Alva Myrdal's Blueprint from European Nuclear Disarmament

From END Info 18 | August 2020. Download here

In her keynote contribution to Dynamics of European Nuclear Disarmament (Spokesman Books), Alva Myrdal, the former Disarmament Minister in Sweden, argues for a ‘stepwise’ process of nuclear disarmament in Europe, through what she describes as “self propelled initiatives”, and calls for early unilateral a bilateral measures and guarantees. The following text was published in END Bulletin 7, Winter 1981/82, and is published here as a reminder of the wide-ranging and creative thinking taking place at the time.

Let us try out in a purely imaginative way, what pattern a European nuclear weapon free zone might take – or, more realistically, how the circle of agreements for nuclear disarmed countries, covered by guarantees of non-attack with nuclear weapons, grow in a rather self-generated manner.

Led on by the already thorough public discussion, well prepared proposals and perceptions, embodied in the Rapacki, Undén and Kekkonen plans, I have come to deal fairly extensively with prospective projects in a rank order from those which seem most feasible to the more difficult ones. Thus first the core neutral nations: Sweden and Finland, Yugoslavia, Austria and Switzerland; next the rather cohesive Nordic flank nations: Denmark and Norway in addition to the aforementioned Sweden and Finland; and finally the crucial Central European states which might offer themselves as “balanceable”: the two Germanies and Poland, perhaps taking in also Czechoslovakia or some other East European nation.

Extensions

As the interest in obtaining such added security as an acknowledged status of nuclear disarmament is probably shared by most, if not all, countries in Europe, one might dare to suggest some further extensions. For instance, Holland and Belgium might be early joiners, to judge from their own lively public debate on the issue. On the southern side, Roumania might perhaps be expected to follow up earlier initiatives to help establish a nuclear weapon free zone in the Balkans. If balancing is necessary, either Greece or Turkey or both, might then have to be won for a matching agreement. But perhaps Roumania might go it alone, considering its many initiatives to loosen the constraints of the military blocs, whilst preserving their political systems unaltered.

The two minor nuclear powers in Europe, France and Great Britain, have another context. Their quid pro quo problem is very different and much more directly concerns the superpowers’ major interests.

In this essay advocating European nuclear disarmament, I have restricted the attention to those tactical and Eurostrategic weapons which, although some may be important for an overall superpower context, are deployed by them – or intended – for use against European territories. They are definitely against our most vital interests.

Two remarks must be explicitly stressed. One is to remind us – and the superpowers – of the great positive value for the European countries attainable by buttressing security with their promised pledges not to attack us with nuclear weapons when we keep our own territories free from such weapons.

The second is that I have been moved to write as I do in the conviction that at bottom, not just a few, but all, people do realise the compelling need to begin now to lift the fear of doomsday which we sense in appreciating that the all-to-mighty nations in their spiralling mutual hostility use our peoples in Europe as hostages, at a time when we ourselves have become so free from aggressive impulses.

My own proposal definitely favours a stepwise approach but one to be incessantly pursued at the unilateral, as well as the bilateral levels.

Starting now

Europe is now given a chance to negotiate – if we are prepared to take it. The two superpowers have been brought, at last, to agree that negotiations about medium range nuclear missiles for Europe should start, before the end of this year.

This is good. But it is not enough, neither in terms of timetable nor of participants. The negotiations cannot proceed above the heads of the parties mainly concerned, namely the European countries themselves. Nor can these countries passively wait until next year to discover which directions the negotiations might take.

We should make up our own minds and act, both on a schedule of more tightly planned, speedier negotiations and on building up an agenda which could produce desirable results.

How can we hasten the many faceted pattern of negotiations? Probably we should be tentative to begin with, allowing different nations to “feel out” the possibilities of cooperation with other nations. Likeminded states like the free, nonaligned nations would be in order to open talks right away, and so would such others as the smaller and “next to nuclear free” states like those of Benelux. Members of the military alliances must begin by opening dialogues with their superpower leaders to gain insight as to how they can go forward in winning freedom from the nuclear weapon option; thus Norway and Denmark can explore how safely they can become free from being drawn into NATO’s planning for using nuclear weapons in wartime.

We, the European countries – must prepare a variety of inputs for what as yet are only prospectively bilateral negotiations between the two superpowers. They should not be left alone to decide on what Germans call “Nach-Rüstung” – making some additions of new nuclear-weapon systems on European soil seem inevitable, a foregone conclusion.

Our chance to influence the decisions is the greater the sooner we start and the more decisively we act in presenting plans.