Disarmament & Globalisation: Old & New Wisdoms

Around the time that the Wall Street Journal published a well-received and watershed opinion-editorial by Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Charles Schultz and others signalling a potential new beginning in nuclear disarmament public policy, a new project emerged—entitled ‘Disarmament and Globalisation’—based at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, United Kingdom. As was reported on this blog later in 2007, momentum picked up in June when the UK Foreign Secretary echoed the op-ed’s call and those of many others for a world free of nuclear weapons. Great: the ‘D-word’ was making something of a comeback, this could only be a good thing and we pressed on with our work.

However, with this apparent progress there still seemed to be a disparity between calls for nuclear disarmament and the Trident renewal in the UK or the continuing debate over the Reliable Replacement Warhead program in the United States.

What also appeared evident, and at SOAS we heard it most clearly, was that there were still no clear links being made between disarmament of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and the problems caused by conventional weapons, especially the huge stocks and holdings of heavy conventional weapons, that are so damaging to development in the Third World. Efforts to understand demand for WMD by smaller countries—perhaps in order to counter Western conventional supremacy—must be given greater emphasis. It should also be recognised that the fallacy that interstate conflict was a thing of the past actually permitted the decline of the arms control and disarmament agenda.

Our project aims to build on the growing consensus in many constituencies that action on disarmament must be a priority for national governments in the run up to what will be a crucial review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2010, and that this should be done by reference to disarmament in its humanitarian context. A large part of this emerging work will be an emphasis on the development of public policy surrounding both issues—nuclear and WMD disarmament on the one end and conventional weapons and the impact on development on the other. Currently, work on these two large fields is largely undertaken in separate universes, both in the way policy is developed (i.e. in separate departments) and in the way it is studied and taught. Yet there is no logic for them to do so.

There is also often a disparity between the academic findings on disarmament issues and the policy development at the national and multilateral levels. John Borrie and Christian Ruge have written about a gulf between policy-making and research communities in disarmament that can be difficult to bridge. Policy-makers sometimes pay only cursory attention—if any—to research. It is also the case that academic research, particularly in the International Relations field, has fallen behind reality. Bridging these gaps is a key part of finding innovative solutions to old problems, as well as emerging ones.

We hope to play a part in understanding how governments formulate their approach to a major multilateral process like the NPT, in understanding how civil society and the media above all can influence this at the national or regional level. Don’t forget that without the public campaigns backing up the scientific evidence, negotiations on climate change, for example, could not have progressed to the extent they have, with even the US making major changes to its traditional standpoint in order to reach consensus.

The project aims to culminate in a world summit in 2009 or early 2010, timed to coincide with the NPT RevCon and impact on it. An interesting research theme will be to research how it is possible to reverse the negative expectations surrounding these negotiations, especially considering the failure of the 2005 NPT RevCon to produce a final document. A thread of the work then will focus on affecting governmental negotiation positions and on creating useful advocacy proposals both for national representatives and the major intergovernmental or supranational institutions.

Article VI of the NPT requires States to negotiate both nuclear disarmament and a final treaty for general and complete disarmament. While the latter is generally regarded as being a long way off, it is our belief that we actually possess a good number of effective treaties (the ‘old wisdoms’) that can be extended and combined with the newer legislative and export-control measures encapsulated by UNSCR 1540 (the ‘new wisdoms’) to produce a comprehensive approach. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that by establishing and reinforcing the notion that disarmament commitments under the NPT do not just end at the comma, an effective trajectory for arms control in the 21st century can be found.

After a year or so of start-up, the project launches at a conference on 7 January 2008. I hope to report back on progress in the coming months.


This is a guest blog by Poul-Erik Christiansen, a researcher at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, at the School for Oriental and Asian Studies (www.cisd.soas.ac.uk).

Reference

Photo of United Nations Security Council chamber in New York, courtesy of Paula Eyzaguirre and Thomas Nash.

Missile Crises?

On Friday, the world's media reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin - speaking after a summit with European Union leaders in Portugal - said that U.S. plans for a missile shield with bases in Europe could precipitate a situation similar to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis:

"Analogous actions by the Soviet Union when it deployed rockets on Cuba provoked the Cuban missile crisis," he said.

"For us, technologically, the situation is very similar."

He added that current tensions had not reached the pitch attained during the Cuban crisis."

Thank goodness for that. Let's hope that policy-makers on both sides of the Atlantic don't really believe they're living through a historical parallel of the "thirteen days".

There are signs that the Russians don't really think so. In a Moscow Times op-ed about President Putin's "rather audacious comparison" with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Alexander Golts opined that:

"It is clear that Moscow has no desire to reach a compromise on the missile defense issue. On the contrary, the Kremlin has a vested interest in preserving an ongoing, smoldering conflict with the United States over nuclear weapons and missile defense. Putin and his inner circle are convinced that this is the only way Russia can regain its status as a superpower and stand on equal footing with the United States - at least in the nuclear sphere."

Whether or not this is true, historical analogies like President Putin's make for evocative rhetoric, which is no doubt what they're intended to do - to underline Russia's strategic concerns.

On European missile defence, President Putin is by no means the first to pull the draw card of history. Earlier this month, for instance, the New York Times reported that Tomas Pojar, the Czech Republic's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, said "his government's support for the defense plan is based not only on a shared worry about future missile threats but also a "moral, historical" sense of appreciation for American support for Czech democracy."

Solidarity with our friends is good, provided we don't categorize actors only in terms of their identities and so fail to take into account interests. Once we entrench ourselves - and others - into categories based on what they are, rather than how they actually act, we can make it difficult for ourselves to see the world any other way, and almost invariably the way it really is. It makes it that much harder to problem-solve.

History is a narrative we impose on a complex reality. Without extreme care, we can create views of the past that reinforce our pre-dispositions, rather than enlighten us.

And it means most historical parallels don't bear close examination. Issues related to missile defence issue in Europe are complex, long drawn out and involve multiple actors in an evolving strategic context. It's exactly the sort of situation in which historical analogies aren't going to help, because they over-simplify a fine-grained reality by ignoring some of its subtler but defining features.

Golts argued in his op-ed that, actually, "the nuclear factor plays an increasingly minor role in U.S.-Russian relations" - a gradual diminishing of importance that began soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Today, Russia and the U.S. have a broad range of strategic interests potentially in common, and these are where the emphasis should be, rather than on the past. Moreover, there are a number of ongoing or unfolding international crises - whether over missile defence, Iran, North Korea, the situation in Iraq, climate change or whatever - in which open-minds and ideologically flexibility are at a premium.

We need more finer-grained - not course-grained - analysis to see our way through these challenges. Maybe historians need to remind those on all sides of the missile defence debate about what history doesn't tell us, and that any attempt to read the past into the present is fraught with risk. History is at best an uneven guide - certainly not a road-map.


John Borrie


References

"Putin warns of new missile crisis", BBC News, 26 October 2007.

Alexander Golts, "Dreaming of New Conflicts", The Moscow Times, 30 October 2007.

Associated Press, "U.S. Considering Missile Defense Delay", New York Times, 23 October 2007.

The October issue of U.S. Arms Control Association's magazine Arms Control Today focuses on issues surrounding European missile defense.

Photo of a U.S. Air Force Jupiter intermediate range ballistic missile from the Cuban Missile Crisis period courtesy of Wikipedia.

In memory of Clive Pearson

In 1997, negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva on a Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty had recently been completed. Internationally there were widespread hopes that further negotiations would soon commence on fissile materials, and then further steps toward nuclear disarmament as part of the post-Cold War peace dividend. The CD just needed to settle a couple of niggles concerning its work programme first.

Into this environment arrived New Zealand's first Disarmament Ambassador, a flamboyant character named Clive Wallace Pearson. Clive was highly experienced in bilateral and trade diplomacy in various posts around the world, including as New Zealand's first Ambassador to Turkey. But he later said that nothing prepared him for the peculiarities of multilateral arms control negotiations, certainly not the baffling acronyms and the "late-night foul smelling rooms" he would spend so much time in during multilateral disarmament meetings over coming years.

A decade later, the CD still hasn't achieved consensus on its programme of work despite the best efforts of Clive and many others. Clive put his time as Disarmament Ambassador to maximum use, however, and was very active on the full spectrum of disarmament-related issues. He led New Zealand's delegation in the landmark negotiations in Oslo that resulted in the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention in 1997. The New Agenda Coalition, which Clive helped to found, played a major role in the 2000 review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As chair of that meeting's subsidiary body on nuclear disarmament and with the invaluable assistance of his great friend Dr. Joan Mosley (then New Zealand's Permanent Representative in Vienna), Clive brokered a deal that resulted in agreement on the (as he put it) "all-singing, all-dancing" 13-steps to a nuclear-weapon-free world. And he was involved in the informal "Interlaken Group" from 2000 to 2001 that helped to prepare for success at the 2001 UN conference on a programme of action to tackle the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.

These are just a sprinkling of Clive's contributions. But even had he achieved less, Clive would still be remembered with great affection by virtually everyone who knew him in the Geneva context. He was hugely charismatic and great fun, not to mention elegantly attired. Ambassador Pearson's ability to sweep into a room and make most ladies' (and not a few gents') knees go wobbly was widely envied by the other silverback alpha males - but not successfully replicated.

In a relaxed moment, Clive would occasionally admit he could be a bit of a prima donna. Subordinates recall his preference for being called "Glorious Leader", although this was (probably) an affectation. Nevertheless, in line with the deadly professional seriousness with which Clive took his responsibilities, very high standards were expected of those who worked with him. He informed new subordinates, only half-jokingly, "your job is to make me look good". Fortunate then that he was so talented at getting the best out of those who were prepared to try to do so.

Those few people Clive had little time for invariably deserved it, usually being one or more of the following: lacking in deference, impolite, incompetent, deceitful, ungracious or a whinger. Perhaps it was his upbringing in the Presbyterian chill of Dunedin, but Clive detested miserliness most of all. And he wasn't fond of “puffed-up wind bags” either - as a select few in Geneva and even in Wellington discovered to their cost.

While always very conscious of his responsibilities as a senior diplomat and Head of Mission, Clive was also a loyal and supportive person, and was a formative influence in the professional development of a number of young diplomats in Geneva. When asked to be, Clive could always be depended upon to be a frank, yet good-humoured, sounding board. Indeed, if asked nicely enough he was also usually willing to take one for a spin around Lac Leman in his very rapid black Mercedes cabriolet “play car”. This was always good for one's spirits.

Meanwhile, it was the responsibility of any person on Clive's team to "look decorative". Newbies were inspected, spun-around and remedial advice proffered: "Lose those specs, you look like Nana Mouskouri" or "we need to get you into a new cozzie and some six inch heels, inst!" For the boys, French-cuffed shirts were mandatory. It was not entirely unheard of for colleagues at the Mission to be sent home to change for incurring his sartorial displeasure. "It's got to be immaculate", he would say.

Clive was also a widely respected authority on interior decoration, although his basic rule seemed to boil down to "everything in twos, and lots of cream and black". He only got half way there with his pair of marmalade Abyssinian pussycats, the adorable Benson and Hedges. While lacking in deference and uniquely destructive of New Zealand government furnishings, the pussycats gave him great companionship, not to mention the many official and informal dinner guests they harassed.

Like his Abyssinians, Clive had an acute sense of tactical opportunity. He loved nothing more than settling down with Mont Blanc fountain pen in hand and "ciggie on the go" to "dabble in a bit of drafting mischief". And his talents as a drafter were formidable, a crucial skill for good disarmament negotiators, as many speeches, multilateral agreements and diplomatic cables reporting on them come down to the appropriately nuanced formulation of words.

Combined with his drafting skills, Clive’s great powers of persuasiveness made him a difficult negotiator for others to hold back. "We're not having that,” he'd say with a sweep of his hand, and that would be that: others usually had no choice but to be carried along by his enthusiasm and scary competence for whatever he'd decide to have a crack at. This was a refreshing trait in an ambassador, and it kept diplomatic colleagues on their toes.

In 2002, after a distinguished posting, Clive returned to Wellington. There, after running various divisions of the foreign ministry, he became special adviser to the New Zealand government on multilateral affairs - tackling yet more tricky diplomatic challenges with his usual aplomb and humour. From time to time he would turn up briefly at some multilateral meeting in Geneva, usually with a cheeky grin and draft text in the back pocket: "we've got yet another triumph on the go" he would chuckle over a drink or comfort food with old friends in the Café Bourg de Four, which he had long before affectionately dubbed "The Slophouse".

All was not well, however, and ill health intruded more frequently. Recently he took a turn for the worse. Just after the Queen's Birthday weekend, Clive passed away in a hospice in Wellington, with some of his nearest and dearest such as Joan close by.

Clive’s funeral was held in Wellington cathedral last Friday, and messages were read from the Prime Minister and other notables. The head of the Foreign Service delivered the eulogy. The New Zealand flag draped Clive's coffin along with white lilies (his favourite flowers). The clergyman was appropriately sonorous, and the pallbearers were reported to be a judicious mixture of the distinguished and the decorative, as he would have liked.

We already miss him deeply, and can't really believe he's gone.


John Borrie

Following the Leader

Disarmament Insight note: this is part 2 of a 2 part posting.

In my last blog entry I noted that there’s been minimal systematic attention given to subject of individual leadership in the literature on arms control and disarmament processes. However, leadership is an issue that concerns many organizational psychologists, which could have relevance to multilateral arms control and disarmament negotiations.

A couple of people have wondered, however, if I’m comparing apples with oranges. After all, leadership of the kind studied by organizational psychologists refers, most often, to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). As Peter C. Flood et al explained the CEO is “a central member of the top management group” and “has a disproportionate impact on team characteristics and outcomes”. On the other hand, a chairperson in a multilateral negotiation has limited authority. Moreover, as Daniël Prins noted, “although the rules of procedure describe what the Chair’s role is, this is always a matter of interpretation.”

However, the aims of leadership are similar in both the commercial and multilateral negotiation setting. As Flood et al noted:

Top management groups make strategic decisions, the quality of which influences organizational performance. As consensus among team members facilitates the implementation of those decisions, consensus also influences organizational performance. Thus, decision processes promoting consensus among team members are more likely to enhance organizational performance than decision processes that do not promote consensus. (See reference below)

In a paper entitled “Chief executive leadership style, consensus decision making, and top management team effectiveness”, Flood et al characterized ‘decision processes promoting consensus’ as those where there is a) greater information sharing among the group; b) greater collaboration amongst group members; and c) a focus on group rather than individual goals.

Likewise, a consensus decision-making process in a multilateral negotiation is preferable if the treaty has any chance of being willingly implemented by all its parties.

Flood et al found that a CEO’s leadership style played an influential role in determining whether a decision-making process was “consensus-style” or not. They explored four different leadership styles:

1. Authoritarian or autocratic leadership.
2. Transactional leadership: influence via exchange of valued rewards for services/behaviours.
3. Transformational leadership: inspiring followers to do more than originally expected;
4. Laissez-faire leadership: avoiding decision making and supervisory responsibility.

They concluded that:
1. Each of these leadership styles corresponds to varying levels of CEO dominance in group decision-making; and
2. These levels of CEO dominance can positively or negatively influence consensus style decision-making.

Not surprisingly, decision-making processes were more “consensus style” when CEOs were less dominant i.e. they had a more transactional or transformational leadership style. Conversely, a CEO with an “autocratic style” often transformed a collaborative situation into a competitive one. Consensus decision-making was not forthcoming with leaders of a “laissez-faire” style as they did not give their team any coherent direction or strategic focus.

What makes this information important to the practice of multilateral arms control and disarmament negotiations?

First, the fact that different leadership styles can negatively or positively affect consensus decision-making has important implications, I believe, for the design of multilateral processes.

In order to make multilateral processes more manageable, the issues under negotiation are often divided into “clusters”, with each cluster chaired by a different individual. It’s not uncommon, therefore, for a multilateral negotiation to have more than one chairperson and numerous co-chairs. However, knowing what we know now, is this really the most efficient way of organizing a multilateral negotiation? This is a particularly important point to consider, especially when consensus on the final document depends on collective agreement being reached in all cluster groups.

Second, it brings further into question the wisdom of certain rules, procedures and standard practices governing the chairing of multilateral negotiating bodies and processes. The rules of procedure in the CD, for example, dictate that the chair rotates every 4 weeks on the basis of alphabetical order of member states. To what extent do the different leadership styles and approaches to consensus-decision making by each new chairperson impact progress in the CD?

Can certain steps be taken to optimize the impact of leadership styles in multilateral negotiation processes? In my opinion there’s still a lot of research to be done before this question can be definitively answered. In the meantime this type of research may provide some food for thought for those who believe that the success and failure in arms control and disarmament is determined solely by the level of ‘political will’ among states.


Vanessa Martin Randin


References

Patrick C. Flood et al, “Chief executive leadership style, consensus decision making, and top management team effectiveness” in European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2000, 9 (3), pp. 401-420.

D. Prins, “Engineering progress: a diplomat’s perspective on multilateral disarmament”, in J. Borrie & V. Martin Randin (eds.), Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations, Geneva: UNIDIR: 2006, pp. 109-128, p.118. (Click on the cover of the top book from the column on the left)

Photo retrieved from Flickr.

Take Me To Your Leader

Disarmament Insight note: this is part 1 of a 2 part posting.

In his contribution to the DHA project’s third publication, Daniël Prins argued that the chair of a multilateral negotiation should not be seen as “primarily responsible” for its outcome as “the task of making progress happen really remains with delegations.” However, he argued that the chairperson can “have a decisive hand, remaining the master of business.”

These observations reminded me of something I read when I first started working on the DHA project in 2004. In his personal account of the Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations Ambassador Bo Kjellen had this to say about Chairman Jean Ripert’s leadership style:

I believe that style certainly plays an important role for a chairman – and Jean Ripert’s style certainly fit the challenges of this negotiation. Most of the time he acted with an almost palpable slowness: but this was on the surface. While explaining technical or legal details pertaining to the negotiation in painstaking (some would say irritating) detail, his mind was searching out solutions and anticipating ways to avoid blocked solutions. It became clear that this was his method of work. The overall effect inspired broad confidence in his leadership. In the final stages, when heads of key delegations were invited by the chairman to negotiate the final texts and thrash out the last difficulties, we were all impressed by the sharpness of the picture he laid out before us. Ripert’s leadership style did not exclude the human touch. He was able to remind the negotiators of the real issues beyond the drafting and of their responsibility to the international community without sounding condescending or offensive.

I’ll take a chance here and suggest that Ripert’s leadership style is precisely Daniël Prins’ idea of how to be the “master of business”, while allowing the group to arrive at consensus themselves.

More broadly, leadership in multilateral negotiations is not something that is subjected to much systematic analysis. The description of Jean Ripert’s chairing style has always remained with me because it’s one of the most candid and forthcoming accounts I’ve come across in any of the literature I’ve read on multilateral processes.

Most analyses give only a cursory account of a chairman’s “weak leadership” or “forceful personality”. Details are not forthcoming – not surprising when political sensitivities are at play. Moreover we rarely get an insight into the chairperson’s perspective. I, for one, would like to learn of the techniques which enabled these individuals to foster consensus among so many negotiating parties. Is there a right or wrong time to introduce a chairman’s text to the plenary for example? If there is a Chairing Multilateral Negotiations for Dummies out there, I haven’t found it.

Moreover, as John Borrie and I pointed out in a paper we co-authored in our first volume of work, strong leadership is just one of the many ingredients required to make a multilateral negotiation successful. Successful processes usually benefit from having patient, knowledgeable and diplomatic principals nudging negotiating parties along. But how important is a chairperson to fostering consensus in a multilateral negotiation process? This question is of particular interest to me because I’ve attended multilateral negotiations where even the most seemingly capable chairperson was unable to broker consensus among the parties.

There may be no definitive explanation for this. But in my search I’ve been reading a lot of work in the realm of organizational and leadership theory, which has led to some interesting (well, I think they’re interesting...) insights which I’d like to share in my next blog entry.


Vanessa Martin Randin


References

B. Kjellen, “A Personal Assessment”, in I. Minter and J.A. Leonard (eds.), Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Convention, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 153.

V. Martin Randin & J. Borrie, “A Comparison Between Arms Control and Other Multilateral Negotiation Processes”, in J. Borrie & V. Martin Randin (eds.), in Alternative Approaches in Multilateral Decision Making: Disarmament as Humanitarian Action, Geneva: UNIDIR: 2005, pp. 67-129. (Click on the cover of the book at the bottom of the left column)

D. Prins, “Engineering progress: a diplomat’s perspective on multilateral disarmament”, in J. Borrie & V. Martin Randin (eds.), Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations, Geneva: UNIDIR: 2006, pp. 109-128, p.118. (Click on the cover of the top book from the column on the left)

Photo retrieved from Flickr.