Beitrag zur Konferenz „Eurasische Sicherheit in einer sich wandelnden Welt“ vom 25./26. Oktober 2023 in Minsk.
Am vergangenen Donnerstag und Freitag fand unter der Leitung des belarussischen Außenministers Sergej Aleinik in Minsk eine Konferenz zum Thema eurasischer Sicherheit statt. Prominenteste Teilnehmer waren die Außenminister Russlands und Ungarns, Sergej Lawrow und Peter Szijjarto (1).
Aus der Schweiz nahmen der Direktor des Genfer Zentrums für Sicherheitspolitik, Botschafter Thomas Greminger, Martin Schüepp vom Internationalen Komitee des Roten Kreuzes und Guy Mettan vom Genfer Kantonsparlament teil. Mit von der Partie war auch Alexej Gromyko, der Enkel des als „Mr. Nyet“ bekanntgewordenen sowjetischen Außenministers Andrej Gromyko.
Die Konferenz war seitens der belarussischen Gastgeber gedacht als Forum, das eine Übersicht verschaffen sollte über die unterschiedlichen Auffassungen über die Lage auf unserem Kontinent und als Plattform für sogenannte „Track-Two-Diplomatie“, d.h. für Gespräche zwischen nicht-offiziellen Vertretern aus Ost und West. Deshalb bestand das Gros der Teilnehmer aus Experten verschiedener Bereiche, mit mehr oder weniger Nähe zu ihren Regierungen.
Russland und seine Verbündeten in Eurasien
In der Diskussionsrunde über nukleare Sicherheit kamen zwei Politologen aus Russland zu Wort, denen enge Kontakte zum Kreml nachgesagt werden: Wladimir Orlow und der erwähnte Alexej Gromyko. In dieser Diskussion bekräftigte der kasachische Vertreter die Absicht seines Landes, auch weiterhin auf den Besitz von Kernwaffen zu verzichten, während Prof. Heinz Gärtner von der Universität Wien für eine Welt ohne Kernwaffen und für sogenannte „negative Sicherheitsgarantien“ warb. Diese bestehen unter anderem darin, dass Atommächte versprechen, nicht-nukleare Mächte nicht anzugreifen.
Wir müssen uns heute dessen bewusst sein, dass die aktuellen Voraussetzungen für Rüstungskontrollverhandlungen ganz andere sind, als seinerzeit im Kalten Krieg und sollten uns hüten, in ein Minenfeld zu gehen, ohne den Weg daraus zurück zu kennen.
Statement aus der neutralen Ecke
Im Verlauf der Konferenz erhielt der Verfasser die Gelegenheit, sich zu den veränderten Rahmenbedingungen strategischer Abschreckung und insbesondere zu einer neuen Kategorie von Waffen zu äußern:
„Let me start by reminding you of the fact that the country I am living in, i.e. Switzerland stopped the development of own nuclear weapons in 1966 already. So, we are a little bit in a situation like Kazakhstan after 1994.
One would actually think that President Putin’s recent words in his speech about the use – or rather non-use – of nuclear weapons to the Valdai Club about three weeks ago were clear enough. Apart from the fact that this speech received little attention in the Western media, the discussion about Russia’s alleged nuclear threats against Western Europe continues. Sometimes I have the suspicion that a chain of arguments is being systematically built up, at the end of which a nuclear threat from the West against Russia is to be justified and the leadership of the Russian armed forces is to be persuaded that it is their duty to protect Russia from a nuclear war by eliminating President Putin.
But perhaps the topic needs to be expanded a little: There is certainly now fear in Europe of a new nuclear arms race, and the capitals are already tempted to revive old recipes from the Cold War, when the West defeated the Soviet Union with the help of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative by pushing it into economic collapse. At least that’s how they see it in the West until today. But the external conditions of rivalry between the great powers are different today. The path to the new Cold War is a path into the unknown. Walking into a minefield without knowing the way back out was never a good idea.
A new factor in the situation today is multipolarity. During the Cold War, there were two players in the world capable of waging thermonuclear war. In comparison to the Cold War, new, partly non-state actors have entered the world political stage. While during the Cold War the superpowers still had a monopoly on important areas of technology, today these are available to many countries. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, satellites and other important technological assets can now be found in the arsenals of many other actors in world politics. In addition, drones, „Artificial Intelligence“ and other technologies have emerged in which the former Cold War superpowers are not always leaders. A fundamental uncertainty is that it is difficult to predict how uninvolved nuclear powers will behave in case two nuclear powers engage in a nuclear exchange.
The cornerstone of nuclear deterrence in the Cold War was Mutual Assured Destruction through nuclear weapons. In recent months we have seen the massive use of an entire arsenal of standoff weapons of various types in the war in Ukraine. It is not so much improved conventional warheads, but increased precision of stand-off weapons through modern navigation devices that make it possible to replace nuclear warheads with conventional ones. Of course, it is important to consider what happens if the opponents deliberately attack the other side’s navigation systems in an exchange of blows. This doesn’t necessarily have to include shooting down navigation satellites. I experienced it myself when the OSCE drones were used in Ukraine: GPS jamming and spoofing was carried out on a daily basis. If the basis for the precision control of stand-off weapons no longer works, will the opponents resort to nuclear warheads again? Nobody can know for sure. Added to this is the uncertainty of how a state will react if it is attacked with non-nuclear strategic weapons.
Bild: Teilnehmer an der Diskussion über Kernwaffen und eurasische Sicherheit. V.l.n.r. Askar Nursha (Institut für strategische Studien Kasachstan), Prof. Heinz Gärtner (Universität Wien), Alexej Gromyko (Europa-Institut der Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften) und der Verfasser.
Quelle BELTA (2)
The early phase of the Cold War in particular was characterized by a certain carelessness in the use of nuclear weapons, which manifested itself particularly in above-ground tests and even in exercises involving army troops. It was only in the 1980s that it was realized that the use of large numbers of nuclear weapons would cause a „nuclear winter“ that would destroy the livelihoods of all humanity within months. Mutual Assured Destruction would have been guaranteed even if a large number of nuclear warheads had exploded far outside populated areas. Nobody can say exactly how many nuclear warheads would trigger a nuclear winter.
During the Cold War, the doctrine discussion was dominated by the terms of Counter-Force and Counter-Value. The latter in particular is based on the considerations from the interwar period, when the warring parties saw the destruction of population centres as the key to victory. People like Hugh Trenchard, Arthur Harris, Billy Mitchell and Giulio Douhet were the protagonists of these ideas. We shouldn’t go back to this anachronistic nonsense.
Over the past three decades, US Colonel John Warden’s doctrine of strategic air strike appears to have become the universal recipe for assured victory. I consider the universal application of his doctrine to be as militaristic as the Schlieffen Plan of 1914 in Imperial Germany. The pessimistic assessment of ground-based air defence and the belief in the effectiveness of stealth fighter aircraft and precision-guided bombs form the pillars of Warden’s doctrine. In my opinion, these fundamentals are rather shaky. The same applies to missile defence, which formed the basis of Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program.
We may have to get used to living in a kind of permanent Cuban Missile Crisis. But today, nuclear weapons are no longer the only category of weapons that can have a strategically significant impact. Perhaps we should think about non-nuclear strategic weapons and not focus on nuclear weapons too early – not to intimidate other countries according to the Warden Doctrine, but to preserve our independence in making our policies. Actually, there should now be room for manoeuvre for nuclear disarmament. Talks on this may have the chance to restore some of the trust that is necessary to bring the conflict around and in Ukraine to an end.
So, I am advertising for thinking about non-nuclear strategic deterrence, the means of which could become the weapons-category of the future. If we want to be a step ahead of developments in technology and doctrine we must start to think about these things now.„
Die Zukunft der strategischen Abschreckung
Die heutige Technologie schafft neue Möglichkeiten und die doktrinalen Ansichten über den Einsatz militärischer Macht generell sind andere, sodass man den Einsatz von Kernwaffen gegen Bevölkerungszentren im Rahmen einer sogenannten „Counter-Value-Strategie“ als anachronistischen Unsinn betrachten kann. Die Zukunft der nuklearen strategischen Abschreckung ist vielleicht die nicht-nukleare – und damit hoffentlich deren Ablösung.
Anmerkungen:
- Die Eröffnungsreden sind veröffentlicht auf YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE-zV0AXH5Q.
- Online unter https://www.belta.by/uploads/lotus/news/2023/000020_0D7DDC48CEBB43E643258A550039BF3E_980127.jpg.
- Titelbild: TheDigitalArtist, War, online unter https://pixabay.com/illustrations/war-destruction-apocalypse-4749974/
