PRESS RELEASE

8 May 2000

Will the Generals Avoid the Bomb?

NATO, Russian, European chiefs of staff meet in Brussels

Top generals meet May 9-10 at NATO in a series of meetings also involving non-NATO members such as Russia, Ukraine, and Sweden.  It is unclear, however, whether they will face up to any of the key military issues being negotiated by their nations’ diplomats in the NPT nuclear disarmament conference in New York. 

Many nations, including the developing countries of the Non-Aligned Movement as well as the New Agenda states (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden), are demanding that Russia and NATO talk to each other about reducing and eliminating so-called 'tactical' nuclear arms. But despite the presence of the U.S. and Russian chiefs of staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton and Col.-Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin, the NATO-Russia talks are confined to peacekeeping in the Balkans.  Ten years after the Cold War ended, nuclear issues are deemed too tough to tackle. 

Russia and NATO members also have been widely criticized at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York for still being prepared, in theory, to start a nuclear war.  Most nations are seeking a legal guarantee from Moscow, Washington and their fellow Nuclear Weapon States that they will never do this. Sweden is among the countries leading this argument, and its chief of staff will be represented in Brussels at the May 10 meeting of NATO chiefs with their European partners. 

Non-nuclear nations further have used the NPT conference to highlight their long-time concerns about NATO’s plans for sharing U.S. nuclear weapons.  NATO members Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey, all legally classed as Non-Nuclear Weapon States, could have access in wartime to some of the 180 American nuclear free-fall bombs stored in Europe.

Abdul S. Minty, deputy director-general for multilateral affairs at South Africa’s Foreign Ministry, told the NPT conference, that “the compliance implications of nuclear sharing” at NATO “contradict, and are counterproductive to, the achievement of the NPT’s objectives.”   

It remains unclear if the nuclear questions being raised in New York will even be noticed at NATO headquarters this week.  In fact, NATO has been debating a secret new military doctrine, known as MC400/2,  that could instead expand the role of nuclear weapons in allied war planning. There continue to be conflicting accounts from official sources, however, as to whether this document will provide for using nuclear weapons against chemical and biological attacks.   

"Given the fundamental shift in strategic approach by the United States as it contemplates a missile defense network, and the need for NATO to finish work on how the allies can work to control arms proliferation, it is premature for NATO to be re-affirming its old nuclear war plan let alone agreeing new nuclear missions" said Dan Plesch, Director of BASIC.

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