‘Indivisible, equal and undiminished security’

From END Info 29 | Feb 2022 | DOWNLOAD

Editorial Comments, Tom Unterrainer

The Russell Foundation has issued this extra edition of END Info in response to the growing tensions in and around Ukraine. In issue 28 we warned that we “should all be alert to the sharpening of tensions and to any developments connected to them. But we should also pay close attention to the causes as well as the dynamics of the fault lines in Europe. The insistence of the nuclear-armed states and their allies that the capacity to exterminate life on this planet is ‘essential for security’ has been examined again and again.” Tensions have certainly sharpened and developments accumulate by the hour.

Nuclear weapons, the possession and stationing of such weapons and the risks associated with them cannot be ignored in the context of Ukraine in the same way that the expansion of NATO – the nuclear-armed alliance – cannot be ignored. The argument that ‘security in Europe’ is maintained by the possession and stationing of nuclear weapons – be they British, French or American – is in tatters. Rather than providing ‘security’, such weapons embed insecurity. One need only look at Article 7 of the proposed draft treaty between Russia and the United States (released on 17 December 2021 and available to read in full at https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790818/?lang-en) to see how large the issue of nuclear weapons loom. Article 7 reads:

The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.

The Parties shall not train military and civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons. The Parties shall not conduct exercises or training for general-purpose forces, that include scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.

Article 5 of the draft treaty includes the following:

The Parties shall refrain from flying heaving bombers equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments or deploying warships of any type, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters respectively, from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other Party.

The preamble of the draft treaty asserts:

that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought ... [we recognize] the need to make every effort to prevent the risk of outbreak of such a war among States that possess nuclear weapons.

Article 1 opens with:

The Parties shall cooperate on the basis of principles of indivisible, equal and undiminished security and to these ends:

shall not undertake actions nor participate in or support activities that affect the security of the other party;

shall not implement security measures adopted by each Party individually or in the framework of an international organization, military alliance or coalition that could undermine core security interests of the other party.

These all seem like very sensible and acceptable commitments to ensure peace and security between the US and Russia and – importantly – within Europe. The remarkable thing about the draft treaty is that, in fact, such commitments have already been made: in 1971, 1972, 1987 and 1989. They must surely be reaffirmed by both sides and implemented in full in very short order.

To understand why these commitments need reaffirmation and implementation now, in 2022, and why they have not been affirmed or consistently implemented to date is to understand that NATO has expanded, all sides are re-arming and that the situation is very dangerous indeed. However, there is a further thing to understand: for as long as NATO and the nuclear-armed states within it insist on turning Europe into a potential nuclear battleground, for as long as the US insists on deploying its nuclear and other weapons systems in Europe and for as long as politicians in the ‘Anglosphere’ indulge themselves in crass hypocrisy then the idea of ‘indivisible security’ will be completely undermined. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out in his letter to Heads of Foreign/External Affairs Ministers/Secretaries of the US, Canada and several European countries: 

The principle of indivisible security is selectively interpreted as a justification for the ongoing course toward irresponsible expansion of NATO.

It is revealing that Western representatives, while expressing their readiness to engage in dialogue on the European security architecture avoid making reference to the Charter for European Security ...

It will not work that way. The very essence of the agreements on indivisible security is that either there is security for all or there is no security for anyone.

Russian sources have been quoted here not because every action or opinion expressed within or by them are defensible or agreeable. They have been quoted in this way because as compared to the statements from US and British government representatives, they are a breath of fresh and clear air.

Security is for everyone or it is for none of us. Nuclear weapons in Europe – whatever their origin and wherever they are based – must be removed if any meaningful form of security is to be established. This means creating a European nuclear-weapons-free zone as part of an infrastructure of ‘indivisible, equal and undiminished security’ – a system of common security.

To achieve peace, we must identify and then remove the roadblocks to peace. NATO and nuclear weapons must be removed.