Guarding the world, together

As we enter the 21st Century, we carry not only the baggage of our past but also that shaped by current trends. The last century was marked by twoworld wars and various conflicts within and between countries.What are the challenges and problems the world faces in this new century? In the wake of U.S. President George W.Bush's revival of the National Missile Defence programme, these excerpts from ROBERT MCNAMARA's impassioned plea to end all conflicts are timely. Over the next four weeks,we repro

I WANT to begin by recounting my earliest memory as a child. It is of a city exploding with joy. The city was San Francisco. The date was November11, 1918 - Armistice Day. I was two years old. The city was celebrating not only the end of the First World War, but the belief, held so strongly by President Wilson and by many other Americans, that the United States and its allies had won a war to end all wars.

They were wrong, of course. The 20th Century was the bloodiest, by far, in all of human history: during it, 160 million people have been killed in conflicts - within nations and between nations - across the globe. Were similar conflicts to take place in the 21st Century, when population will have risen threefold and when wars are likely to be fought with weapons of mass destruction, fatalities would be substantially higher - at least 300 million.

Is this what what we want in the first century of the new millennium? I hope not. If not, the time to initiate action to prevent that tragedy is now.

We should begin by establishing a realistic appraisal of the problem. It is readily apparent, very complex and very dangerous. An international commission organised by the Carnegie Corporation stated it very clearly when it said:

Peace will require greater understanding and respect for differences within and across national boundaries. We humans do not have the luxury any longer of indulging our prejudices and ethnocentricism. They are anachronisms of our ancient past. The worldwide historical record is full of hateful and destructive behaviour based on religious, racial, political, ideological and other distinctions - holy wars of one sort or another. Such behaviour in the next century is likely to be expressed with weapons of mass destruction. If we cannot learn to accommodate each other respectfully in the 21st Century, we could destroy each other at such a rate that humanity will have little to cherish.

The Commission is saying, in effect, that the end of the Cold War in 1989 did not, and will not, in and of itself, result in an end to conflict. We see evidence of the truth of that statement on all sides. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, the turmoil in Northern Iraq, the tension between India and Pakistan, the unstable relations between North and South Korea, and the conflicts across the face of sub-Saharan Africa in Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Sierra Leone and Liberia. These all make clear that the world of the future will not be without conflict, conflict between disparate groups within nations and conflict expanding across national borders. Racial, religious and ethnic tensions will remain. Nationalism will be a powerful force across the globe. Political revolutions will erupt as societies advance. Historic disputes among and within nations will increase as technology and education spread unevenly around the world. The underlying causes of Third World conflict that existed long before the Cold War began remain now that it has ended. They will be compounded by potential strife among states of the former Soviet Union and by continuing tensions in the Middle East. It is just such tensions that in the past 50 years have contributed to 125 wars causing 40 million deaths.

So, in these respects, the world of the future will not be different from that of the past - conflicts within nations and among nations will not disappear. But relations between nations will change dramatically. We are living, and I believe we will continue to live for decades to come, in what in many respects is a unipolar world. The U.S. is by far the strongest power economically, politically and militarily, and will remain so for many decades in the future. What will be its relations with other nations? Many say it is hegemonistic; others label it isolationist; I would term it unilateralist. I believe the U.S. should never (with but one minor qualification) apply its economic, political or military power unilaterally, but only in a multilateral context subject to a multilateral decision-making process. But before turning to what that process may be, what will be the relations among nations in the world of the 21st Century?

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I repeat, I believe the primary foreign policy goal for the U.S. and for nations across the globe should be the avoidance in the 21st Century of the carnage that we human beings have inflicted on each other in the 20th.

How can we move toward that goal? Three specific steps are required:

We should reduce the risk of conflict within and among nations by establishing a system of collective security which would have two objectives: the prevention of war and the termination of conflict in the event deterrence fails.

The system of collective security should place particular emphasis on limiting the risk of war between or among great powers.

To avoid the risk of destruction of nations, in the event collective security breaks down, we should redouble our efforts to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons.

The collective security regime should provide all states collective guarantees against external aggression - frontiers would not be changed by force. It should codify the rights of minorities and ethnic groups within states - the rights of Muslims in Bosnia, for example - and provide a process by which such groups who believe their rights have been violated may seek redress without resort to violence. It should establish a mechanism for resolution of both regional conflicts and conflicts within nations, without unilateral action by the great powers. Military force, other than in defence of national territory, would be used only in multilateral actions in accordance with agreed norms.

In sum, I believe we should strive to move towards a world in which relations among nations would be based on the rule of law, a world in which conflict-resolution and peace-keeping functions necessary to accomplish these objectives would be performed by multilateral organisations - a reorganised and strengthened United Nations and new and expanded regional organisations. I will have more to say on that in a moment. That is my vision of a system of collective security for the 21st Century. Such a vision is easier to articulate than to achieve. The goal is clear, but how to get there is not. And I have no magic formula, no simple road map to success.

* * *

The leadership role may shift among nations depending on the issue at hand: but more often than not no nation other than the U.S. will be capable of filling that role. However, it cannot succeed in such endeavour without the cooperation of other nations. And it will not receive that cooperation if it continues to act as though it was omniscient.

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Whenever the U.S. accepts leadership in such a multilateral context, it must accept collective decision-making - a concept its people are neither accustomed to nor comfortable with. And other nations must accept a sharing of the risks and costs: the political risks, the financial costs, and the risks of casualties.

* * *

In the post-Cold War world, operating under a system of collective security, nations - and, in particular, the great powers - should be clear about where, and how, they would apply military force. They clearly cannot and should not intervene in every conflict leading to the slaughter of innocent civilians. More than a dozen wars currently rage throughout the world. And other serious conflicts may soon break out elsewhere. Where, if at all, should the Great Powers and/or the United Nations be involved? Neither the United States nor any other Great Power has a clear answer to that question. The answers can be developed only through intense debate, over a period of years, within the U.S., among the other Great Powers, and in the councils of international organisations.

The rules governing response to aggression across national borders can be relatively simple and clear. But those relating to attempts to maintain or restore political order and prevent wholesale slaughter within nations - as, for instance, within Rwanda or Burundi - are far less so.

Who would make such decisions? Certainly not the U.S. alone as it has on many occasions. Certainly not NATO alone, as was the case in Kosovo. If not the U.S., and not NATO, who?

My answer is the U.N. Security Council. And if the Council is incapable of acting because of the veto power of one of the permanent members, then - until such time as the membership and voting procedures of the Council can be officially changed - I would urge we form a Shadow Security Council to be used solely for the authorisation of the application of external military force to deal with crimes against humanity. The membership of the Shadow Council could include the Council's existing members plus Germany, Japan, India, Nigeria and Brazil, for example. Its actions would be authorised by a qualified majority - say 70 per cent. No member or small group of members could exercise a veto.

* * *

If we are to achieve the objective of avoiding in the 21st Century the tragic loss of life we have just lived through, above all else, special emphasis must be placed on avoiding conflict among the Great Powers.

Excluding the end of the Cold War, I believed the two most important geo-political events of the past 50 years have been the reconciliation between France and Germany, after centuries of enmity, and the establishment of peaceful relations between Japan and the U.S. after one of the bloodiest conflicts in the modern era. It is inconceivable today that either Germany or Japan would engage in war with any of the great powers of the western world. Can we not move to integrate both Russia and China into the family of nations in ways that make war between them and the other Great Powers equally unlikely?

* * *

I turn now to the third of the three actions to which I urge immediate attention be directed: action to avoid the risk of destruction of nations, through the use of weapons of mass destruction, in particular, nuclear weapons, in the event that collective security breaks down.

Today, 10 years after the end of the Cold War, there are approximately 40,000 nuclear warheads in the world with a destructive power more than one million times greater than the bomb that flattened Hiroshima. We in the U.S. - and all other inhabitants of our globe - continue to live with the risk of nuclear destruction. The United States and NATO war plans provide for contingent use of nuclear weapons just as they have for the past 50 years. But I do not believe that the average American recognises that fact.

The end of the Cold War, along with the growing understanding of the lack of utility of nuclear weapons and of the high risk associated with their continued existence, points to both the opportunity and the urgency with which the world should re- examine the possession of nuclear weapons by any nation. We should begin with a broad public debate. I believe such a debate should open with a discussion of the moral issues relating to the use of the weapons. As I stated earlier, most political scientists and most security experts oppose introducing moral considerations into discussions of international relations and defence policy. But surely the human race should be prepared to accept that it is totally immoral for one nation, no matter what the provocation, to believe it - through its leader, acting alone - has the right to initiate action that will destroy another nation. And would it not be even more morally unacceptable if such action by one belligerent would destroy not only the other belligerent, but - through the spread of radioactive fallout - non-belligerent nations across the globe as well? Yet that would have been the result if either Russia or the U.S. had implemented the nuclear strategy that each nation has followed over 40 years and continues to follow today. It is going to be very difficult to change these nuclear policies without strong public pressure.

* * *

The five declared nuclear powers - China, Russia, Britain, France and the United States - should not only state their unequivocal political commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons, but should accompany that commitment with three immediate steps consistent with fulfilling it: first, the removal of all nuclear weapons from alert status: second, the separation of all nuclear warheads from their launch vehicles thereby greatly reducing the risk of accidental launch, and third, a declaration of 'No First Use' whatsoever against non-nuclear nations.

We have not even begun to move in that direction. We are unwilling to recognise two fundamental truths: that we can indeed "put the nuclear genie back in the bottle," and that if we do not, there is a substantial and unacceptable risk that the 21st Century will initiate a nuclear holocaust.

* * *

You may consider us alarmists. I fear we are not.The primary responsibility for reducing the risks we collectively face rests with the U.S.. But nearly every nation represented at this table - Germany, Great Britain. France, Norway, Japan, India, Israel, Russia, China, for example - has failed to do as much as it could do to contribute to that end.

(To be continued)

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