CIDOB tackles the nuclear debate in East-West Dialogue

"Shireen Mazari, Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, declared that “the international regime of nuclear non-proliferation needs a non-discriminatory approache” during The Nuclear Debate, a session organised jointly by the CIDOB Foundation's Asia Programme and Casa Asia as part of the 4th East-West Dialogue, an event which this year focused on human security. Moderated by Charles Powell, Deputy Director of Research and Analysis at the Real Instituto Elcano, The Nuclear Debate was also attended by Hong-Koo Lee, ex-Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea; William J. Perry, ex-Defense Secretary of the United States; Hitoshi Tanaka, ex-Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan; and Pere Vilanova, Professor of Political Science at the University of Barcelona. 

The debate session placed the focus once again on an issue that has enormous importance for international policy, as well as highlighting one of its major paradigms: the permanent dilemma between the principle of equality and the effective hierarchy of power. Opening the session's programme, Hong-Koo Lee, ex-Prime Minister of Korea, stated that North Korea may aspire to possessing atomic weapons to counteract the economic imbalance on the peninsula. Lee also claimed that North Korea would have to be persuaded not to take this path. The Korean ex-Prime Minister stressed that in Pyongyang (North Korea) a great sense of insecurity existed with respect to the survival of the country’s political system. Finally, Lee declared that China's decision to become part of the international market was a positive contribution to world peace. Meanwhile, Shireen Mazari criticised the way in which the current regime of non-proliferation has been used against certain countries ─ and particularly Islamic nations ─ since the 11 September attacks. 

Continuing with this theme, the Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad claimed that the recent agreements between India and the United States have destabilised relations between India and Pakistan. Furthermore, Mazari proposed that India and Pakistan be included in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in spite of the fact that they are nuclear powers. In addition, she said that she considered the threat of the use of nuclear weapons by terrorist groups to be exaggerated. The latter point was refuted by the ex-Defense Secretary of the United States, William J. Perry, who called for new policies within the framework of the UN, as well as for a return to a vision of a world free from all nuclear weapons. Perry, who was personally involved in the dismantling of large nuclear arsenals, such as that of Ukraine, as well as in the successful initial negotiations with North Korea, warned of the danger that it would represent if a terrorist group got hold of one of the tens of thousands of existing nuclear weapons. 

Perry claimed that this danger should be placed at the top of the list of current threats, along with a return to a new Cold War, natural disasters and the rise of fundamentalism in the Islamic world. Hitoshi Tanaka, ex-Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, referred once again to the nuclear argument as being a guarantee for North Korea security, a country that feels doubly threatened given that George W. Bush sees it as forming part of an ""axis of evil"". Tanaka declared that he was sure that Japan would not enter into the “nuclear race”to remain well-integrated within the international system, and added that fear of the exterior was aggravating North Korean trepidation. The Japanese ex-Minister claimed that in order to solve this problem, the negative perception of security itself would have to be resolved, by applying policies of patience and understanding. Tanaka also called for the United States to sit down and negotiate with Iran, a country that should also gain the trust of the world if it refrained from evading the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as from denying that behind the civil development of nuclear energy might lie the intention of having greater access to rapid production of nuclear weapons. 

Finally, Pere Vilanova declared that priority should once again be given to the issue of nuclear weapons, and that even if they are not used, they are deployed on a wide scale and are very effective as political instruments. The Professor of Political Science from the University of Barcelona went on to examine the elements of continuity and change in 60 years of the existence of nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, and returning to the point raised by Mazari, Vilanova said that he considered that the dual morality between the principle of equality and the hierarchy of power ─ a paradigm that pervades the regime of non-proliferation ─ is inherent to the very international system and to international rights, based as they are on Nation-States. In the absence of any improvement in international regulations, Vilanova claimed that pragmatic arrangements were necessary, such as the regionalisation of negotiations with North Korea. The Professor from the UB also said he was concerned by the dismantling of the existing system, which could be a consequence of the arms build-up dialectic of George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, and their struggle to maintain their share of power on the international stage."