Lifting the nuclear shadow
Thank you very much and I'll use this occasion to say a word about your role in a debate that I think is maturing very fast and a debate that goes to the heart of our future as, as a planet, and as people. And I was reading that when you first came in to public service, you were thrust in to not exactly the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, but at least in the debates around the Cuban missile crisis. And then throughout your career, ultimately as Permanent Secretary at the MoD you displayed a really outstanding commitment to public service, but also to a pursuit of real analysis, real fact and the fact that you’ve then used your years of retirement to move in to some very interesting work around the ethics of the issues that we're discussing, not just the policy details, I think speaks precisely to that spirit and I feel very, very honoured and privileged to be able to be here with you to discuss this pamphlet and the ideas (indistinct).
There is no more evocative image for any of us than the mushroom cloud. Anyone who grew up in the 1980s as I did will remember that as the generation of the 1960s saw this as a defining issue and again in the 1980s and the question that is at the heart of the pamphlet that we’re publishing. The debate that I think is taking off internationally and I’ll say a word about the discussions that I had yesterday with Secretary Clinton, with National Security Advisor Jones as well, a debate that I think is going to be given new impetus by the Obama administration, is that it raises absolutely fundamental questions about safety and security in a world whose dimensions has changed profoundly since the Cold War for which many of the current doctrines were developed and on which much current thinking depends.
I want to start with something that John F Kennedy reflected on in the early 1960s when he started talking about the Non Proliferation Treaty, because as I’ve got in to this issue over the last eighteen months or two years, it struck me as particularly important and significant. What President Kennedy said in the early 1960s was that by 1980, 1990 (indistinct) feared that there would be forty or fifty countries in the world with the scientific know how and the wealth to have a nuclear weapon. And he said that was a very, very dangerous prospect. It was a recipe for instability and actually for war.
And his conception of the Non Proliferation Treaty was that it should provide a bulwark against that sort of race, the ultimate arms’ race. And I think that it’s important therefore, in that context to recognise the successes of the Non Proliferation Treaty. I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say it’s the most successful international Treaty that has been developed. But it has been signally successful in averting the development that President Kennedy feared.
And I’d almost say it’s almost been too successful because they came, there was a period I think in the 1990s when people almost came to a view that the nuclear debate was over. In my view what was ended by the end of the Cold War was the debate between multilateral disarmament and unilateral disarmament. What was not resolved is how you make multilateral disarmament work. And I think that’s at the heart of the questions that we are talking about today because of course multilateral disarmament is the flip side.
But I think we should, as we have this debate, try and learn the lessons of the Non Proliferation Treaty. The context in which we do so is one of serious (indistinct) actually, but also significant opportunity. The threat is obvious, that more people and more countries are seeking the ultimate weapon and that in the case of North Korea people will know about the critical stage of the six party talks at the moment, and in respect of the Iranian nuclear programme the other present (indistinct) non proliferation regime, the engagement of the Obama administration in the multi (indistinct) E3 plus three and what the IAEA have shown about the progress that Iran has made in respect of its nuclear, uranium enrichment programme, mean that we’re at a very critical moment. But we’re also at a moment of opportunity and I suppose that every foreign policy speech by any Foreign Minister anywhere in the world at the moment says that the Obama administration creates an opportunity. But in this case it’s true.
Let me just quote what President Obama said. He said 'new direction in nuclear weapons policy and show the world that America believes in its existing commitment under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty to work ultimately to eliminate all nuclear arms'. That is a very radical statement for a new President of the United States to say. It’s significant that President Sarkozy speaking on behalf of the European Union, but also as the President of France, a nuclear power, should have the opportunity (indistinct) safer world, one in which it’s possible to meet all the objectives that are enshrined in the NPT.
And that of course builds on the quite remarkable series of essays done by George Shultz, Henry Kissinger and others and that are being taken forward in institutes like the IISS. And I do pay tribute to the work that’s being done in this institute which has taken the boldness of the idea and taken it seriously enough to think how we would we actually do it. And so the disarmament programme that’s been led, that has been led from (indistinct) is now at the heart of an international debate that I think is getting in to the guts of these issues in a very, very serious way.
And what we are trying to do today, I think I should make clear is (indistinct) that debate with a very specific purpose in mind. And that purpose is not policy, it’s a different purpose. Henry Kissinger once said that an idea born in the heads of a few and carried in the hearts of none has no chance of success. He was talking about foreign policy. And I think that applies to this issue perhaps above all others. It’s an issue where there’s a great temptation for it to be kept in the heads of the few, but actually the ethic (indistinct) say to me that it’s a paramount issue where you actually want more debate, rather than less.
And that’s why we’re using this issue to launch this Foreign Office document which is an attempt to try and engage in a wider public debate than usually happens, especially on this issue. And the goals are important. I just want to refer you back to those two quotations from President Obama and from President Sarkozy. All the goals of the Non Proliferation Treaty, those three goals at the heart of the (indistinct) disarmament, to work for non proliferation and to work for the safe use of nuclear power are the three foundation stones of our policy on this and when people say isn’t it wildly radical to, for President Obama or for the British Government to a world without nuclear weapons it’s often quite startling when you say to people well actually that’s what signing the Non Proliferation Treaty enjoins you to do. And sometimes people don’t read the treaties that they quote and I think it’s important that we in this case do.
What we sketch out in the, in the document is, is what we believe are the six key steps that are necessary (indistinct) the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, but to begin to create the conditions for that goal to be seriously engaged. And I’ll just run through them briefly and then we’ll have a chance for wider discussions.
The first is to prevent proliferation. That speaks directly to the nuclear issue of the moment. I think it is very welcome indeed that the United States should be seeking to enter the multilateral debate about the Iranian nuclear programme and also discussing its own bilateral engagement with the Iranian Government. I think that we have said for a long time that this is a vital issue, not just for the Middle East ,which has more than enough problems without a nuclear arms race, but also for the global integrity of the Non Proliferation Treaty and so I think it’s right that we put at the heart and at the start of our approach the need to counter proliferation.
Second issue which is important because there are important links here, the growth of civilian nuclear power seems to me to be essential to meet not just the energy needs, but the climate change requirements that countries (indistinct) but that expansion of civilian nuclear power needs to be done according what I would call the gold standard of safety and security. And I think that the way in which countries like the UAE have pursued their own civilian nuclear power programme with the utmost transparency, the utmost determination to meet the higher standards of safety and security and the utmost determination to work with international bodies is a very, very important signal of the way things should proceed in the future.
A third area is the need and the benefit of the United States and Russia re-engaging to achieve dramatic cuts in their own nuclear stockpiles. You will have seen the commitments of President Obama in this area, not leas with the people he’s appointing to key posts. (Indistinct) in the public debate that figures like eighty per cent are being, eighty per cent reduction are being bandied around. It’s in the public debate that a thousand warheads seems like a round number. These are very, very dramatic changes that I think are very, very welcome and I very much hope that they will be taken forward.
The fourth area is something that we’ve talked about for a long time in this country and I think have become a bit blasé about and that is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. I believe that (indistinct) been stuck on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for quite a lot time, has, has really sapped the hope from many people who are committed to this agenda. I think that the reinvigoration of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty through the commitment of the Obama administration in this respect is very, very significant and suffice to say that when our Chinese visitors were in London over the weekend, Premier Wen and Foreign Minister Yang, there’s a lot of interest around the world in the fact that the United States wants to re-engage on the CTBT issue.
The fifth issue is progress on the Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty which as many of you will know it’s currently, discussion of that is blocked by Pakistan and Iran. I think the fact that it’s blocked shouldn’t lead us to drop it off our agenda because if we can’t make progress in that area we’re going to not be able to meet our challenge of creating the right conditions for longer term (indistinct).
And then there is a sixth set of issues which are about the practicalities of moving to zero, of disarmament, of verification. (Indistinct) we really do need a lot of expertise. It’s fine for politicians to set goals, but we need very detailed work (indistinct) in to practice and I think that the UK can claim to be at the leading edge of this debate in trying to promote a very serious debate around the world on some of those most difficult verification issues.
I was asked to speak for ten minutes and not to give a long lecture and I fear that my ten minutes, there isn’t a big clock somewhere nor a red light flashing, but I have a sense that my ten minutes may be just about up. But I want to just end by on, on the relationship between disarmament and non proliferation because there are important links. One is the obvious debating point that (indistinct) how can you urge other countries not to proliferate when there are nuclear weapon states. The answer to which is that’s the heart of the Non Proliferation Treaty, which in many ways I see as a (indistinct) security treaty. And there are responsibilities on nuclear weapons states to fulfil their obligations under the Treaty, but there are also obligations on non nuclear weapons states.
But I think one can also turn the debate around, which is to say that when countries like Britain do achieve a seventy five per cent reduction in our warheads which has happened in this country over the last fifteen years, when countries like the United States do commit to substantial reductions in their own arsenals we are fulfilling an important part of our responsibilities, but we’re also doing something else. We’re also showing that we’re serious and (indistinct) forty or so years after the signatures of the Non Proliferation Treaty it is time that we are serious. And one way we show this is by bold commitments, the other way we show that we’re serious is by serious thought, serious debate and serious dialogue. And that is what this pamphlet is intended to, to promote, and it’s what this meeting is intended to develop.
So thank you for coming and I very much look forward to the debate and the discussion. Thank you very much.
