Gorbachev and Belfer Center Combine Forces to Overcome Nuclear Danger

"If you ask yourself which single individual contributed most to the resolution without war of four decades of Cold War between the U.S.-led free world and the Soviet Union, it was Mikhail Gorbachev. Fifty years into the future, when the Oxford University Press one-volume history of the 20th century is published, only two people on earth today will be the subject of an entire chapter in that book: Mikhail Gorbachev is one."
-- Graham Allison

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev visited Harvard's John F. Kennedy School on December 4 and told an overflow crowd at the JFK Jr. Forum that the time has come to rejuvenate efforts to eliminate the danger from nuclear weapons and materials.

"Russia alone cannot do anything to stop the spread of nuclear danger...," Gorbachev said. "This is our common task; the task of the entire world community. If current processes in nuclear policy continue the way they have gone over the past years, then it is very difficult to say what will happen 100 years from now, whether mankind will survive 100 years."

The day after his Forum speech, Gorbachev led a select group of experts in a day-long closed discussion of the challenges of nuclear weapons and how to address them. The conference "Overcoming Nuclear Danger" was co-sponsored by the Belfer Center and the World Political Forum and hosted by Belfer Center Director Graham Allison. Sixty Russian, American, and international specialists came together to examine the historical lessons of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty - signed by then President Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev to eliminate all U.S. and Russian intermediate range nuclear missiles - and to explore ways to leverage those lessons in the future to eliminate nuclear threats. Among the participants were former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock, former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, past commanders of U.S. and Russian intercontinental rocket forces, and many nuclear and defense experts. Gore Vidal, who has written about the danger from nuclear weapons, was also present.

Joining the discussion by video teleconference from California, former Secretary of State George Shultz echoed Gorbachev's call for fresh ideas on reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons. Shultz, a distinguished fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institute, led a conference last October entitled "Reykjavik Revisited," examining the lessons of the 1986 Reykjavik Summit between Gorbachev and Reagan and their failed attempt to reach agreement on eliminating all nuclear weapons. The Harvard conference built on the Stanford conference and the vision and agenda of actions proposed by the "Four Horsemen" George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, and William Perry.

In a letter to the Stanford conference, Nancy Reagan, the widow of former President Reagan, wrote, "It was always Ronnie's dream that the world would one day be free of nuclear arms. He felt that as long as such weapons were around, sooner or later they would be used. That would be catastrophic."

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger noted to the Stanford conference, "If you Google...'Britney Spears,' you will find 2,490,000 entries... if you Google 'nuclear annihilation,' you will get 17,400. Something is wrong with that picture."

Gorbachev told conference participants in Cambridge that eliminating nuclear arsenals and addressing the danger from nuclear materials will require resolving not just technical military issues, but political ones as well. He said that initial steps should focus on improving U.S.-Russian relations to a level that will allow resolution of several political differences. He noted that there exists already some consensus on important issues like nuclear terrorism, nonproliferation, lowering of nuclear alert status, and ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

“All of these [arms] agreements were concluded by the previous generation of political leaders," Gorbachev said. "It's very important to make sure that the new presidents of the United States and Russia have available to them a conceptual basis and specific proposals for new agreements. These new agreements cannot be a simple extrapolation of the existing agreements, because too much has changed in the world over the past decades. Therefore, the role of the expert community is even greater."

Gorbachev proposed that a small working group be formed from among the conference participants, which would develop an agenda of steps that national decision makers could draw on to renew the effort to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons. Participants solidly endorsed Gorbachev's proposal and committed to working together to develop the agenda he requested. The Belfer Center, together with the World Political Forum, is facilitating the work of the small group with the intent to develop recommendations for U.S. and Russian leaders by autumn of 2008.

Brigadier General (ret) Kevin Ryan led the organization of the Overcoming Nuclear Danger conference.