|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
World Peace Accountability: A Proposal for Broadening East-West Dialogue
| Article
# : |
12529 |
|
|
Section : |
Modern Thought
|
| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1987 |
4,697 Words |
| Author
: |
John Norton Moore
John Norton Moore is Walter L. Brown Professor of Law at
the University of Virginia. Formerly he served as counselor
on international law to the Department of State, as a U.S.
ambassador, as a member of the U.S. delegation to the
Athens round of the Helsinki process, and as chairman of
the American Bar Association Standing Committee on
Law and National Security. |
For a quarter-century the focus of East-West dialogue has been arms control, primarily control of strategic nuclear arms. This has produced such achievements as the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty and the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which at least slowed down the rate of the spread of nuclear arms. The potential of a nuclear Armageddon means that nuclear arms control will and should remain an important focus of East-West dialogue.
A powerful case can be made, however, that this near-total focus--indeed preoccupation--with strategic nuclear arms has failed to prevent a deterioration in world order and even lessened chances of agreement on nuclear arms. We end the quarter-century of SALT/START/Geneva talks with four times more deliverable nuclear warheads targeted on America than when we began. The conventional military balance in Europe is as unstable as it was when these arms talks began. The massive Soviet deployment of triple-warhead SS-20 intermediate-range and newer shorter-range nuclear missiles has added a new destabilizing element. Despite recurrent episodes of détente, tension between the United States and the Soviet Union seems almost as high in 1987 as in 1962.
Most ominously, the quarter-century has produced a dramatic increase in terrorism, guerilla warfare, and "low-intensity" or "secret" warfare. It is also a period that produced the Vietnam War, the fourth most serious in American history in terms of casualties. The Vietnam War was initially a secret war, but it became a classic invasion following the 1973 Paris Accords, when North Vietnam openly invaded South Vietnam with twenty-two armored divisions. The Afghanistan and Central American conflicts further illustrate the decline in world order. Sadly, this period also has witnessed an accelerating deterioration in institutions for the maintenance of world order, such as the United Nations, The International Court of Justice, the Organization of American States, and even in the democratic alliance systems, such as NATO and the South East Asian Treaty Organization.
Given this record, as world problems outstrip the important but modest record of East-West dialogue focused on nuclear arms control, it may be prudent to examine whether that dialogue should be broadened to include issues beyond arms control, and, indeed, whether arms control--particularly nuclear arms control--should be the centerpiece of the new broadened dialogue. I believe the case is strong that the United States and the other democratic nations should carefully broaden the range of East-West dialogue to include a variety of issues central to world order, creating a context that
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
