BLIX'S FIX: HANS BLIX DISCUSSES DISARMAMENT

Hans Blix acknowledges he’s been disparagingly called “a peacenik,” “a pacifist,” or “an idealist” but he sees his arguments in favor of disarmament as practical ones.

“There’s not much talk about disarmament today,” conceded the chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC) and Director General Emeritus, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a Harris School address to an audience of approximately 150 University students, alumni, faculty, and others in March. Referring to Al Gore’s environmental awareness film, Blix noted that “another inconvenient truth is that arms races are taking place despite the end of the Cold War.”

In his lecture—“Time for a Revival of Disarmament?”—and the question and answer session that followed, he outlined the state of current global arms races, what the world is trying to do to reduce the threat, and what more it could be doing.

Drawing on a recent WMDC report, Blix remarked that growing globalization is making war less likely. For instance, he said, armed conflicts have dropped down now to 25, from more than 50 in the 1990s, and the number of people killed in battle down to a 100-year low. “The greater proximity between nations and their accelerated interdependence are factors that make active multinational cooperation indispensable,” he said.

However the world is still, “sleepwalking into new arms races,” Blix said, quoting former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Although Blix conceded terrorist groups continue to emerge, he posited that “defeating them calls for improved international cooperation between governments and police, and perhaps helicopters and ground forces, but not aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons.”

Accelerated world interdependence and a realization of the “horrific economic burden” of military expenditures ($1.3 billion worldwide), necessitates new discussions of disarmament, he argued. “It should be possible, with political will, to move the world towards disarmament. It will reduce the threat of nuclear war by design or by accident and it will save enormous resources.”

Although he acknowledged hopes of disarmament have been dashed time and time again, Blix’s WMDC has proposed changes that might lead to new peace. One idea is to be more inclusive with “states of concern” rather than isolating them from the international community.

Additionally, nuclear weapon states must set an example. Right now the United States and the United Kingdom are developing or testing weapons even as they condemn North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Iraq for the same. The solution is to aim for “a rules-based system, applicable to all states, rather than double and multiple standards.”

While Blix didn’t expect change to happen overnight, his essential argument for disarmament was a blunt one: “The more nuclear weapons you have in more countries, and the more fingers you have on triggers, the more dangerous it is.”

Jenn Q. Goddu

For more information on the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), visit www.wmdcommission.org/. For more information on International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), visit www.iaea.org/.