Reinventing Multilateralism
by Clifford Singer, James Walsh, and Dean Wilkening
“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.”
This quote from the constitution of UNESCO introduces the project website Reinventing Multilateralism. A study under the same name has been initiated by the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in May 2004. In the collaborative effort, ACDIS was joined by the Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) of the University of Illinois and many other U.S: academic organizations and individuals. The report Reinventing Multilateralism presents the study findings and is the first in a serious of four annual studies designed to support new U.S. administrations and the broader body politic in the process of “reinventing multilateralism”. Future studies will focus on biodefense and public health, homeland security and public safety, and foreign aid and security policy.
Executive Summary
The report Reinventing Multilateralism recommends policies for consideration by a new U.S. administration in dealing with security problems in three areas that have particularly strong technical components: securing nuclear materials, ensuring energy security, and using outer space to enhance security. Recommendations fall into two time frames: those for immediate action and those with goals to be accomplished by 2011.
Recommendations for immediate action are:
Implement the recommendations of the “Managing the Atom” project for securing nuclear materials.
Restructure U.S. military operations and foreign assistance for more effectiveness in Afghani reconstruction and other peacekeeping operations.
At the Geneva Conference on Disarmament, open discussions on preventing the creation of long-lived space debris through military action, begin negotiations on a cutoff of the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons, and initiate discussions in a working group on nuclear disarmament. Combined with the policies listed in the rest of this summary, these steps should lead to a broader moratorium on the production of nuclear weapons materials no later than 2011.
The “Managing the Atom” project recommendations call for a “global cleanout” to secure all nuclear weapons materials, appointment of both a U.S. and Russian official to lead efforts to secure nuclear materials, accelerated dismantlement of tactical nuclear weapons, and global cooperation on stolen nuclear materials. The key to conventional military restructuring is to assign support for reconstruction and peacekeeping operations no less importance and prestige than that given to large-scale battle. The Conference on Disarmament could help work out the details of an agreement that will lead, at a minimum, to a broader moratorium on the production of additional materials for nuclear weapons. Such a moratorium is related to the following longer-term targets for 2011:
Continue dismantlement of Russian nuclear warheads at the rate of at least a thousand a year and of U.S. nuclear “overbuild” until both countries attain the common level of strategic warheads specified for 2012 by the Moscow Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, plus a smaller number of spares and “nonstrategic” assembled nuclear explosives. Consider parallel unilateral commitments to further annual percentage reductions, as long as such reductions remain in each country's security interests and those of other countries that eventually would have to decrease their stockpiles to stay below a universal common upper limit.
Institute a set of energy security initiatives related to petroleum reserves, tax and depletion allowance readjustments, and incentives for developing energy-efficient technologies and alternatives to fluid fossil fuels as energy sources. By 2011 it should be a clearly formulated and stated policy of the United States that it will not unilaterally intervene with its military in any international or internal conflict solely or primarily for the purpose of influencing who has control over energy resources.
Undertake missile defense deployments and technology transfer only to the extent that they are costeffective compared with other security measures, and take into account the political costs with respect to China and other countries. Address security concerns about military use of space in international negotiations and avoid developing weapons in space and testing dedicated antisatellite weapons in the absence of a compelling and cost-effective net security advantage.
