Afghanistan. Un article du 4 janvier de Jason Straziuso, dans le Washington Post, « NATO Vows to Reduce Afghan Civilian Deaths » (l’OTAN s’engage à réduire les morts des civils afghans). Selon la correspondance de Kaboul, les officiels de l’OTAN expliquent que les forces de l’organisation ont tué trop de civils et allaient œuvrer pour changer les choses en 2007. Les accusations, qui ont été relayées par le président Karzai, affirment que des dizaines de civils ont été tués dans des bombardements aériens et dans des affrontements terrestres. Le porte-parole de l’OTAN a toutefois affirmé que « les talibans ont tué un nombre significatif de leur propre population et n’ont montré aucun remords ». En 2006, le pays a connu 117 attaques-suicides, cinq fois plus qu’en 2005, tuant 206 civils, 54 membres des forces de sécurité afghanes et 18 soldats de l’OTAN.
Hamas et Israël. Dans un article publié dans Le Monde diplomatique de janvier, Paul Delmotte s’intéresse au Hamas et à la reconnaissance d’Israël, et notamment sur l’évolution du mouvement islamiste depuis sa création en décembre 1987, au moment du déclenchement de la première Intifada jusqu’à son acceptation de participer aux élections législatives palestiniennes.
Un blog sur l’Arabie saoudite. Ce pays, un des plus influents du monde arabe, reste souvent méconnu, réduit à des caricatures, favorables ou hostiles. Pour essayer de mieux comprendre une société en pleine évolution, un nouveau blog tenu par Pascal Menoret, « Ethnographie politique de l’Arabie saoudite ». Pascal Menoret est un jeune chercheur vivant actuellement à Riyad et auteur du livre L’énigme saoudienne, La Découverte. Je signale aussi la nouvelle édition du livre d’Olivier Da Lage, Géopolitique de l’Arabie saoudite, Complexe, Bruxelles.
Pour un désarmement nucléaire intégral.
Dans une tribune publiée le 4 janvier dans The Wall Street Journal, quatre anciens hauts responsables américains, les anciens secrétaires d’Etat Henry Kissinger et George Shultz, l’ancien secrétaire à la défense William Perry et l’ancien président de la commission des forces armées du Sénat Sam Nunn, appellent les Etats-Unis à tout faire pour l’élimination des armes nucléaires. Sous le titre « A World Free Of Nuclear Weapons » (un monde libéré des armes nucléaires) (accessible seulement aux abonnés, je le publie en anglais en texte intégral plus bas), les quatre responsables rappellent que « les armes nucléaires ont été un élément essentiel pour maintenir la sécurité internationale durant la guerre froide car elles étaient un élément de dissuasion ». Mais, désormais, « il est loin d’être certain que nous pouvons reproduire le vieux modèle soviéto-américains de la "destruction mutuelle assurée", avec le nombre croissant d’ennemis à travers le monde pouvant devenir des puissances nucléaires, sans accroître considérablement le risque d’utilisation des armes nucléaires ».
Les quatre responsables appellent les Etats-Unis à « un effort intensif avec les dirigeants des pays possédant l’arme nucléaire pour faire de l’objectif d’un monde libéré des armes nucléaires un but commun. Une telle entreprise commune (...) devrait permettre d’accroître le poids des efforts actuels pour éviter l’émergence d’une Corée du Nord ou d’un Iran atomique ». Parmi les mesures proposées : réduire le nombre d’armes nucléaires dans chaque pays : éliminer les armes atomiques destinées à être utilisées sur le champ de bataille ; bannir progressivement le commerce civil d’uranium hautement enrichi ; etc.
Ce n’est pas la voie choisie par l’administration américaine, puisque The New York Times d’aujourd’hui 7 janvier annonce que « U. S. Selecting Hybrid Design for Warheads » : pour la première fois depuis vingt ans, les Etats-Unis s’apprêtent à constuire des têtes nucléaires d’un nouveau type.
Le texte intégral en anglais
A World Free Of Nuclear Weapons
By George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn
Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage — to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.
Nuclear weapons were essential to maintaining international security during the Cold War because they were a means of deterrence. The end of the Cold War made the doctrine of mutual Soviet-American deterrence obsolete. Deterrence continues to be a relevant consideration for many states with regard to threats from other states. But reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.
North Korea’s recent nuclear test and Iran’s refusal to stop its program to enrich uranium — potentially to weapons grade — highlight the fact that the world is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era. Most alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing. In today’s war waged on world order by terrorists, nuclear weapons are the ultimate means of mass devastation. And non-state terrorist groups with nuclear weapons are conceptually outside the bounds of a deterrent strategy and present difficult new security challenges.
Apart from the terrorist threat, unless urgent new actions are taken, the U.S. soon will be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence. It is far from certain that we can successfully replicate the old Soviet-American "mutually assured destruction" with an increasing number of potential nuclear enemies world-wide without dramatically increasing the risk that nuclear weapons will be used. New nuclear states do not have the benefit of years of step-by-step safeguards put in effect during the Cold War to prevent nuclear accidents, misjudgments or unauthorized launches. The United States and the Soviet Union learned from mistakes that were less than fatal. Both countries were diligent to ensure that no nuclear weapon was used during the Cold War by design or by accident. Will new nuclear nations and the world be as fortunate in the next 50 years as we were during the Cold War ?
Leaders addressed this issue in earlier times. In his "Atoms for Peace" address to the United Nations in 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower pledged America’s "determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma — to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life." John F. Kennedy, seeking to break the logjam on nuclear disarmament, said, "The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution."
Rajiv Gandhi, addressing the U.N. General Assembly on June 9, 1988, appealed, "Nuclear war will not mean the death of a hundred million people. Or even a thousand million. It will mean the extinction of four thousand million : the end of life as we know it on our planet earth. We come to the United Nations to seek your support. We seek your support to put a stop to this madness."
Ronald Reagan called for the abolishment of "all nuclear weapons," which he considered to be "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization." Mikhail Gorbachev shared this vision, which had also been expressed by previous American presidents.
Although Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev failed at Reykjavik to achieve the goal of an agreement to get rid of all nuclear weapons, they did succeed in turning the arms race on its head. They initiated steps leading to significant reductions in deployed long- and intermediate-range nuclear forces, including the elimination of an entire class of threatening missiles.
What will it take to rekindle the vision shared by Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev ? Can a world-wide consensus be forged that defines a series of practical steps leading to major reductions in the nuclear danger ? There is an urgent need to address the challenge posed by these two questions.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) envisioned the end of all nuclear weapons. It provides (a) that states that did not possess nuclear weapons as of 1967 agree not to obtain them, and (b) that states that do possess them agree to divest themselves of these weapons over time. Every president of both parties since Richard Nixon has reaffirmed these treaty obligations, but non-nuclear weapon states have grown increasingly skeptical of the sincerity of the nuclear powers.
Strong non-proliferation efforts are under way. The Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Additional Protocols are innovative approaches that provide powerful new tools for detecting activities that violate the NPT and endanger world security. They deserve full implementation. The negotiations on proliferation of nuclear weapons by North Korea and Iran, involving all the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Japan, are crucially important. They must be energetically pursued.
But by themselves, none of these steps are adequate to the danger. Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev aspired to accomplish more at their meeting in Reykjavik 20 years ago — the elimination of nuclear weapons altogether. Their vision shocked experts in the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, but galvanized the hopes of people around the world. The leaders of the two countries with the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons discussed the abolition of their most powerful weapons.
What should be done ? Can the promise of the NPT and the possibilities envisioned at Reykjavik be brought to fruition ? We believe that a major effort should be launched by the United States to produce a positive answer through concrete stages.
First and foremost is intensive work with leaders of the countries in possession of nuclear weapons to turn the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint enterprise. Such a joint enterprise, by involving changes in the disposition of the states possessing nuclear weapons, would lend additional weight to efforts already under way to avoid the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran.
The program on which agreements should be sought would constitute a series of agreed and urgent steps that would lay the groundwork for a world free of the nuclear threat. Steps would include :
• Changing the Cold War posture of deployed nuclear weapons to increase warning time and thereby reduce the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon.
• Continuing to reduce substantially the size of nuclear forces in all states that possess them.
• Eliminating short-range nuclear weapons designed to be forward-deployed.
• Initiating a bipartisan process with the Senate, including understandings to increase confidence and provide for periodic review, to achieve ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, taking advantage of recent technical advances, and working to secure ratification by other key states.
• Providing the highest possible standards of security for all stocks of weapons, weapons-usable plutonium, and highly enriched uranium everywhere in the world.
• Getting control of the uranium enrichment process, combined with the guarantee that uranium for nuclear power reactors could be obtained at a reasonable price, first from the Nuclear Suppliers Group and then from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or other controlled international reserves. It will also be necessary to deal with proliferation issues presented by spent fuel from reactors producing electricity.
• Halting the production of fissile material for weapons globally ; phasing out the use of highly enriched uranium in civil commerce and removing weapons-usable uranium from research facilities around the world and rendering the materials safe.
• Redoubling our efforts to resolve regional confrontations and conflicts that give rise to new nuclear powers.
Achieving the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons will also require effective measures to impede or counter any nuclear-related conduct that is potentially threatening to the security of any state or peoples.
Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage. The effort could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations. Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair or urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible.
We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal, beginning with the measures outlined above.
Mr. Shultz, a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Mr. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Kissinger, chairman of Kissinger Associates, was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Mr. Nunn is former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
A conference organized by Mr. Shultz and Sidney D. Drell was held at Hoover to reconsider the vision that Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev brought to Reykjavik. In addition to Messrs. Shultz and Drell, the following participants also endorse the view in this statement : Martin Anderson, Steve Andreasen, Michael Armacost, William Crowe, James Goodby, Thomas Graham Jr., Thomas Henriksen, David Holloway, Max Kampelman, Jack Matlock, John McLaughlin, Don Oberdorfer, Rozanne Ridgway, Henry Rowen, Roald Sagdeev and Abraham Sofaer.
