Mikhail Gorbachev. The Ice Has Broken

A remarkable sequence of events in April has turned the spotlight on the subject of nuclear disarmament and global security. I am referring to the signing by Presidents Obama and Medvedev of the New START treaty, the presentation of the Obama administration’s nuclear doctrine and the nuclear security summit meeting in Washington attended by leaders of several dozen countries.

The ice has broken. The situation today is dramatically different from just two years ago. But has it changed enough to say that the process now under way is irreversible?

Let’s first look at the New START treaty. It has been deemed irrelevant and the reductions it calls for described as “creative accounting.” Though the cuts are indeed modest compared to those made under the treaty the first President Bush and I signed in 1991, the treaty is a major breakthrough.

First, it resumes the process initiated in the second half of the 1980s, which made it possible to rid the world of thousands of nuclear warheads and hundreds of launchers.

Second, the strategic arsenals of the United States and Russia have once again been placed under a regime of mutual verification and inspections.
Third, the United States and Russia have demonstrated that they can solve the most complex problems of mutual security, which offers hope that they will work together more successfully to address global and regional issues.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, with the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty the two biggest nuclear powers say to the world that they are serious about their Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligation to move toward eliminating nuclear weapons.

By reviving the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, the treaty is a powerful tool for political pressure on those countries, particularly Iran and North Korea, whose nuclear programs have caused legitimate concern within the international community. It also reminds other nuclear weapon powers that they, too, must join in the process of nuclear disarmament.

I have often been asked, in Russia and elsewhere, whether the process of nuclear disarmament could be scuttled by a build-up in the arsenals of other countries — for example China, Pakistan and India. This is a legitimate question. The least that the other members of the “nuclear club” must do now is freeze their arsenals.

Further progress along the path of disarmament and nonproliferation would be facilitated by a statement from nuclear powers saying that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to prevent their use. Unfortunately, the new U.S. nuclear doctrine does not go that far. Nevertheless, this document, as well as Russia’s military doctrine, signals a tendency toward reduced reliance on nuclear weapons.

The new U.S. doctrine emphasizes that Russia is no longer an adversary. It declares the Obama administration’s intent to secure ratification of the treaty banning all nuclear testing and states that the United States will not develop new nuclear weapons.

The Obama administration has proposed bilateral dialogues on strategic stability with Russia and China. Such a dialogue must include missile defense issues. After all, the interrelationship of strategic offensive arms and missile defense is recognized in the New START.

The dialogue on strategic stability is certainly in Russia’s interest. To conduct it with confidence, we in Russia need a serious debate on the problem of missile defense, involving experts, members of Parliament and the military. What kind of missile defense does Russia need? Should it be linked with the U.S. missile defense system? These are political rather than “agency” issues. Decisions on such issues will be with us for decades to come.

Yet, the proposed dialogue should not be limited to strategic weapons. More general problems must also be addressed if we are to build a relationship of partnership and trust. Foremost is the problem of military superiority.

The U.S. national security strategy, adopted in 2002 and still in effect, clearly proclaims the need for U.S. global military superiority. This principle has in effect become an integral part of America’s creed. It finds specific expression in the vast arsenals of conventional weapons, the colossal defense budget and the plans for weaponizing outer space. The proposed strategic dialogue must include all these issues. Reaching mutual understanding will take a sense of realism and long-term vision.

NATO is now discussing a new “strategic concept,” and for the first time it is consulting with Russia. I welcome this. Does it mean that NATO is ready to renounce the claim to include the entire world in its “zone of responsibility” and instead work together with others within multilateral institutions vested with real authority and powers? The recent opinion essay by George Shultz and William Perry (IHT April 12) seems to suggest that influential Americans are now seriously considering such issues.

I am sure that Russia is ready to engage in such a discussion, and not Russia alone. For whether we like it or not, the world today is multipolar.

There has been much disingenuous talk that “multipolar structures are inherently unstable,” citing examples of Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries and blaming multipolarity for conflicts and wars, including world wars. Such talk is pointless, because miltipolarity is now a reality.

We have seen in recent months that power centers like China, Russia and the European Union have responded to the global financial crisis responsibly. While defending their own interests they have taken into account the interests of other players and of the world community as a whole. This is multipolarity in action, helping to mitigate the crisis and move toward addressing longer-term measures. But it’s only a beginning.

The Middle East peace process is in a deep crisis. The world is still paying for the mistakes of U.S. strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Efforts to agree on a global climate policy are stalled. The mechanisms for fighting poverty and backwardness are dysfunctional. In the final analysis, it all comes down to the lack of political will and failure of leadership.

We need collective leadership. We have recently seen examples of what it can achieve. But what remains to be done is much more than what has been done. Too much time was wasted after the end of the Cold War. The legacy of mutual suspicion, narrow self-interest and domination is still very much with us. The struggle between this legacy and new thinking will define international politics in the 21st century.

The New York Times, 22.04.2010