’s response was flat.
The news would be received with ‘considerable shock’ in Washington, he replied, for
the United States ‘did not believe it possible to distinguish between explosions for
peaceful and military purposes’.
9
It was this argument and counterargument that was
reiterated each time India and the United States discussed the successful test of the
Indian implosion device on 18 May 1974 in the Rajasthan desert in Pokhran.
The alleged use of plutonium from the Canadian-supplied CIRUS research
reactor implicated the United States as well since it supplied heavy water for the
reactor under a contract signed in March 1960. After the test, the then US Deputy
Secretary of State Kenneth Rush wrote in his telegram to the US mission at the IAEA in
Vienna that the United States considers this ‘a contravention of the terms under which
it was made available.’
10
The United States had long anticipated an Indian underground test. The
National Intelligence Estimate of 1964 of the CIA released by the National Security
Archives in November 2012 shows that apprehensions about a fast-advancing nuclear
programme were already present at the time.
11
The basis for this was that by 1964 the
plutonium-separation plant at Trombay had become operative, capable of extracting
plutonium from the spent fuel of the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor. In November
1970, the United States presented the Indian Atomic Energy Commission with an aide-
mémoire dissuading India from a PNE using American-supplied technology and
materials. It even explicitly stated: ‘The United States would not consider the use of
plutonium produced in CIRUS for peaceful nuclear explosives intended for any
purpose to be research into the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.’
12
In other
words, the American position was the paradoxical assertion that ‘peaceful nuclear
9
Telegram 6591 From the Embassy in India to the Department of State and the Embassy in the United
Kingdom, 18 May 1974, 0600Z, US National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files. Secret;
printed in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XXXV, National Security Policy, 1973–1976.
10
Secret Telegram TOSEC 794/104621 From the Department of State to the Mission to the International
Atomic Energy Agency, 18 May 1974, 2238Z, US National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files.
11
“Declassified 1964 National Intelligence Estimate Predicts India’s Bomb but not Israels,” NPIHP
Research Update 9, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/declassified-1964-national-intelligence-
estimate-predicts-india%E2%80%99s-bomb-not-israel%E2%80%99s (last accessed 12 November 2012).
12
US Government Aide-memoire sent to the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, 16 November 1970,
http://www.nci.org/06nci/04/Historic_Documents_India_Nuclear_Test.htm (last accessed 3 October
2012).
94
explosives are not peaceful’ if the country in question was India.
13
It is true that India
on 18 May 1974 became the first non-nuclear weapon state in the world to have
conducted a PNE – a domain that had otherwise been that of the two superpowers.
14
Very sharp criticism also emanated from Canada, Japan and Australia. India’s
rebuttal constituted in a paper submitted by Raja Ramanna and R. Chidambaram
15
at
the meeting of the IAEA Technical Committee in Vienna in January 1975. The paper
provided the IAEA with the technical details of the 12 kiloton implosion experiment
and underlined two important points – (a) the test was necessary for studying the
potential industrial and engineering uses of PNEs that have been ‘recognized’ by the
IAEA and (b) extensive radiation monitoring and the analysis of air samples after the
test showed that ‘no radioactivity had been released to the atmosphere during the
experiment.’
16
The latter claim was in response to Pakistan’s allegations that it was
susceptible to radiation as a result of India’s test.
17
No non-nuclear weapon state has repeated this act so far after India. The
debate that ensued revolved around the question of indistinguishability of military
nuclear explosions from peaceful ones, thereby reflecting the struggle of the non-
proliferation regime to grapple with an event unprecedented in its history. India’s PNE
therefore remained an act that the regime could not illegalize except by retrospective
instruments of international law. This was because first, the Partial Test Ban Treaty of
1963 to which India was an original signatory, allowed underground nuclear testing.
Second, India could not be charged with violation of the NPT since it never signed it.
Third, Article V of the NPT stated that ‘potential benefits from any peaceful
applications of nuclear explosions will be made available to non-nuclear-weapon States
Party to the Treaty on a non-discriminatory basis’.
18
A NATO secret assessment report of India’s PNE originating from the UK
Foreign and Commonwealth Office estimated that in the wake of such a successful test
India would be able to make a nuclear weapon within six to 12 months, since ‘the
technology for making and testing an underground device is at least as complex as that
required for developing a simple fission weapon’.
19
India with its own uranium and
13
Since the element used in the Indian explosive device was plutonium, professors of political science in
the United States studying proliferation risks began to take special interest in the subject. They focused on
the quantity of plutonium that was being produced in nuclear reactors around the world. This plutonium
was of a highly irradiated variety which although not useful in making weapons, was capable of making a
large explosion. Goldschmidt, The Atomic Complex, 404.
14
The United States began its civil underground nuclear explosions programme in 1957 called ‘Plowshare’
headed by Edward Teller, after the Rainier test was successfully conducted in September that year. It was
believed by both the superpowers that underground nuclear explosions could be used for peaceful
purposes like the creation of underground storage capacity for liquid hydrocarbons, extinguishing fires in
oil and gas wells, in situ cracking of heavy hydrocarbons in bituminous shales or sandstones, etc.
Goldschmidt, The Atomic Complex, 177-8.
15
Raja Ramanna and R. Chidambaram were part of the small group of scientists from the Bhabha Atomic
Research Centre (BARC), which was responsible for the PNE of 1974. In the months following the PNE,
Ramanna, who was then the director of BARC, called for greater powers for the BARC leadership, thus
engaging in a bitter power struggle with Homi Sethna, the then chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy
Commission.P.N. Haksar Papers, IIIrd instalment, Subject File, Sl. No. 315, Nehru Museum and
Memorial Library, New Delhi.
16
Raja Ramanna and R. Chidambaram, “Some studies on India’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosion
Experiment,” in Proceedings of a Technical Committee on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions January
20-24, 1975, (Vienna: IAEA, 1975), 421-36.
17
Anderson, “The Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Debates.”
18
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 22 April 1970,
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/infcirc140.pdf (last accessed 21 November
2012).
19
NATO Situation Centre Assessment Report, 28 May 1974, Carton 2252, "Questions atomiques:
explosion indienne", Dossier 1, Archives Diplomatiques de France, La Courneuve.
95
fuel-fabrication and plutonium-separation facilities has ‘at least the industrial capacity
to produce their own device’, it projected. While the report was certain that with its
inadequate delivery system, India would not pose a strategic deterrent to China, it
suggested a rather interesting alternative. It stated, ‘(T)he Indians may consider
installing nuclear devices at strategic points near their border with China... In this case
little further development of the device exploded would be needed’.
20
The events in
India following 18 May 1974, however, did not validate any of the above conjectures.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was formed in 1974 from the previously
existing London Club to control nuclear-related exports. The NSG aims to prevent
non-signatories to the NPT to receive nuclear technology and information.
21
The
Threshold Test Ban Treaty signed in July 1974 by the United States and the Soviet
Union called for the negotiation of what became known as the Peaceful Nuclear
Explosions Treaty (PNET) signed in 1976 (although it did not enter into force until
1990). The PNET allowed the superpowers to carry out PNEs of yield not exceeding
150 kilotons on territories under their own jurisdiction and under the jurisdiction of
other states provided they were requested to do so and in compliance with the yield
limitations and the provisions of the NPT. The treaty also instituted a comprehensive
system of regulations and verification procedures. In other words, through the PNET,
the following objectives were attained: (a) peaceful nuclear explosions were established
as the exclusive reserve of the superpowers, (b) the authority of the NPT was further
strengthened in determining PNEs and (c) the establishment of a legal apparatus that
stated that ‘there is no essential distinction between the technology of a nuclear
explosive device which would be used as a weapon and the technology of a nuclear
explosive device used for a peaceful purpose’.
22
All of these endeavours were
retrospective and thus none of them could illegalize the event of 18 May 1974.
Meanwhile at the IAEA, the discourse surrounding the PNEs at the Ad hoc
Advisory Group meetings, shifted from the scientific and the technical to the
administrative and the legal.
23
In July 1977, India reiterated at the IAEA that the
nuclear weapons states’ obligation to provide PNE technology to the non-nuclear
weapon states should refer to all member states of the IAEA and not to signatories of
the NPT, since it itself was a non-signatory to the latter.
24
Avoiding the increasing
legality of the debate, India also attempted to outline the scientific/technical differences
between a nuclear explosive for peaceful purposes and a nuclear weapon. ‘PNE
explosive devices’, it argued ‘are specially designed to have as small a diameter as
possible for facilitating underground emplacement’. These devices ‘would need
inevitable and extensive modifications and additions, to introduce features of
transport, delivery and detonation requisite in a nuclear weapon’. Such rebuttals
however did not satisfy the keepers of the regime, namely the United States and its
allies.
20
Ibid.
21
The website of the NSG states that ‘the NSG was created following the explosion in 1974 of a nuclear
device by a non-nuclear-weapon State, which demonstrated that nuclear technology transferred for
peaceful purposes could be misused’. Without naming names, it expounds well its existential rationale.
“History of the NSG,” Nuclear Suppliers Group, http://www.nuclearsuppliersgroup.org/Leng/01-
history.htm (last accessed 18 September 2012).
22
“Text of the PNET Treaty,” US State Department,
http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/pne1.html (last accessed 18 September 2012).
23
Anderson, “The Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Debates.”
24
At that time, France, People’s Republic of China, South Africa, Brazil, Israel and Pakistan were also
non-signatories to the NPT, along with India. Apart from India, Pakistan and Israel, all the other states
eventually signed the treaty in the 1990s. In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the treaty and in 2005 the
IAEA passed a resolution condemning Iran for violating the treaty by developing nuclear weapons – a
charge Iran has denied till date.
96
The strongest defence for India however constituted what followed after its
underground test. George Perkovich and Raj Chengappa place the decision to begin a
weapons programme in 1988-9
25
as a response to the nuclear weapons programme of
Pakistan that was fast burgeoning with Chinese help. This was the period when India’s
integrated guided missiles development programme (IGDMP), launched in 1983, was
also well-advancing, especially with the successful test of the nuclear-capable Agni
missile in May 1989.
26
That between 1974 and 1988-9, India made no move to
commence on a nuclear weapons programme thus disproves the ‘nuclear fatalism’ of
the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
II. The anticipated ‘nuclear fatalism’
The then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided a rather interesting
classification of PNEs in his conversation with Indian Foreign Secretary Kewal Singh
and Ambassador T.N. Kaul in August 1974.
27
Kissinger argued that intellectually
28
a
PNE ‘had a different meaning and significance for a developing country than it has for
an advanced country’ because ‘we (United States) can establish criteria with which we
can control the nature of a peaceful nuclear explosion with precision’. For a developing
country which was in ‘the early stages of nuclear explosion technology, it is not
possible to differentiate with this kind of precision’. Kissinger never articulated the
details of this ‘intellectual distinction’, as he called it, which went against the logic of
the indistinguishability of military and peaceful explosions which the United States
otherwise emphasized. Such a distinction drawn by the US Secretary of State tends to
prove that claims of discrimination against developing countries in the nuclear domain,
made by India and others were not entirely unfounded.
Otherwise, that the United States obstinately refused to distinguish nuclear
explosions for peaceful purposes from those for military ends despite PNEs being a
recognized category in the IAEA proceedings, is a curious case especially if one
perceives that the most important proponent of PNEs in the United States was Edward
Teller, the ‘father of the hydrogen bomb’. As early as 1961 and even before his 1968
book The Constructive Uses of Nuclear Explosives, Teller praised the Plowshare
programme and called for more nuclear testing. He argued that ‘real security’ and ‘real
peace’ depended on the development of nuclear explosives ‘both for defence and for
constructive peacetime purposes.’
29
Peter Goodchild argues that anxious of the
negotiations for test ban treaties, Teller called for PNEs using economic arguments as a
means to ensure the continuation of nuclear testing.
30
Before May 1974, since the only
states that undertook PNE experiments themselves were the nuclear weapon states,
these experiments provided for them an ‘excellent way of justifying the pursuit of
25
For a historical overview of this period, see George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on
Global Proliferation (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1999). See also Raj
Chengappa, Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power (New Delhi:
Harper Collins, 2000).
26
The Agni was hailed by the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as a ‘technology demonstrator’
and India’s efforts to surmount the technological backwardness that ‘leads to subjugation. Although
Indian scientists at the Defence Research and Development Organization argued that the Agni had a range
of 2500 kilometres and therefore could hit a target in China, foreign intelligence estimates from Russia
showed that it could fly only 800 kilometres and that China could not be threatened by it. Perkovich,
India’s Nuclear Bomb, 301.
27
Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, 2 August 1974, Department of State, US National
Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, P820097-0933.
28
Author’s emphasis.
29
Edward Teller, “The Case for Continuing Nuclear Tests,” Headline Series 145 (1961): 57.
30
Peter Goodchild, Edward Teller: The Real Dr Strangelove (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2004), 284-95.
97
underground testing with military implications.’
31
This was especially true in the wake
of the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which banned all nuclear testing except for
those conducted underground.
In other words, peaceful nuclear explosions were surrounded by ambiguity of
intent from the very onset. The meaning of the ‘intellectual distinction’ that Kissinger
suggested was probably this: only nuclear weapon states could ‘rightfully’ conduct
peaceful nuclear explosions because these states had already crossed the nuclear
threshold and hence they contributed to no new fears of proliferation. When a non-
nuclear weapon state conducted a PNE, it was automatically assumed as having a non-
peaceful intent, by the keepers of the non-proliferation regime because of the dubious
roots that PNEs have had for the keepers themselves. The adverse reaction of the
regime to India’s PNE can perhaps be explained as ‘Freudian projection’.
32
Projection is
a psychological defence mechanism by which a subject attributes to someone other
than herself a trait, affect, impulse, or attitude that is actually hers but is too painful
and disturbing and therefore unacceptable to herself as her own.
33
This lies at the core
of the regime’s faith in ‘nuclear fatalism,’ by which it projects its own ambiguities
towards peaceful uses of nuclear energy onto the ‘other,’ namely the non-nuclear
weapon states.
The following four sub-sections will investigate the potential inducements for a
state to weaponize, and test them against the Indian case.
a. Nuclear prestige
The convergence of the Second World War with the discovery of nuclear fission in
1939, and, the end of the War, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945,
ensured that the nuclear question remained paramount in international politics for
decades to come. Nuclear weapons which thus began to be equated with the
instruments of the victorious began to embody the highest form of scientific expertise
of the twentieth century and the ultimate symbol of humankind’s mastery over nature.
The nuclear question thus came to be intrinsically associated with national prestige in
the post-World War II order. When national prestige is associated with a certain
element, whether it is weapons or architectural buildings, states have not dithered from
mobilizing huge amount of resources for the attainment of that element. Besides,
nuclear weapons have also been believed to be the great leveller against conventional
weaponry and therefore a vital source of national security.
Although the economic cost of the Indian PNE was not much (US$ 10-20
million, estimated by US Department of State), a full-fledged weaponization
programme would have cost several times more. National prestige through nuclear
weapons could have justified such expenditure. India however maintained throughout
that it lacked the economic resources to embark on a weapons programme. Years
before the underground nuclear test, in Feburary 1969, in the face of a question on the
manufacture of the atomic bomb by India in the Upper House of the Indian
Parliament, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi stated that the core of India’s security lay in
industrial and economic strength and that India ought not to panic about the nuclear
power of one of its next door neighbours (meaning China). She asserted, ‘Let us not
31
Goldschmidt, The Atomic Complex, 175.
32
It is named after Sigmund Freud who propounded it and his youngest daughter Anna Freud who further
refined the concept. For a detailed analysis of projection see Sigmund Freud, “Psychoanalytic notes upon
an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia (Dementia paranoids),” in Collected Papers Volume III,
Sigmund Freud (London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1925).
33
Projection of A’s own feelings and/or attitudes on B helps A to justify having those feelings and/or
attitudes. For example, “I hate him” is projected onto “he hates me (and this justifies my hating him).”
Stanley Blumberg and Brendan A. Maher, “Trait Attribution as a Study of Freudian Projection,” The
Journal of Social Psychology 65 (1965): 311.
98
undermine the growth of our economy by diverting resources towards that end (i.e.,
the nuclear bomb)’.
34
In fact, the Indian justification for its PNE, as already mentioned, was
economic: the potential industrial and engineering benefits of PNE could bring forth
economic benefits for the country and therefore should be pursued and the nuclear
non-proliferation regime therefore must make PNE technology available to developing
countries owing to the economic benefits that it could potentially bring about. In other
words, mastery over nuclear technology was associated with the national development
programme by the Indian political elites, which made a weapons programme
unjustifiable.
b. The domestic tumult
A tumultuous political scene is often the rationale for the invocation of national
security concerns by the political elites in power as a typical tactic of ‘rallying around
the flag.’ As nuclear weapons are related to national security, national nuclear
weapons programmes can be potentially used as a bait to control political opposition
in the face of domestic political crises. Following the split in the Congress Party in
1969, Mrs Indira Gandhi struggled to establish an organizational base in her own
party and her position was far from secure until the landslide victory at the general
elections of 1971. Although won on the populist slogan of garibi hatao (eradicate
poverty), the economic cost of the 1971 war with Pakistan and the oil price shock of
1973 created economic difficulties for her government throughout the 1970s.
Furthermore, when in June 1975 the Allahabad High Court invalidated her 1971
electoral victory citing election malpractices, Mrs Gandhi imposed National Emergency
on the country and suspended regular political activities. The 21-month period which
lasted till March 1977 witnessed for the first time in the history of Indian democracy,
an authoritarian government in New Delhi, with freedom of expression being
suppressed, political opponents arrested, forced sterilizations of the poor for
population control and modifications of the Constitution.
At the post-Emergency general elections of 1977, the Congress party lost power
nationally for the first time and a Janata Party government led by Indira Gandhi’s
longtime opponent, Morarji Desai came into office. Desai was himself a strong
opponent of the nuclear bomb and of conducting further tests. As soon as he came to
power, he declared a complete review of the operations and structure of the
Department of Atomic Energy
35
and removed Raja Ramanna from the leadership of
the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) to the Ministry of Defence in New Delhi.
Desai's government however was short-lived and Indira Gandhi returned to power in
1980. When scientists of the Indian AEC tried to encourage Mrs Gandhi to move
towards the bomb, she replied, ‘I am basically against weapons of mass destruction’.
36
It is possible to argue that the domestic political scene was too unstable for a
strong decision authorizing a weapons programme. Yet, it is in moments of such
instability that the tactic of ‘rallying around the flag’ operates best in fanning
nationalist sentiments to distract attention from immediate pressing problems. I
therefore argue that the Indian nuclear programme was equated with national
development
37
during this period and not with national security. As a result of this, the
34
Rajya Sabha starred question no. 82 dated 20 February 1969, File U-IV/125/3/69, MEA Files, National
Archives of India, New Delhi.
35
Robert S. Anderson, Nucleus and Nation: Scientists, International Networks and Power in India
(Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2010): 500.
36
V.S. Arunachalam (in 2000, the head of the Defence Research and Development Organization), quoted
in Chengappa, Weapons of Peace,, 257-60, 287.
37
India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, underlined the developmental aspect of the atomic energy
99
security potential of the nuclear programme was not espoused despite India’s capacity
to do so.
c. Unstable regional security environment
Shortly after the India-Pakistan War of 1965, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was then a
senior member in Ayub Khan’s government, declared that nuclear weapons were now
an imperative for Pakistan. He said at a press conference, ‘If India builds the bomb, we
will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own. We have no
alternative’. Bhutto was probably reacting to the Indian plutonium reprocessing plant
(Dhruva) that was inaugurated in January 1965. Besides, an American arms embargo
in the wake of the war of 1965 was undermining Pakistan’s conventional military
capability.
38
The Sino-US rapprochement brought the United States closer to Pakistan.
Pakistani President Yahya Khan aided Henry Kissinger's secret visit to China in
October 1970, much to the alarm of New Delhi. While the war with Pakistan in 1971
ended decisively in India’s favour and the Simla Agreement signed in 1972 called for
normalization of relations between the two countries, the bilateral ties were nowhere
near improvement. In January 1972, Bhutto (who by then had become the Prime
Minister of Pakistan) assembled his eminent scientists in Multan and ‘announced his
desire and decision to make Pakistan a nuclear weapons state’.
39
China’s first nuclear test in Lap Nor in October 1964 transformed the already
antagonistic neighbour into a nuclear adversary. In 1969, the testing of the Chinese
hydrogen bomb led to a renewed debate in the Indian parliament on the ‘manufacture
of an atomic bomb’ to deter its neighbour. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi responded,
‘While the Government's policies in respect of defence and security of the country are
kept constantly under review, their commitment to utilise nuclear energy exclusively
for peaceful purposes remains unaltered’.
40
The role of the United States in the Indo-Pakistan situation post-May 1974 can
probably be best articulated in the White House memorandum of conversation
between Henry Kissinger and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Islamabad during the former’s
visit to the subcontinent in October 1974. Bhutto asked Kissinger, ‘But don’t you come
from New Delhi thinking that India is really expansionist?’ Kissinger replied, ‘After
seeing India, I am thinking about supplying nuclear weapons, not only conventional
arms, to Pakistan and even Bangladesh! There seems to be a difference between what
they say and what they mean’.
41
The United States however refused to support
Pakistan’s call for a South Asian Nuclear-Free Zone at the United Nations in December
that year.
In 1976, Pakistan and France signed an agreement for a reprocessing plant,
much to the vexation of the United States. President Gerald Ford wrote a letter to
programme in a speech he delivered in New Delhi in January 1947, seven months prior to Independence.
He said, “(A)tomic energy is going to play a vast and dominating part, I suppose, in the future shape of
things... it will make power mobile, and this mobility of power can make industry develop anywhere. We
will not be tied up by the accidents of geography. Atomic energy will help cottage industry.” Jawaharlal
Nehru, “The Necessity of Atomic Research,” Extracts from a speech after laying the foundation stone of
the National Physical Laboratory at New Delhi on 4 January 1947; Reproduced in Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru on Atomic Energy (Bombay: Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, 1989).
38
Zafar Iqbal Cheema, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Use Doctrine and Command and Control,” in Planning the
Unthinkable: How New Powers will use Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons?, ed. Peter Lavoy et
al. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 162.
39
J.N. Dixit, Across Borders: Fifty Years of Indian Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Picus Books, 1998), 437.
40
Rajya Sabha starred question no. 82 dated 20 February 1969, File U-IV/125/3/69, MEA Files, National
Archives of India, New Delhi.
41
Secret Memorandum of Conversation, Islamabad, 31 October 1974, US National Archives, RG 59,
Records of Henry Kissinger, Entry 5403, Box 5, Nodis Memoranda of Conversations, November 1974.
100
Bhutto in March 1976 expressing his concerns at ‘the lack of a persuasive economic
justification for obtaining sensitive nuclear facilities’ in Pakistan’s case. He urged
Pakistan to forego plans to acquire reprocessing and heavy water facilities until its
nuclear programme is ‘sufficiently developed to establish a clear need’.
42
While
Pakistan refused to reconsider, the United States managed to convince France to
terminate its help to Pakistan in 1979. However, during this period Pakistan managed
to begin and sustain what is believed to be its nuclear weapons programme,
codenamed Project 706, led by Munir Ahmed Khan and later joined by A.Q. Khan.
Pakistan was receiving clandestine help from the Chinese throughout the 1980s
enabling it to advance further in its weapons programme.
43
The regional security environment was therefore highly antagonistic for India,
thus opening up a possible argument in favour of the development of nuclear weapons.
This however, did not happen.
d. Strained relations with the United States
India’s relationship with the United States was at an all-time low during this period.
Not only did the Sino-US rapprochement make New Delhi anxious about an emerging
US-China-Pakistan axis, it also introduced the anxieties of the Cold War into the
subcontinent. Insecurities led to the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and
Co-operation with the Soviet Union in August 1971. During the war with Pakistan in
December 1971, President Nixon sent the US Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal as a
move to deter India’s attempt to ‘liberate’ East Pakistan. The Fleet included the
nuclear-powered USS Enterprise, which was also the largest and most modern aircraft
carrier of the United States at the time.
44
Apart from claiming that India’s PNE was ‘a
bomb no matter how India described it’,
45
the Ford Administration continued to supply
arms to Pakistan like the preceding Nixon Administration, much to the distress of New
Delhi. The United States however found India’s critique of arms sales to Pakistan
‘obsessive’ and refused to pay it any attention.
46
Although efforts were launched to improve the bilateral relationship, they did
not succeed in breaking the ice. The US-India Joint Commission was established in
October 1974 to facilitate high-level exchanges in the fields of economy and
commerce, science and technology and education and culture. While India welcomed
the creation of this Commission, it remained dissatisfied with the amount of food
assistance that it received from the United States under PL480.
47
Mutual distrust
dominated their ties and many in Washington shared the notion that Mrs Gandhi had
‘almost a pathological need to criticise the United States’.
48
Kissinger agreed with
Bhutto during their meeting in Islamabad in October 1974 that India had a
‘hegemonial tendency in the sub-continent’ and that the ‘Monroe Doctrine idea may
42
Letter from President Ford to Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto, Washington, 19 March 1976, Ford
Library, National Security Adviser Files, NSC Staff Files for Middle East and South Asian Affairs:
Convenience Files, Box 20, Pakistan (2).
43
“Pakistan’s growing nuclear programme,” BBC News, 1 December 2010,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11888973 (last accessed 18 September 2012).
44
Jacques E.C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions and Foreign Policy
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 184.
45
Memorandum From the President's Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft) to
President Ford, Washington, 28 October 1974, Ford Library, National Security Adviser, Trip Briefing
Books and Cables for Henry Kissinger, Box 2, 20 October - 9November, HAK Messages for President.
46
Ibid.
47
Ibid.
48
Ibid.
101
not be so far off’.
49
In April 1975 Kissinger sent a telegram to US Ambassador Saxbe in New Delhi
strongly reacting against the anti-US criticisms publicly emanating from higher
echelons of the Congress Party. He was reacting against Congress Party President
Barooah’s allegations that US arms supplies to Pakistan were destabilizing the
continent. He urged Saxbe to remind the Indian Government of the restraint the United
States exercised in its public reaction to the nuclear test of May 1974 despite
Congressional pressure and from most of its allies. He also retorted Barooah’s claims
citing that Islamabad had requested no new arms from Washington while American
intelligence had information that New Delhi and Moscow were in the midst of
concluding a major arms deal. The telegram ended with the warning that ‘continued
lack of restraint on public statements will inevitably trigger new downward spiral in
Indo-US relations’ and such public expression of criticisms ‘is incompatible with the
kind of new mature relationship we thought our two governments had agreed we
would pursue’.
50
Another thorn in the relationship encompassed the Tarapur Atomic Power
Station, which comprised two boiling water reactors (BWR) of 160 megawatts each,
built as a turn-key project by General Electric and Bechtel, as a result of an agreement
signed between India and the United States in 1963. After India’s underground nuclear
explosion in 1974, the United States began to call for full-scope IAEA safeguards in
any nuclear cooperation with India, to which the latter continuously refused. India
criticized the United States for going against the original terms of the agreement and
thereby obstructing India’s capacity for generating nuclear power, vital for its national
development. In 1978, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act that was passed in the
United States made it mandatory for states receiving US nuclear technology to accept
full-scope IAEA safeguards and submit to IAEA inspections in order to continue
technological cooperation. Since India ardently maintained its refusal on grounds of
national sovereignty, the United States thus compelled by its domestic legislation,
decided to terminate the supply of fuel for Tarapur in 1979.
51
A solution was however
found in 1982, before Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s meeting with President Ronald
Reagan. It was decided that a tripartite agreement would be established and France
would replace the United States as the fuel supplier for Tarapur from 1983.
The distrust and the strain in the relations could have been used as
justifications for going nuclear, especially since international criticism of its nuclear test
did not abate, mistrust of its intentions dominated in the international community and
technological sanctions from the nuclear technology regime created difficulties for its
civil nuclear programme. Thus, the damage to India’s international relations was
already done. After several rounds of talks, Canada stopped its nuclear co-operation
with India in light of the latter’s PNE, allegedly accomplished with plutonium
produced from the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor.
The portrayal of the nuclear programme as necessary for national economic
development and India’s science and technology-driven catching up, had resonance
throughout the domestic political spectrum. Its thorny relationship with the United
States and the non-proliferation regime was therefore articulated as a vindication of
India’s anti-colonial stance against a regime led by superpowers and their allies, bent
on impeding India’s sovereign right to seek national development through atomic
49
Secret Memorandum of Conversation, Islamabad, 31 October 1974, US National Archives, RG 59,
Records of Henry Kissinger, Entry 5403, Box 5, Nodis Memoranda of Conversations, November 1974.
50
Telegram 97347 From the Department of State to the Embassy in India, 26 April 1975, 0213Z, US
National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files. Secret.
51
“Selected Indian Facilities: Tarapur,” Monterey Institute of International Studies,
http://cns.miis.edu/archive/country_india/nucfacil/tarapur.htm (last accessed 3 July 2012).
102
energy. It is noteworthy that in the wake of the National Emergency, when Morarji
Desai known for vehemently opposing nuclear weapons, came to power in 1977, India
did not attempt to sign the NPT. India, however, did not opt for an open defiance of
the regime either. It instead kept providing assurances to the United States and the
world that its intent vis-à-vis uses of atomic energy was a peaceful one.
III. A ‘third (nuclear) way’?
May 1974 was significant in the history of the global order not just for India’s first
nuclear test. It was also when the countries of the ‘Global South’ united to adopt UN
General Assembly Resolution 3201 on the ‘Declaration on the Establishment of a New
International Economic Order’ (NIEO). This resolution was accompanied by UNGA
Resolution 3202 on the ‘Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New
International Economic Order’. The NIEO was to be based on ‘sovereign equality,
interdependence common interest and co-operation amongst all States’ with the goal to
‘correct inequalities’ and ‘eliminate the widening gap between the developed and the
developing countries’. Seven months later, at the twenty-ninth session of the UN
General Assembly on 12 December 1974, the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties
was adopted by a vote of 115 to 6 with 10 abstentions.
52
India played a significant role
in this endeavour as a member of the Group of 77 (G-77) and a non-aligned country.
The call for a NIEO was a response to the inflation, recession and crisis that
the global economy was facing such that the developing countries came together to
seek a larger voice in the international financial order. India’s role was instrumental in
this. When the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), during the
Yom Kippur War in October 1973, reduced oil production and placed an embargo on
the shipment of crude oil to countries that supported Israel in the war (specifically the
United States and the Netherlands), oil prices rose around the world leading to the oil
price shock of 1973-74. This ‘cartel action’ by OPEC manifested for the first time that
developing countries could wield ‘commodity power’ vis-à-vis the developed ones, thus
becoming a source of celebration for the countries of the Global South, then known as
the ‘Third World’. The NIEO was therefore the continuation of what the OPEC had
started, namely, opposition to a world order led by the United States and its allies.
53
What tied the NIEO with the debate over PNEs was the dimension of ‘transfer
of technology,’ which was enlisted under Article 13 of the Charter of Economic Rights
and Duties of 1975. Under Article V of the NPT, nuclear weapon states were expected
to make available to non-nuclear weapon states potential economic benefits from any
peaceful applications of nuclear explosions through international or bilateral
agreements on a non-discriminatory basis. Efforts were launched following India’s test
of 1974 to gradually write off Article V from the NPT until the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty when it automatically became a dead letter. At the NPT Review Conference
of 1975 held in Geneva, the parties to the Treaty observed that PNE technology ‘is still
at the stage of development and study’ and that it entails a series of ‘interrelated
international legal and other aspects’ that ‘still need to be investigated.’ The
Conference bestowed the responsibility to pursue study and discussion on PNE
technology on the IAEA and stated that access to PNE technology must ‘not lead to
any proliferation of nuclear explosives.’
54
This view was reiterated at the Review
52
UN General Assembly Resolution 3281 (XXIX), 12 December 1974, http://www.un-
documents.net/a29r3281.htm (last accessed 21 September 2012).
53
For a detailed analysis of the call for a ‘new international economic order’ by the less-developed
countries and proposed desirable responses by developed countries see, Jagdish Bhagwati, ed., The New
International Economic Order: The North-South Debate (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978).
54
Proceedings of the NPT Review Conference of 1975, Geneva, NPT/CONF/30/Rev.1,
http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/pdf/finaldocs/1975%20-%20Geneva%20-
103
Conference of 1980. India, being a non-signatory to the NPT, participated in neither
Review Conference. However, the developments at these Conferences with regard to
Article V were in many ways a reflection of the successful testing of the implosion
device by India in May 1974.
During this period, Indira Gandhi continued her calls for nuclear disarmament
on international platforms. In 1984, she proposed the Five Continent Initiative for a
world free of nuclear weapons, along with Presidents Raul Alfonsin of Argentina,
Miguel de la Madrid of Mexico, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Prime Minister Andreas
Papandreou of Greece and former Prime Minister Olof Palme of Sweden.
55
Nuclear
disarmament was enshrined as an integral part of general and complete disarmament.
Interestingly, she established connections between disarmament and development in
such a way that not only intertwined the call for NIEO with the argument for PNE,
but also made India’s arguments in favour of both very convincing. She stated in 1976
that ‘development is linked with disarmament’ and that it was a ‘tragic paradox that
nations spent 75 times more on armament than on developmental assistance to weaker
nations’.
56
This third way, as espoused by India, encompassing the economic aspect of
the non-aligned movement, calls for universal nuclear disarmament and for
developmental benefits of peaceful nuclear explosions, further strengthened the
normative challenge posed by India to the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
India, Sweden and ‘Nuclear Dissidence’
Sweden, like India has been a non-aligned country and played an active part in calling
for universal nuclear disarmament. Unlike India, it is part of the developed world and
a signatory to the NPT. However, threatened by the Soviet Union, it considered
developing tactical nuclear weapons that could be fitted onto Swedish airplanes. In
1957-8, Sweden had already developed latent nuclear capability and the moment had
arrived for Sweden to decide whether it wanted to actually cross the nuclear Rubicon.
However, Prime Minister Tage Erlander decided to freeze the programme and Sweden
signed the NPT in 1968.
57
Each time a state refuses to adhere to the precepts of the regime, it cites its right
of national sovereignty and its interests of national security arguing that adherence
would jeopardise the latter two. The regime that has its ‘rule-abiders’ and ‘rule-
violators’, by bestowing approbation on the former and condemnation on the latter,
defines the parameters of its membership. It consolidates the position of the N-5 states
and operationalizes a ‘power relationship’ between the N-5 and the rest. Michel
Foucault argues that, ‘Every power relationship implies, at least in potentia, a strategy
of struggle, in which the two forces...each constitutes for the other a kind of
permanent limit, a point of possible reversal.’
58
In Foucauldian terms, power relations
cannot exist ‘without points of insubordination which, by definition, are means of
escape.’
59
When states attempt insubordination or seek these ‘means of escape’ from
regime norms, their justificatory rationale revolves around that of national sovereignty
and national security interests, both of which are existential to states.
%20NPT%20Review%20Conference%20-%20Final%20Document%20Part%20I.pdf (last accessed 22
September 2012).
55
Olafur Grimsson and Nicholas Dunlop, “Indira Gandhi and the Five Continent Initiative,” Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists 41 (Jan. 1985): 46.
56
S. K. Dhawan, Selected Thoughts of Indira Gandhi (Mittal: New Delhi, 1985), 83-4.
57
For an overview of Swedish plans for nuclear weapons see Thomas Jonter, “The Swedish Plans to
Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1945 – 1968: An Analysis of Technical Preparations,” Science and Global
Security 8 (2010): 61-86.
58
Michel Foucault, “Subject and Power,” Critical Inquiry 8 (Summer 1982): 794.
59
Ibid.
104
The nuclear non-proliferation regime can thereby be defined in terms
of a
power relationship such that its members may be classified into two distinct
categories: (a) nuclear citizens and (b) nuclear dissidents. Citizens are those that have
always been rule-abiding members of the regime and have never opposed the regime.
All states that have ratified the NPT (since this treaty is the most important edifice
of the regime) are its rule-abiding members or citizens, and the regime bestows
benefits to its citizens in terms of access to technology and materials for peaceful
uses of nuclear energy. Citizens freely submit to control and surveillance by the
regime in return, by accepting verification and safeguards obligations from the
regime. Nuclear dissidents on the other hand, are the rule-violating members of the
regime. They can be further classified into ‘inclusionary nuclear dissidents,’ who are
violators of the regime norms but otherwise are respectable members of the
international community, and ‘nuclear pariahs,’ who are ostracized by the
international community at large and suffer from diplomatic isolation. The dissidents
either passively oppose the regime or are openly subversive.
Figure
1:
Classification
of
the
membership
of
the
nuclear
non-‐
proliferation
regime
By this classification, India would fall under the category of an ‘inclusionary nuclear
dissident’ while Sweden will be a ‘nuclear citizen.’ Although Sweden briefly toyed with
the idea of developing nuclear weapons, it did so prior to the materialization of the NPT.
Furthermore, had Sweden decided to cross the nuclear threshold and tested its nuclear
capability, it would have been a nuclear weapon state under the temporal criterion
of the NPT.
Conclusion
India’s nuclear test of May 1974, although not a violation of the international legal
framework existing at the time, was a defiance of the United States, which in its aide-
mémoire of November 1970 had categorically warned against an Indian nuclear
explosion, whatever its justification. The United States did not seem worried that the
‘near nuclears’ of the time, namely Israel, South Africa and Japan, would follow the
Indian example,
60
although it believed that India indeed had set a poor example for the
regime. American concerns concentrated essentially on two aspects: ascertaining the
impact of the test on the NPT, especially with the NPT Review Conference scheduled
60
Telegram TOSEC 794/104621 From the Department of State to the Mission to the International Atomic
Energy Agency, 18 May 1974, 2238Z, US National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files.
Members
of
the
Nuclear
Non-‐Prolifera;on
Regime
Nuclear
Dissidents
Inclusionary
Nuclear
Dissidents
Nuclear
Pariahs
Nuclear
Ci;zens
105
for 1975, and the reaction of Pakistan.
61
As the preceding sections demonstrated, the
period was marked by not merely a conflictual Indo-US relationship, but also an
unstable regional security environment.
Yet, despite provocations and anticipations India steered clear of embarking on
a nuclear weapons programme during this period despite its demonstrated ability to
master the technology of nuclear explosions. It is notable that on 18 May 1974,
peaceful nuclear explosions for the first time in their history emerged out of the
preserve of superpowers. It was the only time that a non-nuclear weapon state had
used its own technological knowhow for a PNE instead of seeking a ‘nuclear
explosions service’ from a nuclear weapon state under Article V of the NPT. This
Indian nuclear limbo that challenged the conventional wisdom of ‘nuclear fatalism’ and
the linearity of the ‘proliferation paradigm’,
62
remains to date a normative challenge to
the very assumptions of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
By tying its nuclear diplomacy to the economic component of the non-aligned
movement and calls for a fairer global order, India gave the issue a more expansive
focus. This was because, during this period, India’s nuclear programme was integral to
its understanding of national development instead of its national security needs. When
India eventually embarked on a nuclear weapons programme in 1988-9, it justified
itself by citing the perceived security threat from China and Pakistan, especially in light
of the former aiding the nuclear weapons programme of the latter. Yet, Pakistan began
a weapons programme soon after India’s PNE and the regional security environment
after 1974 remained far from peaceful. That India did not commence a nuclear
weapons programme at the time can only be explained by India’s perception of its
nuclear programme as part of its economic imperative of national development instead
of its national security concerns.
Between 1974 and 1988-9, India’s nuclear diplomacy thus, posed a normative
challenge to the Murphy’s Law of ‘nuclear fatalism’ of the non-proliferation regime. It
helped India to justify itself as a restrained power and to drive home an image of the
‘righteous wronged’ vis-à-vis the regime that remained critical of it. That this act of
‘dissidence’ came from a recognized democracy and not from a pariah state only
strengthened India’s case. The regime could neither overlook it nor discard it as an
aberration.
61
Ibid.
62
Pelopidas, “The Oracles of Proliferation,” 301-3.
106
Explaining nuclear forbearance: a comparative study
on Sweden and Switzerland, 1945-1977
Thomas Jonter, Professor of International Relations, Department of Economic History,
Stockholm University
Abstract. How can Sweden ́s and Switzerland ́s nuclear forbearance
be explained? Both states had advanced plans to manufacture nuclear
weapons during the cold war but they abandoned these plans when
they joined the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
NPT (Sweden signed the NPT in 1968 and ratified it in 1970,
Switzerland signed it 1969 but it delayed until 1977 before the Swiss
government ratified it). In the planned research project, the nuclear
plans of Sweden and Switzerland will be compared and analyzed
using primary sources in a theoretical norms model where nuclear
forbearance is explained by how social-normative influences affect
policy decisions. In addition, this norm analysis model will be
combined with a technical capability analysis of a state ́s ability to
produce nuclear weapons. In this respect, this study investigates a
decisive but under-appreciated and under-researched aspect of the
nuclear non-proliferation dynamics: the significance of changing
norms in the decision making process (demand-side) in combination
with a technical capability analysis of a state ́s ability to produce
nuclear weapons (supply-side) in a comparative analysis.
Purpose and aims
Why have certain states acquired nuclear weapons while other states, with an advanced
technical capability, have chosen not to? Where are the main explanations to be found?
Both Sweden and Switzerland had advanced plans to manufacture nuclear weapons
during the cold War but abandoned them when they joined the Treaty of Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear weapons (NPT) in the end of 1960s. In the present research
project, the nuclear plans of Sweden and Switzerland will be compared and analyzed
using primary sources in a theoretical and methodological model where nuclear
forbearance is explained by how social normative influences affect policy decisions. In
addition, this norm analysis model will be combined with a technical capability
analysis of a state ́s ability to produce nuclear weapons. In this respect, this study
investigates a decisive but under-appreciated and under-researched aspect of the
nuclear non-proliferation dynamics: the significance of changing norms in the decision
making process (“demand-side”) in combination with a technical capability analysis
of a state ́s ability to produce nuclear weapons (“supply-side”).
1
The current literature on nuclear proliferation and non-proliferation is
dominated by “supply-side” explanations often combined with international relation
(IR) theories within the structural realist school which argues that the main
explanation for states ́ behavior is to be sought in an anarchic international system. As
a consequence of this logic, the driving force behind why states are building nuclear
weapons is to be found in their incentives to increase the security and decrease the
1
On the lack of integrated studies using “supply-side” “demand-side” approaches, see Scott Sagan, The
Causes of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation. Review on advance, March 21, 2011, Department of Political
Science, Stanford University, web: http://iis-
db.stanford.edu/pubs/23205/Sagan_Causesof_NuclearWeaponsProliferation.pdfScott Sagan
107
threat from foreign powers, and, if they have the technical capability they will to do
so.
2
However, this theoretical approach with its emphasis on the systemic level has its
weaknesses. One of the most decisive criticisms against these models is that they leave
out the decision-making process in their explanations. Despite the strengths of recent
“demand-side” explanations, which make use of theoretical tools from psychology,
constructivism and international political economy
3
, structural realism and “supply-
side” studies remain the mainstream tradition in the study of nuclear issues and its
focus on material factors fuels technological determinism. Even if the alternative
“demand side” explanations have moved the research frontier forward, there is often a
missing vital aspect in these investigations: the connection to the technical capability to
produce nuclear weapons based on primary sources. Nuclear weapons research and
planning is highly secret activities in most states and therefore is it often hard to get
access to relevant information. It can be argued that the scarcity of reliable primary
sources and the complex nature of the subject, have probably meant that scholars,
more or less, have been forced to use theories more extensively than otherwise would
be the case if other tools had been available. Furthermore, the lack of vital data and
information has implied too many cases of oversimplification and inaccurate
conclusions, and some scholars have also questioned if it is meaningful to use positivist
models in the study of nuclear proliferation.
4
Today, however, the end of the cold war
and the declassification of large parts of the relevant documentary record both in
Sweden and Switzerland, especially concerning the technical preparations for nuclear
weapons production, have created the prerequisites for a more penetrating and
comparative analysis of this important historical issue
5
(regarding accessible
documentation and the previous research, see the “Survey of the field”).
Hypotheses
There are several good reasons to carry out a comparative study of Sweden and
Switzerland.
Firstly, both states invested heavy financial and technological resources during
1950s and 1960s in order to launch nuclear weapons programs but chose in the end to
refrain from these plans.
6
Secondly, they were both technically advanced and export-
depending European states economically and culturally well integrated in the western
block during the cold war. Thirdly, both Sweden and Switzerland stayed out of NATO
and maintained their non-aligned – or neutral – policy throughout the whole period
when the nuclear issue where at stake. Thirdly, it was the military in both countries
2
See, for example, Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addisin-Wesley,
1979); John Mearsheimer; Benjamin Franklin and Zachary S. Davis, eds, The Proliferation Puzzle: Why
nuclear Weapons spred and What Results (London: Frank Cass, 1993).
3
Maria Rost Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint (Athens, University
of Georgia Press, 2009); Etel Solingen, Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle
East (Princeton University Press, 2007); Jacque Hymans , The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation:
Identity, Emotions and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
4
Tanya Ogilvie-White, “Is There a Theory of Nuclear Proliferation? An Analysis of the Contemporary
Debate”, Nonproliferaion Rewiev, vol 4, no 1(Fall), 1996, pp. 43-60.
5
For prior analyses based on primary documentary sources, see the present author’s follow publications:
Thomas Jonter, Sverige, USA och kärnenergin. Framväxten av en svensk kärnämneskontroll 1945-/1995
(Sweden, the United States and nuclear energy. The emergence of Swedish nuclear materials control 1945-
/1995), SKI Report 99:21, May 1999; Sweden and the Bomb. The Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear
Weapons, 1945-/1972, SKI Report 01:33, Sept., 2001; Nuclear Weapons Research in Sweden. Co-
operation Between Civilian and Military Research, 1947-/1972, SKI Report 02:18, May, 2002.
6
On the Swedish technical preparations, see Jonter 2002 and Jonter 2010; Agrell, Svenska
förintelsevapen: : utvecklingen av kemiska och nukleära stridsmedel 1928-1970 (Lund: Historiska media,
2002). On the Swizz nuclear preparations, see Peter Braun, Von der Reduitstrategie zur Abwehr. Die
Militärische Landesverteidigung der Schweiz in der kalten Krieg 1945-1966 (Baden, Der Schweizerische
Generalstab 10, 2006).
108
that initiated the plans with exactly the same argument: nuclear weapons are needed to
convince both of the superpower blocs that the state actually had the capacity to
uphold its policy of neutrality in case of war.
7
Fourthly, the nuclear research was kept
secret in both Sweden and Switzerland until mid-1950s, when leading military officials
started to argue for an acquisition of nuclear weapons in public. Fifthly, this military
“campaigning” for nuclear weapons lead to a mobilization of resistance movements
against these plans both within and outside the parliamentary system.
8
Sixthly, both
states made a strategic choice to integrate the production of nuclear weapons into the
civilian nuclear power programs which lead to technical problems and delays. In this
context, both Sweden and Switzerland learned early on that they had to cooperate
more with other states than they initially intended – especially with the United States –
to get access to fissile material and nuclear technology.
9
As a consequence, this
cooperation with the United States was that the nuclear material and technology
purchased for peaceful uses could not be used to manufacture nuclear weapons.
Seventhly, after heated debates and a number of technical investigations both states
abandoned the nuclear weapons option when they joined the NPT. Finally, and
perhaps the most important reason to conduct a comparative study between Sweden
and Switzerland, there are enough accessible primary sources to be used in a
thoroughly and detailed analysis of both states ́ nuclear weapons plans (regarding
accessible documentation and the previous research, see the “Survey of the field”).
In the present study, the argument is advanced that Sweden’s and Switzerland ́s
decisions to abstain from acquiring nuclear weapons can ultimately be traced back to
its prior choice of making the nuclear weapons production project a part of the civilian
nuclear energy program. What was in the early 1950s, considered to be a great
advantage, namely the strategic choice of connecting the production of weapons-grade
plutonium to the national goal of reaching self-sufficiency in nuclear power, in the end
turned out to be the downfall of the two states ́ nuclear weapons projects.
Manufacturing nuclear weapons on the basis of a wholly domestic production cycle is
a technically complicated and time-consuming process which influenced the nuclear
weapons plans negatively and in the end led to the shelving of these plans. The
following hypotheses will be tested:
1. As a consequence, the choice to integrate the production of nuclear weapons
within the civilian nuclear energy program in Sweden and Switzerland was that
both states became dependent on US technology contrary to their initially
intentions. This technological dependence increased over time and afforded the
United States the opportunity to steer Sweden and Switzerland away from using
its civilian program for the production of weapons-grade nuclear material.
2. The drawn out and complicated technical process to integrate civilian and
military plans enabled the mobilization of political opposition against the
7
Dominique B. Metzler, ”Die Option einer Nuklearbewaffnung für die Schweizer Armee 1945-1963”, in
Rüstung und Kriegswirtscaft (Berne/Stuttgart, Vienna 1997).
8
On Sweden, see Hoadley Nilsson Per Ahlmark, Den svenska atomvapendebatten (Stockholm:
Aldus/Bonnier 1965); Wilhelm Agrell, Alliansfrihet eller atombomber-Kontinuitet eller förändring i svensk
försvarsdoktrin 1945-1982 (Stockholm: Liber förlag, 1985); Svenska förintelsevapen: : utvecklingen av
kemiska och nukleära stridsmedel 1928-1970 (Lund: Historiska media, 2002); Anna-Greta Hoadley
Nilsson, Anna-Greta, Atomvapnet som partiproblem (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International,
1989); Björn von Sydow, Kan vi lita på politikerna? Offentlig och intern politik i socialdemokratins
ledning 1955-1960 (Stockholm: Tiden, 1978). On the Swiss resistance movements,see Markus Heiniger,
Die schweizerische Antatombewegung 1959-1963. Eine Analyse der politischen Kultur. Litzentiatarbeit,
Zurich University, 1980.
9
Mauro Mantivano, Schweizirische Sicherheitspolitik in Kalten Krieg (1947-1963): Zwischen
angelsächsischem Containment und Neutralitäts-Doktrin (Zurich, 1999).
109
nuclear weapons plans, with public opinion and parliamentary discussions
moving gradually in the direction of a no to nuclear weapons in both Sweden
and Switzerland.
3. As a consequence of the growing domestic resistance against nuclear weapons
was that decision-makers in Sweden and Switzerland changed their perceptions
on nuclear weapons. The reason for this change can be explained by a non-
proliferation norm that emerged in the international social environment, with
worldwide opinion turning against nuclear weapons and influenced the leading
politicians in both Sweden and Switzerland to abstain from nuclear weapons.
Survey of the field
In fact, none of the hitherto presented studies of the Swedish and Swiss nuclear
weapons plans can by itself fully explain why the two states abandoned the weapons
plans when they joined the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT
(Sweden signed the NPT in 1968 and ratified it in 1970, Switzerland signed it 1969 but
it delayed until 1977 before the Swiss government ratified it). A number of historical
investigations have analyzed the Swedish nuclear weapons plans, particularly as it
related to the public political debate in Sweden and the formulation of the Swedish
defense doctrine in the postwar years.
10
Some studies have attempted to explicate, from
a more overarching perspective, why Sweden opted not to develop nuclear weapons
capability, but these efforts have generally been hampered by heavy dependence on
secondary source materials consisting of published English-language works.
11
During the 1950s and 1960s, Sweden invested heavily in this military program. Two
reactors were built in order to produce plutonium of weapons-grade quality, a
uranium plant and a fuel element facility was set up and a program for weapons carrier
systems was designed. As early as 1955, the FOA drew the conclusion that it was
technically feasible from then on for Sweden to produce a nuclear weapon, given access
to plutonium. Technically the plutonium question had been solved, although it would
be modified with time. It was equally clear to FOA what steps would have to be taken
in the production process and approximately what the project as a whole would cost in
terms of capital and scientific and technical expertise.
12
During the 1950s and 1960s,
the nuclear weapons plans were the subject of heated discussions both within the
defense establishment and among the general public. Between 1948 and 1968, when
Sweden signed the NPT, the Swedish National Defence Research Establishment (FOA)
produced five major investigations of the prerequisites for Swedish nuclear weapons
production. A close collaboration between FOA and AB Atomenergi, the government
controlled company which was responsible for the civilian nuclear power development
in Sweden, was initiated in order to work out technical and economic estimates for a
possible production of weapons-grade plutonium. In 1949, a more extensive
collaboration agreement was signed for continued research and development work
between FOA and AE.
13
In general terms, the agreement meant that FOA should be
10
Ahlmark 1965; Nilsson 1985; von Sydow 1978.
11
See for example Paul Cole, , Atomic Bombast: Nucler Weapons Decisionmaking in Sweden 1945-1972,
occasional paper no. 26, Washington, D.C: Henry L- Stimson Center, 1996; Jerome Henry Garris, Sweden
and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Calfornia, 1972; “Sweden’s
Debate on the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” Cooperation and Conflict 8 (1973); Mitchell Reiss,
Without the Bomb: The Politics of Nuclear Nonproliferation (New York: Columbia University Press,
1988).
12
Thomas Jonter, ;”The Swedish Plans to Acquire Nuclear Weapons, 1965-1968: An Analysis of technical
Preparations”, Science & Global Security The Technical Basis for Arms Control, Disarmament, and
Nonproliferation Initiatives, vol. 18, no.2, 2010.
13
Swedish National Defence Research Institute (FOI Archives), “Överenskommelse” (Agreement), H 129,
110
responsible for the overall nuclear weapons research. For this reason, FOA was in
charge of the construction of the nuclear device and the studies of its effects.
Additionally, AE should deliver basic information on the possible production of
weapons-grade plutonium and investigate the possibilities of production or
procurement of inspection-free heavy water (i. e. without inspections by the supplying
country). AE should also build reactors and a reprocessing plant, and manufacture fuel
elements to be used in the reactors for production of weapons-grade plutonium. In
other words, the civil nuclear energy program should be designed in such a way that it
could include the Swedish manufacture of nuclear weapons.
The heavy water technology that Sweden had invested in for its civilian nuclear
energy production was soon to become an outdated method of production. The costs
grew higher than estimated and the risks of accidents were deemed to increase during
the course of the project, and finally this initial program was discontinued by the
Swedish parliament in 1970.
14
The present author argues in several studies based on
declassified files that the choice to integrate nuclear weapons within the civilian nuclear
energy program was the key factor behind why Sweden abstained from a nuclear
weapons acquisition. This technically complicated as well as time-consuming process
gave the time needed for mobilization against nuclear weapons to grow strong in the
country, both within and outside the Swedish parliament. It also created a dependency
on US technology formalized in the Atoms for Peace program which gave the US a
strong position for influencing Swedish nuclear policy. Furthermore, the present author
emphasizes that arms control talks between the US and the USSR strengthened the
arguments against nuclear acquisition, and that the establishment of an international
disarmament regime gave further strength to the skeptics.
15
Given the sensitive nature of the Swiss nuclear weapons plans, it is not
surprising that these plans became a quite late topic in the research literature. The first
serious study was presented as late as 1987 when Peter Hug argued in a master thesis
that the project was run and motivated by military interests.
16
In 1995, another master
thesis by Dominique Metzler more or less confirmed Hug ́s in many respects
hypothetical findings with an investigation based on primary sources covered until
1963. One part of Metzler ́s study also deals with the development of the public and
political resistance against a Swiss nuclear weapons program.
17
In mid-1990s the major
part of the documentation was declassified and the Head of the Federal Military
Library, Jürg Stüssi-Lautenburg wrote a report on the issue. The Swiss cooperation
with foreign powers, especially the United States, United Kingdom and France –
have been dealt with in a PhD thesis by Stephenie Frey.
18
In an overarching narrative of
the Swiss nuclear weapons adventure in a doctoral dissertation in political science,
Peter Braun analyzes these plans partly based documentary files that had not been used
before.
19
Finally, Reto Wollenmann has investigated the decision-making process in
30 October 1950, FOA.
14
Fjaestad, Maja och Jonter, Thomas, ”Between Welfare and Warfare: The Rise and Fall of the ́Swedish
Line ́ in Nuclear Engineering”, in Per Lundin/Niklas Stenlås/Johan Gribbe (ed.), Science for Welfare and
Warfare, Science History Publications, Sagamore Beach, MA, USA 2010.
15
Thoms Jonter, “The United States and the Swedish Plans to Build a Bomb, 1945-1968”, in Security
Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation (Ed. Jeffrey Knopf), Stanford University Press, 2012.
16
Peter Hug, “La genése de la technologie nucléaire en Suisse”, Relations Internationales no. 68, 1991);
”Atomenergieentwicklung in der Schweiz zwischen militärischen Intressen und privatwirtschafticher
Skepsis” in Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung in der Schweiz. Sondierung einen neuen Disziplin
(Zurich, 1998).
17
Metzler 1997.
18
Stefanie Frey, Switzerland ́s Defence and Security Policy During Cold War (Lenzburg, 2002).21 Braun
2006.
19
Braun 2006.
111
Switzerland leading to the signing of the NPT.
20
Both the state of art research and the
archival situation regarding the nuclear weapons plans in Switzerland is very good
21
,
which will allow an analysis along the lines presented in the present research project.
Project description
In this study, I will use a theoretical and model developed Maria Rost Rublee which is
inspired by sociological constructivism literature on identity and norms in combination
with social psychology and one of its most significant themes attitude change.
22
Rublee’s argument is that a non-proliferation norm has emerged since the mid-1950s
and has lead to a full-fledged NPT regime, with the result that most states refrain from
acquiring nuclear weapons. According to Rublee, when the NPT was established in
1968, it communicated that a nuclear weapons program was a violation of this
international norm. Similarly, Rublee maintains that this process implied that
international legitimacy is linked to nuclear nonproliferation and that members were
expected to comply to the rules and norms of the regime: “Over time, nuclear
proliferation became more costly – economically, technically, and diplomatically –
whereas nuclear non-proliferation became more rewarding”.
How, then, can social psychology be of use when assessing behavioral change,
according to Rublee? Behavioral change can be identified through three different
mechanisms, and, in this regard, Rublee is inspired by sociological constructivists such
as Iain Johnston’s work on persuasion and social influence.
23
The mechanisms also
constitute three ways in which states comply with the non-proliferation norm that
emerged since the mid-1950s and developed into a international treaty in 1968: 1.
Social conformity. Cost-benefit calculation leads to change in behavior with no change
in underlying preferences. 2. Persuasion. Change in preferences leads to change in
behavior. States’ falling into this category have abstained from nuclear weapons due to
a fundamental change in the way leading decision-makers view nuclear weapons as a
means to defend and create security for the state. The states belonging to this group
have signed and ratified the NPT since they believe that nuclear proliferation makes the
world and their own countries less safe. 3. Identification. Change in relationship(s)
leads to change in behavior. Identification occurs when one actor wants to be like
another and alters its actions to imitate the attractive other. In a non-proliferation
context, for example when a state is joining the NPT because other highly regarded
states have already done or are planning to do this. The state wants to be associated
with the group of states that stands for certain ideals and values. The method I will use
in the norm-change investigation is an actor oriented analysis where key individuals ́
preferences towards nuclear weapons will be studied over time in order to track
changes in their views. At this stage, I have not exactly decided which method will be
used but most likely a discourse approach will be applied. The source material used in
this part of the project will be based on diaries, memoirs, parliamentary debates,
statements, meeting, national and international speeches by ministers and diplomats.
20
Reto Wollenmann, Zwischen Atomwaffen und Atomsperrvertrag. Die Schweiz auf dem Weg von der
Nuklearen Option zum Nonproliferationsvertrag (1958-1969) (Zürcher Beiträge zur Sicherheitspolitik
und Konfliktforschung 75, Zurich, 2004).
21
See Peter Braun, “Dreaming of the Bomb. The Development of Switzerland ́s Nuclear Option from the
end of World War II to the Non-Prolifertion Treaty”, Paper presented at the Conference “Uncovering the
Sources of Nuclear Behavior: Historical Dimensions of Nuclear Proliferation”, ETHZ, Zurich, 18-20
June, 2010.
22
Rublee 2009.
23
Iain Johnston, “Treating International Institutions as Social Environments”, International Studies
Quarterly 45 (2001).
112
Theoretical and policy significance
When the NPT went into force in 1970 there were six nuclear weapon states (United
States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China and Israel) and since then only another
three states have acquired nuclear weapons (India, Pakistan and North Korea). Today
190 states have joined the NPT and many of them have abstained from developing a
nuclear weapons capability. This rather positive development has to be understood
against the background that in the beginning of the 1960s many security experts
expected a dramatic increase of the number of nuclear weapons states in the coming
decades. Is the creation of NPT the reason behind this rather positive development?
According to realism and neo-realism, the setting up of the international regime NPT
cannot explain the nuclear forbearance. They argue that the reasons have to be sought
in the balance of power between the superpowers during the cold war and the security
assurances that United States gave to states such as Japan, South Korea, and with the
results that they gave up the nuclear weapons in exchange, some neo-realist maintain.
Other scholars within the realist school of thought argue that many states are using the
NPT in a nuclear “hedging” strategy to develop the technical capability that might
later turn into a weapons program as we have seen in North Korea, Iraq and at present
in Iran.
24
On the other hand, the IR theory neo-liberalism argues that the NPT with all
additional control and verification mechanisms have established a regime capable of
reducing the spread of nuclear weapons. For example, in the nuclear weapons regime
member states have a right to conduct trade in classified nuclear materials and the
equipment associated with peaceful development of nuclear energy. This exclusive right
is accorded participant states since they have promised to abide by the objectives of the
regime, i.e., to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and because this right can be
perceived as an incentive for nations to commit themselves to a binding cooperation.
25
The neo-liberal institutional explanation has been criticized since it suffers from, as
Etel Solingen puts it, inadequacies in explaining states’ nuclear decisions. How can we
be sure that it was the creation of the NPT and no other reasons – e.g. great power
pressures or security guarantees or domestic reasons – that made the states sign the
treaty and abide by its stipulations? Solingen argues that we need more empirical
studies and comparisons between states ́ cost-benefit calculations preceding the
decision to sign the NPT before it can be decided whether the theory of liberal
institutionalism is able to explain why states have refrained from acquire nuclear
weapons.
26
In this study, the main hypothesis is that the creation of the NPT regime has to
be understood together with the emergence of nuclear non-proliferation norm that
changed the decision-makers in which nuclear weapons possession became increasingly
viewed as immoral and influenced – and still influences - decision-makers and
statesmen to forego nuclear weapons. I argue that that a non-proliferation norm has
emerged since the mid-1950s and has lead to a full-fledged NPT regime, with the result
that most states refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons. This non-proliferation norm
has emerged out of an international social environment with worldwide opinion
turning against nuclear weapons. This project will also have significance for policy
making. Given the persisting dominance of neo-realism and offensive realism in the
24
Ariel E. Levite, “Never say never again. Nuclear Reversal Revisited.” International Security, Vol. 27,
2003:3.
25
Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984; Peter Gourevitch, “The Goverance Problem in Strategic
Interaction” in Strategic Choice and International Relations, (ed. David Lake and Robert Powell, pp. 115-
136 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
26
Solingen 2007
113
subfield of international security studies, worst-case assumptions remain at the core of
the theories used to understand unfolding history and of the policy advice derived from
it. In other words, worst-case planning is still justified by mainstream theories in the
name of prudence and little attention is paid to change and opportunities for change.
This research project will help to understand the decision-making thinking in nuclear
policymaking at the level of leaders and identify opportunities for change.
Preliminary results
As described above, three reasons behind why Sweden gave up the nuclear weapons
Option are presented. Firstly, developing nuclear weapons on the basis of a wholly
domestic production cycle is a technically complicated and time-consuming process. As
a consequence of the problematic and time-consuming efforts to integrate civilian and
military nuclear objectives, critical assessments of and resistance against the nuclear
weapons plans had time to form and be articulated in different sectors of Swedish
society, especially in those sectors where critical political and technical decisions were
made. The fact that Sweden was a democratic state made this political resistance
possible. The vigorous public debate of the nuclear weapons issue prompted leading
politicians to rethink their positions and try out new arguments in regard to Sweden’s
defense planning, and this led to a profound change in the way that nuclear weapons
use was regarded. Secondly, the international nuclear disarmament discussions and the
emerging nonproliferation regime that started to emerge from mid-1950s also affected
the Swedish public discussion and strengthened the arguments against Swedish nuclear
weapons acquisitions. Thirdly, the choice to integrate the production of nuclear
weapons within the civilian nuclear energy program was that Sweden, in spite of its
intentions, became dependent on US technology. This technological dependence
increased over time, and afforded the United States the opportunity to steer Sweden
away from using its civilian program for the production of weapons-grade plutonium.
All these influences lead to gradual process among the political elite of Sweden of
backing of from the nuclear weapons option. When the Swedish parliament voted for
the signing of the NPT in 1968 the decision was based on a unanimous support from
all political parties.
However, what I have not demonstrated is why this change of preferences
among decision-makers took place and how that change in viewing nuclear weapons
had as a consequence that the nuclear weapons plans were shelved. This is the task for
the proposed research project.
114
Soviet disarmament policy during the Cold War: the
role of the ideological rhetoric
Ekaterina Mikhaylenko, Associate Professor of the Department of International
Relations, Ural Federal University
Abstract: The article analyzes the USSR’s disarmament policy during
the Cold War. Based on official documents of the Soviet Union
Communist Party and speeches of two main leaders N. Khrushchev
and L. Brezhnev, it analyzes the USSR’s strategy towards
disarmament and peace. The article addresses terms such as
‘disarmament’, ‘struggle for peace’, ‘peace movements’ which were
used as metaphors in the Soviet rhetoric rooted in the Lenin-Marxist
theory and interpreted by the communist leaders of the USSR. The
paper argues that N. Khrushchev and L. Brezhnev interpreted Lenin-
Marxist theory and thus implemented different approaches towards
disarmament issues. An analysis of these approaches demonstrates
that the Western community was frequently misperceived by the real
ground of the Soviet disarmament rhetoric.
Keywords: Soviet policy in the field of disarmament, the struggle for peace and
disarmament, the Soviet rhetoric, ideology, proletarian internationalism and socialist
internationalism.
1. Introduction
In the discourse surrounding bilateral relationship between the USSR and the USA,
disarmament issues have been the most disputable. The two countries had been
developing their nuclear programs from one hand, but from the other were also
participating in different disarmament and peaceful initiatives. This dichotomy of the
Cold War’s armament/disarmament processes has been discussed a lot, but there is no
direct answer as to what the real motives were behind the foreign policies of the USSR
and the USA towards nuclear disarmament. Some Russian scholars propose that the
disarmament processes by both countries was based on the desire to have predictable
security environment. Despite such a pragmatic approach, our world was on the verge
of collapse several times. In this sense, the idea of ‘strategic security’ during the Cold
War does not work. The logic of the Cold War is difficult to understand using only
rational approaches. The history of the Cold War is a complex system of actors,
events, perceptions, and actions, which took place both inside of countries and in the
global environment.
The objective of this article is to examine the USSR’s foreign policy towards
nuclear disarmament in the period from 1955 to 1982 – a period of two Soviet
political governors: Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. We emphasize that
Soviet disarmament rhetoric was closely connected with Soviet ideology and was not
clear for people outside this ideological space.
2. Theoretical approaches
There are two theories that best explain the processes in the USSR: the theory of
115
political regimes and the contemporary approaches towards understanding the use of
metaphors in political discourse. The theories behind political regimes provide a
possibility to understand the inner processes of the USSR and the specific atmosphere
within the country, as analyzed in “Démocratie et totalitarisme”
l
(1965) by R. Aron.
The role of metaphors in political discourse is a relatively new approach and the origin
of this theory is associated with G. Lakoff’s “Metaphors We Live By”
li
.
The USSR's disarmament policy was directly connected with prominent
political issues in the country. Understanding the logic of the Soviet disarmament
policy is not possible without understanding the purport of Soviet disarmament
rhetoric. Such rhetoric and theoretical discourse was the result of an attempt by Soviet
officials to apply Marxist-Leninist theory
lii
. Analysis of this discourse allows us to
presume that the Soviet political elite had formulated their own political vocabulary of
terms and metaphors which was different from those which was used by political elites
of the West.
This article uses several linguistic, analytic elements of totalitarian language in
the Soviet époque. The aim of this approach is to show that during the Soviet period
there was total ideological control in all spheres of life. Such a semantic approach was
the result of the relationship between the ideological world and totalitarian reality. In
this regard, we refer to specific cases of metaphorical usage in political discourse, as G.
Lakoff did in “Metaphor and War”
liii
.
Soviet rhetoric included many metaphors which formed the ideology of the
country. These metaphors were the result of the interpretation of the papers of Marx
and Lenin. For example, the metaphor ‘proletarian internationalism’ in its first
meaning was understood as “international solidarity of the working class in different
countries on their struggle for common communist aims (building the communist
society)”
liv
. Later, after Lenin’s death, this term was improved by adding one more
meaning – “the common aims were defined as the struggle of the peoples for national
liberation and social progress”
lv
. Additionally, ‘international revolution’ in the first
version meant “a world-historical process of changing capitalism by the communist
social-economic formation”
lvi
. This metaphor was then enforced by “the main driving
forces, such as the people of the liberated countries, democratic movements – anti-war,
women’s, environmental and etc.”
lvii
, which had never been mentioned by Marxist-
Leninist theory.
Each Soviet leader had contributed to the ideological construction through his
personal or collective interpretation of Marxist and Leninist theories, forming his own
(new) conceptual system. Both Khrushchev and Brezhnev are notable for using their
own metaphors. While neither of them introduced new ideologies, it was their mere
interpretations which manipulated old ideology. Nevertheless, these interpretations
determined the Soviet disarmament rhetoric and the Soviet disarmament policy.
Despite several nuances of the terms used and their semantic environment, the specific
metaphors that circulated in Soviet rhetoric during of the periods of governed by
Khrushchev and Brezhnev were different from those that existed in the Western
democratic world. The term ‘pacifism’ in the Soviet rhetoric was used in conjunction
with the term ‘social’ and meant “a kind of opportunism, social-democratic tactics by
the bourgeois class in supporting their imperialistic policy in the country”
lviii
.
Formed in the Soviet period, a specific totalitarian language started to break
down only in the Gorbachev’s period. We argue that during Khrushchev’s and
Brezhnev’s periods, which is also examined in this article, the metaphors had only
some semantic interpretation but the general meaning of the terms was in accordance
with Soviet ideology. The political style of Soviet leaders did not go beyond the
ideology of the Communist doctrine and it was predetermined by this doctrine.
The theory of political regimes allows for analysis of the USSR and the motives of the
116
Soviet elite to engage in disarmament dialogue with the USA. The term ‘political
regime’ here is understood as both the specific form of state governance and the
specific relationship of the elites towards individuals and mass society
lix
.
There is no general understanding of what the Soviet political regime was in
Russian and Western historiography. The popular term, which applies to the Soviet
political regime, is ‘totalitarian’. A totalitarian regime is a specific form of governance
with specific features such as one party monopoly on political power and on ideology;
the ideology in the totalitarian state is the only truth, which is supported by all means.
In order to spread this official ideology (truth) the totalitarian regime empowers itself
the exclusive right to the use of force and persuasion
lx
. The state formulates its own
type of verity or ideology, which is spreads via all channels of mass communication.
Analyzing Soviet regime G. Aron in “Démocratie et totalitarisme” noticed that Soviet
leaders were interpreting the regime by themselves, which he labeled as the ‘self-
explanation of regime’. For example, “the revolution of 1917 was proletarian, the
communist party represents the interests of proletarians and is the vanguard of
proletarians, the Soviet Union, inspired by ideas of K. Marx, has been building
communism; the contemporary regime is socialism, in which everybody’s income is in
proportion to the completed work, the communism is not far, and in nearest future the
everybody’s income will depend on demands”
lxi
.
The Soviet leaders believed that peaceful coexistence between socialist and
capitalist regimes was only a ‘temporary respite’ before the crucial clash of two
systems. Thus, logic behind the self-interpretation of the theories of Marxism-
Leninism is the most important in this study. The pragmatism and practice of the
Soviet foreign policy were part of the class struggle.
3. Teleology of the USSR’s disarmament policy
There are two terms which should be clarified in order to make the presentation as
clear-cut as possible. They are ‘disarmament’ and ‘struggle for disarmament and
peace’.
Addressing the term ‘disarmament’ it should be noted that the process which
took place in the period from 1955 till 1983 was not a process of real disarmament.
The most correct term of this period is the ‘limitation’ of arsenals. So, during the above
mentioned period both the USSR and the USA pursued disarmament policy, but
without any real desire to cut off the arsenals.
Soviet foreign policy strategy in the field of disarmament included rhetoric such
as ‘struggle for disarmament’ and ‘struggle for peace’. At the Fourteenth Plenary
Session of the UN General Assembly in 1959, Khrushchev suggested to adopt the
declaration on the general and complete disarmament
lxii
. Khrushchev's appeal
contained a clear message which could be read and interpreted without further
misunderstanding. However, if we refer to the official documents of the USSR, the
meaning of this appeal for disarmament may looks different.
‘The struggle for disarmament’ and ‘struggle for peace’ in the USSR also had
additional meanings other than the call for disarmament. First, the prominent word in
this term is ‘struggle’. To simply suggest a struggle can be unclear: a struggle for what?,
a struggle against whom? Following the Soviet texts, the struggle was against countries
which were headed by U.S. imperialism, which were the true enemy of the people and
the whole world. American imperialism was ‘a source of wars’
lxiii
, meaning imperialism
in itself was a reason for war. Secondly, the overcoming of this struggle was supposed
to be a victory over world imperialism. Thus in the USSR, the meaning of struggle for
peace and disarmament was the continuation of the class war through non-military
117
means. It was quite a different meaning from the ground context (original concept).
Considering metaphors as the basis for conceptualization of foreign policy we can
better understand the real motives of the USSR in disarmament.
Soviet disarmament rhetoric had two waves: the first was associated with the
activity of Khrushchev, and the next– with the Communist Party’s intense activity on
adopting a set of documents regarding peace and issues in disarmament. Nevertheless,
the content, reasons and scale of these policies were different.
N. Khrushchev: “We will bury you!”
Soviet political rhetoric as Soviet disarmament policy was rather contradictory during
1955-1964 and may be illustrated in two speeches by N. Khrushchev. The first speech
was in the UN General Assembly in 1960 which appealed mutual disarmament to the
USA with the aim to have “no weapons of war”
lxiv
, and the second was made at the
formal reception of the Western Ambassadors in Moscow and summarized in his
famous quote: “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you”
lxv
.
These statements undoubtedly caused confusion and misunderstanding among Western
diplomats. Perhaps, in a conversation with Western diplomats, he wanted to emphasize
the confliction between the two opposing political systems. Probably, he was referring
to Marx’s thesis that socialism is the ‘gravedigger’ of capitalism, but instead said “we
will bury you”. It is worth noting that these cases demonstrated the combination of
both the interpretation of the theories of Karl Marx and the personal characteristics of
Khrushchev- who was a very lively, sociable and not well- educated person; he liked to
use colloquial metaphors. Thus we have a combination of both theoretical and
colloquial approaches to addressing disarmament policy.
As an ‘interpreter’ of communist theory, Khrushchev used his own approach
towards understanding the struggle of socialism against capitalism as one that could be
the outcome for total victory. Proclaimed in the Twentieth Party Congress in February
1956, the concept of “peaceful coexistence”
lxvi
was the third aim in the hierarchy of
Soviet Union foreign policy goals after the ‘strengthening of the world socialist system’
and ‘support for the national liberation movements’.
‘The world socialist system’ meant a union of countries that followed the path
of communism and socialism. In the international arena ‘the world socialist system’
opposed ‘the world capitalist system’, competing in areas over the economy, science
and technology, and simultaneously conducting ‘a relentless struggle in ideology’.
‘Peaceful coexistence’ was seen as a certain type of relations between states with
different social systems. These relationships expected the refusal to use military forces
in a war, but usage of negotiations to settle disputes etc. In the international sphere,
‘peaceful coexistence’ was part of ‘the struggle between the two systems’ through
peaceful means.
The struggle for peace and disarmament was part of a comprehensive strategy
of the USSR, which included, unlike Stalin’s attempt to keep the USSR in isolation,
going beyond the borders of the country and opening its doors to foreign journalists
and politicians. This struggle was also aimed towards “the implementation of détente
and peace in the world”
lxvii
, which was proved in several ways. Khrushchev’s visits to
the USA, France, Asia, his disclosure of “clumsy lies of the American government”
lxviii
,
foreign aid to the people of Africa in their struggle for independence, and support the
Cuban people’s struggle against imperialism are just a few examples.
In order to implement a peaceful Soviet foreign policy, the USSR Communist
Party adopted the document “On the reorganizing of the All-Union Society for
Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries”
lxix
in 1959. According to this document,
the Communist Party wanted to revise the general policy towards foreign countries,
strengthening the cultural dimension of the foreign policy and focusing on building
118
relationships with western communities. The enormous staff had to work with
different countries, such as the Department of European socialist countries, the
Department of the Western European countries, the Department of Scandinavian
countries, etc.
Indeed in 1955, the general transformation of relations began to take place
with the West. A documentary chronicle of the USSR shows the intensification of
cultural and political ties between the Soviet Union and Sweden since 1955. For
example, the visit of the Swedish parliamentary delegation to the Soviet Union (1955),
the Soviet agricultural delegation’s visit headed by V.V. Matskevich to Stockholm in
order to learn more about agriculture in Sweden (1956), and the opening of Soviet-
Swedish exhibition in the State Museum of Fine Arts (1965), etc
lxx
.
However, the intensification of the cultural ties with the non-communist
countries had the ideological significance. These ties were aimed to form an
international support for socialist ideas in the West and to demonstrate the aggressive
intents of the USA’s policy, which was counterweight by the USSR’s peaceful policy.
Soviet disarmament rhetoric found support among Western public and among
Communist Parties of the West. In 1961, for example, the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of the USSR answered the Sweden Communist Party’s request to
provide an additional 100,000 crowns for the work on the transformation of the
“USSR-Sweden society” into a mass organization
lxxi
. Now it is difficult to understand
the real motives of the Sweden Communist Party when they addressed to the Soviet
Union. It is even more difficult to understand the perceptions of the USSR in the
Swedish society. A letter by Hilding Hegberg, a representative of the Sweden
Communist Party, demonstrates that the work aimed to create a positive and peaceful
image of the USSR was well organized. In Southern Sweden, West Sweden and
Norland the Soviet magazine “News of the Soviet Union” was distributed
lxxii
.
In the case of Western Europe, the result of the Soviet foreign policy was not clear. In
the case of countries which declared the socialist path of development, the realizations
of the theoretical doctrines by the USSR were fully supported. And the USSR worked a
lot in supporting them in the construction of socialism or in their fighting against
imperialist countries.
In some cases the USSR followed their own ideology to unpredictable
consequences. The Cuban crisis, which did not fit the general USSR’s foreign policy, is
an example of the realization of the Soviet disarmament rhetoric. Deployment of
missiles in Cuba was aimed to defend the Cuban revolutionary regime from possible
intervention of the USA. And then the unpredictable happened for Khrushchev. First,
Khrushchev wasn’t ready for such a quick and real answer from the USA; he didn’t
believe that the USA could also answer with a real nuclear threat to the USSR. Second,
the USSR and the USA considered themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. It
turned out that Cuba “is not just a territory”, but also an actor of the conflict
lxxiii
.
Thus, the Soviet ideological foreign policy towards friendly regimes wasn’t
contradictory to the USSR disarmament policy- they were simply different ways of
realizing socialist ideology.
The way of realizing the foreign policy of the USSR was mostly determined by
the intricacies of domestic problems within the country. Foreign policy played a
secondary role in Khrushchev’s strategy. The real economic disaster in the USSR was
the problem of playing an active role in foreign policy. Khrushchev was forced to
refuse previous approaches towards economic development of the country, where the
emphasis was made in heavy industry and military sectors. Instead, he focused on the
development of agriculture. His appeals towards disarmament were parallel with the
reduction of military spending and contingent of the Soviet army. The Soviet
disarmament rhetoric, thus, was also aimed to deter the USA militarily, using ideology
119
as an alternative arm.
In general, the period of Khrushchev could be characterized as a period of a
new interpretation of Marxist-Leninist theory and implementation of this approach in
the USSR foreign policy. The inconsistency of the USSR’s disarmament policy could be
understood in the context of the realization of the strategy of building the world
socialist system. This strategy includes the building of economic and cultural relations
with capitalist countries and at the same time the continuation of the class struggle of
the proletarian in the international arena. The proposals on disarmament, and the
concrete steps in this direction
lxxiv
went parallel with the assistance to friendly regimes.
L. Brezhnev: “Lenin’s way to victory of communism!”
Brezhnev began his activities as the Secretary General with the criticism of the
‘Khrushchev’s utopia’ and continued the tradition of the ideological search
lxxv
. He was
a typical Communist Party’s functionary; this fact also determined the future
ideological approach.
The basis of the ideological doctrine of Brezhnev was the doctrine of ‘socialist
internationalism’ which is famous among western scholars as the ‘Brezhnev doctrine’.
The final formulation of the doctrine had finished by the end of the 1970-s. It is
needed to clarify that there were two periods of the doctrine’s formation: before and
after 1968.
The first period is the period from 1964 to 1968, which is traditionally defined
as the time of seeking “new ideological orientations”
lxxvi
. The important metaphor of
this period is the term “socialist character of the USSR’s foreign policy”, which was
based on noble goals and included the struggle for peace, for democracy, for national
independence and for socialism. The most important achievement in this struggle was
to create a ‘world socialist order’.
‘Proletarian internationalism’ in Brezhnev’s speeches were enforced by a new
term ‘socialist internationalism’, which was understood as “the desire to strengthen the
fraternal friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance on a basis of full equality,
autonomy, and the right combination of interests of each country to the interests of the
entire community”
lxxvii
. In 1964, Brezhnev reaffirmed the policy of ‘peaceful
coexistence’ meaning that Khrushchev’s governance was considered a “basis for
mutual understanding and the development of mutually beneficial cooperation between
countries, despite the differences in their social systems” and a continuation of “the
liberation struggle and the implementation of the revolutionary tasks by different
nations”. The USSR demonstrated commitment to laissez-faire in regards to domestic
affairs of other nations and countries.
Foreign policy rhetoric of the USSR towards disarmament issues were founded
on two postulates: “The USSR had supported and has been supporting the cease of
arms racing” and “the policy of the imperialist countries has been forced our country
to focus on the creation of the powerful nuclear weapon and delivery system”
lxxviii
.
From one angle, the USSR demonstrated a full readiness for universal disarmament, for
measures to curb the arms race and for agreements like the Moscow Treaty Banning
Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere. But from another angle, the growth of
nuclear-missile arsenal of the USSR was seen as a necessary measure in the fight against
global imperialism.
The events in Prague in 1968 changed the theoretical and practical approaches
towards the building of international socialist system. According to Brezhnev
“opportunist forces in Czechoslovakia” gave rise to a new interpretation of the
construction of the world socialist system as “an integral and organic part of the class
struggles in the world”
lxxix
. “The enemies of socialism haven’t been refusing from the
120
attempts to undermine the basis of the socialist state power, to disrupt the work of
socialist transformation of society and restore its domination”
lxxx
.
At the Berlin meeting on 20th anniversary of the GDR, Brezhnev clarified the
principles of socialist internationalism: “the one who would like to test the strength of
our friendship, inviolability of borders of our countries, it is better to know in advance:
he will meet a powerful blow, I repeat - powerful blow of the Armed Forces of the
Soviet Union and the entire socialist community”
lxxxi
. The concept of ‘armed defense of
the socialist ideas’ had become the ground of the Brezhnev’s metamorphic
constructions. In this context we can talk about moving away from the ideas and
principles of building communism, which were proclaimed by Khrushchev.
In his speech “Lenin’s business is alive and is still winning”
lxxxii
, Brezhnev addressed to
the origins of the communist ideals, which were proclaimed by Lenin and thus
impugned the correctness of the previous approach.
The processes running by Khrushchev began gradually phasing out. Some
foreigners, who came to the USSR in the framework of the cultural and scientific
exchange, were detected as “foreign emissaries and representatives of other anti-Soviet
Zionist organizations”
lxxxiii
by the KGB. A new concept of building the world socialist
system became more targetable both in scale and audience, and more costly. This work
included different organizations: trade unions, youth and female organizations and so
on. Rigid planning and tight control were main characteristics of the new policy.
Foreign policy rhetoric of the USSR also changed. Such events like the Vietnam War
were considered an extension of the system of world socialism. In March 1971, L.
Brezhnev, launching his ‘Peace Program’ at the XXIV Congress of the Communist
Party, declared: “The balance of power in the world has shifted towards the forces of
socialism”
lxxxiv
. “The class character of Soviet foreign policy has not changed”, which,
according to his plan “is a form of class struggle, aimed at strengthening of world
socialism, the international communist and workers' and national-liberation
movements in the anti-imperialist front”
lxxxv
.
It is important to note that military victory over the ‘class enemy’ has never
been regarded in Moscow as preferred. The doctrine called for the ‘liberation of
humanity from the shackles of capitalism’ as a result of the ‘class struggle’, not nuclear
attack. This struggle may include the revolutions and even revolutionary wars, but
those which brought to power a ‘victorious proletariat’. ‘Liberation’ had to start by
local forces, ‘friends’ and the victorious Soviet army should only complete this struggle
brilliantly, coming with the aid to its brothers
lxxxvi
.
USSR foreign policy towards disarmament was aimed to prevent nuclear war
and to ‘strengthen the positions of world socialism, to create favorable conditions for
the activity of the international communists and workers, the national liberation
movement’. There were two parallel processes – the disarmament negotiations in 1972-
74 and the adoption of the expanded outreach program (propaganda) that included
not only Europe, but the United States.
The communist elite adopted a set of documents for the implementation of the
internal and external policies towards peace and disarmament. The Communist Party
document “on the order of the campaign to end the arms race and disarmament in the
Soviet Union”
lxxxvii
contained an action plan for domestic implementation. This plan
included, for example, “to carry out activities (meetings, collecting signatures) in
student working communities, prepare a video clip on the struggle for peace in the
USSR, to issue a stamp, to review the budget for the Soviet Peace Fund for enhancing
its activity in this area.
Another document “On information for the fraternal communist and workers'
parties on the campaign to end the arms race and for disarmament in the Soviet
Union”
lxxxviii
was addressed to the communist parties outside the USSR and called on
121
these countries (58 in the list) to make an effort to form a world public opinion in
favor of strengthening detente. Friendship Societies, which intensified their work
during the era of Khrushchev, were also considered part of the campaign. In 1976, the
presidium of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with
Foreign Countries approved the proposal to increase the annual financial aid to the
societies of friendship with the Soviet Union and the Nordic countries
lxxxix
(“Denmark-
USSR”, “Sweden-USSR”, “Norway-USSR”) from 84 to 171 thousand convertible
rubles.
The Soviet movement for peace and disarmament was organized on a large
scale, including the active participation of the USSR in the World Peace Council, the
World Youth Forum, the Forum of European public for disarmament and security.
Youth organizations, women, veterans of war, trade unions and others were recruited
for this work. All of them were aimed to strengthen cooperation with the democratic
organizations and movements in the West. At the same time there were strict measures
taken to prevent any influence of the West on the Soviet population. The fight against
the human rights movement, the struggle against dissent in the Soviet Union was in the
context of the struggle for peace. Now it is difficult to estimate whether it was a real
public initiative - the letter of the Soviet scientists in the field of medicine to the
American scientist, who published the statement on “The danger of nuclear war”
xc
,
because this letter was approved by the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of the USSR.
L.M. Alekseeva, a well-known Russian human rights activist, in her lecture
“The relay of generations” says that “in the democratic countries of the West and even
the authorities had a sympathetic attitude to public initiatives in the Soviet Union,
Poland and Czechoslovakia”
xci
, she mentions that the initiatives to protect the human
rights in the Soviet camp. Probably, the same sympathy aroused among Western
communities due to the initiatives of the USSR in the field of disarmament and the
struggle for peace. But if you follow the ideology of ‘socialist internationalism’, which
was legally adopted in the Constitution of the USSR in 1977, the fight for disarmament
had another meaning from the ground which was followed by the anti-war or anti-
nuclear social movements in the West. Socialist internationalism contained a dualistic
approach: on the one hand, keeping the struggle against world imperialism, the
struggle for disarmament considered as a non-military method; on the other hand, the
need to defend the world socialist order, the war (non-nuclear) could be possible as
mean of the defense.
4. Conclusion
On the basis of the discussion so far, the following brief conclusion regarding the
relationship between Soviet ideology and Soviet disarmament policy are warranted.
Analysis of doctrinal documents of the USSR from 1955 to 1982 demonstrates that
real disarmament was a major challenge for the government. Declared by the Soviet
leadership ‘policy of disarmament’ was part of the Soviet ideology, aimed at fighting
against world imperialism. Intensifications of appeals for disarmament was directly
linked to the economic difficulties in the USSR and the dynamics of the development of
nuclear technology and nuclear missile arsenal in the U.S. Disarmament policy and
fight for peace were the non-military way of combating capitalist countries.
The cases of two political leaders of the USSR demonstrate the creative process
in the deal of the interpretation of the classic theories. With the change of the general
ideological paradigm has changed and the contents of the terms and metaphors in the
rhetoric of the Soviet Union on disarmament.
Khrushchev’s policy in disarmament generally was based on the principles of
‘peaceful coexistence’ and ‘proletarian internationalism’ and was aimed to form a
122
peaceful image of the USSR. The competition between both systems should be isolated
and discussed in the economic and cultural sphere. Brezhnev’s elite reinterpreted the
policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’ into the policy of building ‘world system of socialism’
and introduced the new term ‘social internationalism’ which could officially be used by
both military and non-military methods of building this socialist system.
Terms, which were used by the Soviet political leaders, formed a complex
system of metaphors, understandable only by the Soviet political elite and Soviet
society. Terms and concepts formed the specific type of codes, which could be
interpreted only on the basis of the theories of K. Marx and V. Lenin. In our view, the
representatives of Western diplomacy and the public engaged in decoding Soviet
rhetoric to determine the true intentions of the Soviet leadership
xcii
, but for western
scholars and politicians was unclear “how far the Soviet leadership is prepared to go
from the atmospherics of détente to concrete arms control measures”
xciii
.
l
R. Aron, La democratie et totalitarisme, 1993 (Moscow: Text publishing house, 1993).
li
George Lakoff & Mark Johnson Metaphors We Live By, 1980 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
lii
There are 55 volumes of Lenin’s theoretical papers that were published several times in the USSR, but now it is
difficult to analyze the authenticity of the texts because all these texts were checked and “improved” by specialists
from the University of Lenin and Marx, Moscow.
liii
G. Lakoff, “Metaphor and war: The metaphor system used to justify War in the Gulf” in Engulfed in War: Just
War and the Persian Gulf. Honolulu (Hawaii, 1991).
liv
V.I. Lenin, Complete set of works, 5th ed ., V. 24, 1967 (Moscow: Publishing House of Political
Literature, 1967), p. 123.
lv
Soviet Encyclopedia (Dictionary). Fourth edition revised and enlarged, 1990 (Moscow: "Soviet
encyclopedia", 1990), p. 502.
lvi
Lenin foresaw and pointed out that the victory of the revolution in several countries has changed the
international situation and created conditions that will put an end to the wars. After the formation of the
world socialist system, the creation of a powerful peace movement is to be inevitable. Op. cit.: V.I. Lenin
Complete set of works, 5th ed ., V. 26, 1967 (Moscow: Publishing House of Political Literature, 1967), p.
41.
lvii
Soviet Encyclopedia (Dictionary), p.822
lviii
Ibid.
lix
V. I. Mikhaylenko, T.P. Nesterova, Totaltarism v XX veke: teoreticheskiy diskurs, 2000 (Ekaterinburg,:
publishing house of the Ural State University, 2000), p. 22.
lx
R. Aron, La democratie et totalitarisme, pp. 109-110.
lxi
Ibid, p. 116.
lxii
R. G. Pikhoya, Moskva. Kreml’.Vlast’. Sorok lyet posle voyny, 1945-1985, 2007 (Moscow: Rus’-Olimp Press,
2007), p. 403.
lxiii
Pravda, June, 7, 1960, p.3
lxiv
Ibid.
lxv
"We Will Bury You!", Time Magazine, November 26, 1956.
lxvi
J . Neru “The USA is responsible”, Pravda, June, 7, 1960.
lxvii
Pravda, June, 7, 1960, p.3.
lxviii
Ibid.
lxix
“The restructuring of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries”. Document
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Central Committee, No ST-48/190, 09/05/1957 <
http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/peace/ct48-57.pdf >
lxx
Svenskar i Moscva, Foredrag fran den Rysk-Svenska konferensen, Moskva 1-2 Juni 2000 (Moscow: Russian
State Iniversity for the Himanities Press, 2000), pp. 235-262.
lxxi
“The question of the Communist Party of Sweden” . Documents of the Central Committee of the USSR,
No PT. 9/53gs. November 30, 1961 < http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/peace/ct9-61.pdf>
lxxii
Letter from Hilding Herberg (translated from Sweden) November, 1, 1961 Documents of the Central
Committee of the USSR. < http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/peace/ct9-61.pdf>
lxxiii
R. G. Pikhoya, Moskva. Kreml’.Vlast’. Sorok lyet posle voyny, 1945-1985, p. 496
lxxiv
In March 1958 the USSR temporary stopped the nuclear tests; in 1961 N. Khrushchev suggested to discuss the
disarmament issues and to start the negotiations on the test ban treaty; in 1962 “Outer Space Treaty” was signed by
the USSR, the USA and the UK.
lxxv
R. G. Pikhoya, Moskva. Kreml’.Vlast’. Sorok lyet posle voyny, 1945-1985, p. 496
lxxvi
Ibid., pp. 496-504.
lxxvii
L. I. Brezhnev, “The flag of October is the flag of struggle for peace and socialism”, in L.I. Brezhnev,
Leninskim kursom. Speeches and Papers, Volume 1. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1970), p. 23.
lxxviii
Ibid.
123
lxxix
L. I. Brezhnev, “The communist movement has entered a phase of a new rise”, in L.I. Brezhnev, Leninskim
kursom. Speeches and Papers, Volume 2. (Moscow: Politizdat, 1970), p. 433.
lxxx
Ibid.
lxxxi
L. I. Brezhnev, “Speech at a meeting in Berlin on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the GDR,
October 6, 1969”, in L.I. Brezhnev, Leninskim kursom. Speeches and Papers, Volume 2, pp. 458-468.
lxxxii
L. I. Brezhnev, “The report of the joint session of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Supreme
Soviet of the USSR and Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR on the celebration the anniversary of the birth of
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, 21 April 1970”, in L.I. Brezhnev, Leninskim kursom. Speeches and Papers,
Volume 2, pp. 551-605.
lxxxiii
R. G. Pikhoya, Moskva. Kreml’.Vlast’. Sorok lyet posle voyny, 1945-1985, p. 598.
lxxxiv
L.I. Brezhnev , Otchetnyo doklad k XXIV s’ezdy Tsentral’nogo Komiteta Kommunisticheskoy Partii (Moskva,
1972).
lxxxv
Ibid.
lxxxvi
V. Bukovskiy, Moskovskiy protsess (Paris: Russkaya mysl’, 1996).
lxxxvii
Extract from the Protocol No 9 § 4c of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, "On the order of the
Soviet Union in the campaign to end the arms race and disarmament". Documents of the Central Committee
of the USSR, No CT-9/4c. May 21, 1976 < http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/peace/ct9-76.pdf>
lxxxviii
On Information of the fraternal communist and workers' parties about the Soviet Union’s campaign
to end the arms race. Documents of the Central Committee of the USSR, No CT-11/5c. May 8, 1976.
<http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/peace/ct11-76b.pdf>
lxxxix
On increasing the financial aid to societies of friendship of the Soviet Union and Scandinavian countries.
Documents of the Central Committee of the USSR, No CT-11/7c. June 06, 1976
<countries.http://psi.ece.jhu.edu/~kaplan/IRUSS/BUK/GBARC/pdfs/peace/ct11-76.pdf>
xc
On the reply of the Soviet scientists in the field of medicine to the American scientists-authors of the statement
"The danger of nuclear war." Resolution of the Central Committee Secretariat. Documents of the Central
Committee of the USSR, No CT-206/19c. April 15, 1980 < http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/peace/ct206-80.pdf>
xci
L. Alekseeva, “Estafeta pokoleniy”, ( Lecture of L.M. Alekseeva at the anniversary gala 20/07/2012) <
http://www.president-
sovet.ru/council_decision/statements_by_members/estafeta_pokoleniy_lektsiya_l_m_alekseevoy_na_yubileynom_
vechere_20_07_2012.php>
xcii
Markwick R.D. “Peaceful coexistence, detente and third world struggles: the Soviet view, from Lenin to
Brezhnev”, Australian journal of international affairs, August, 1990 (44), pp. 171-194.
xciii
Soviet interests in arms control and disarmament: the decade under Khrushchev 1954-1964. Separate
summary/ by Bloomfield, Lincoln P; Clemens, Walter C; Griffiths, Franklyn. (Cambridge: Center for International
Studies. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1965), p. 232.
124
APPENDIX
125
A. Conference program
8.30-8.50: Welcome and introduction
Thomas Jonter, Professor of International Relations, Department of Economic History,
Stockholm University and Jan Larsson, chair of the Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons
8.50 – 9.10: Keynote speech by Dr. Hans Blix, Director-General Emeritus of the IAEA and
the Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
(UNMOVIC) for Iraq between 2000 and 2003, and chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Commission
9.10-10.45: Session I: Historical perspectives on disarmament
This session was chaired by Emma Rosengren
Aryo Makko, PhD, Department of History, Stockholm University: The Swedish Interest in
Confidence and Security Building Measures and Questions of Disarmament
Stellan Andersson, Archivist and historian: Some Notes on Public Opinion, Peace Movements and the
Disarmament Process in the early 1980’s
Jan Prawitz, Senior Researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs: Naval Arms
Control: Positions of Sweden - Focusing on the period 1970 – 1991
Lubna Qureshi, PhD, US Diplomatic History, University of California, Berkeley, and guest
researcher at Södertörn University: Olof Palme's Commitment to Nuclear Disarmament
11.15-12.30: Session II: Theoretical perspectives on disarmament
This session was chaired by Thomas Jonter
Emma Rosengren, PhD Candidate Department of Economic History, Stockholm University:
Disarmament and Gender in International Relations theory
Lars Ingelstam, Professor emeritus, A House Divided against Itself Cannot Stand - Swedish
disarmament policy and weapons exports, investigated from a Large Technical Systems perspective
Jonathan Feldman, Associate Professor, Department of Economic History, Stockholm
University: Inga Thorsson and the Politics of Peace in Sweden
Gunnar Westberg, Professor emeritus, Sahlgrenska Akademin Göteborg, Disarmament as a
humanitarian obligation
14.00-14.30: Keynote speech by Robert Kelley, associate senior researcher at SIPRI and
former Director of nuclear inspections in Iraq, 1992 and 2001: Nuclear Proliferators: Dealing with
some Tough Cases
14.30-15.30: Session III: Comparative perspectives
This session was chaired by Göran Rydeberg
Göran Rydeberg, PhD Historian and Archivist, Stockholm University: The ideas behind
disarmament efforts – comparative studies of key actors
Jayita Sarkar, PhD Candidate, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies,
Geneva: India and the Atom: Non-alignment, Disarmament and Nuclearity, 1954-1974
Thomas Jonter, Professor of International Relations, Department of Economic History,
Stockholm University: Explaining nuclear forbearance: a comparative study on Sweden and Switzerland,
1945-1977
Ekaterina Mikhaylenko, Associate Professor of the Department of International Relations,
Ural Federal University: Soviet disarmament policy during the Cold War
16.00-16.30: Conclusions
126
B. List of Participants
Anna Maj Hultgård, Director, Deputy Head of Department, Department for Disarmament and
Non-Proliferation, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Aryo Makko, PhD, Department of History, Stockholm University
Carl-Magnus Hyltenius, Ambassador
Ekaterina Mikhaylenko, Associate Professor of the Department of International Relations, Ural
Federal University
Elisabet Södersten, Swedish Physicians for the Preventions of Nuclear War
Emma Bjertén, Swedish Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
(IKFF/WILPF)
Emma Rosengren, PhD Candidate Department of Economic History, Stockholm University
Eva Kettis, Ambassador
Grigoriy Zinovyev, Director, Novouralsk Technological Institute of the National Research
Nuclear University MEPHI (NTI NRU)
Gunnar Westberg, Professor emeritus, Sahlgrenska Akademin Göteborg
Göran Rydeberg, PhD Historian and Archivist, Stockholm University
Hans Blix, Director-General Emeritus of the IAEA and the Executive Chairman of the UN
Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) for Iraq between 2000 and
2003, and chair of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission
Henrik Salander, Ambassador
Jan Larsson, Chair of the Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons
Jan Prawitz, Senior Researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs
Jayita Sarkar, PhD Candidate, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies,
Geneva
Jonathan Feldman, Associate Professor, Department of Economic History, Stockholm University
Lars Ingelstam, Professor emeritus
Lubna Qureshi, PhD, US Diplomatic History, University of California, Berkeley, and guest
researcher at Södertörn University
Polina Sinovets, Associate Professor, Odessa National University
Robert Kelley, Associate senior researcher at SIPRI and former Director of nuclear inspections in
Iraq, 1992 and 2001
Sofia Tuvestad, Swedish Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
(IKFF/WILPF)
Stellan Andersson, Archivist and historian
Thomas Jonter, Professor of International Relations, Department of Economic History,
Stockholm University