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Peace Table for Ukraine and Russia

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Sergio Duarte, Mariia Levchenko, Sergey Batsanov, Wolfgang Sporrer

The intent of the Canadian Pugwash Group Peace Table was to fulfill one of the actions recommended during the November 29, 2022 Special Meeting of Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (CNANW): To reduce the nuclear weapons risks in the Ukraine conflict, “Civil society can establish an international forum to coordinate an exchange of views towards a peaceful outcome.”

As a community of peace, we felt deeply concerned about the continuing deaths, as well as the physical and environmental destruction occurring due to the Ukraine crisis, and most critically, by the heightened risk of the use of nuclear weapons. We therefore sought to create an opportunity for discussion of a path to a ceasefire and peace negotiations. One ambitious goal is to inspire Presidents Zelensky and Putin, and indeed, all the involved governments as well as civil society.

The Peace Table for Ukraine and Russia was hosted via Zoom on 27 April 2023. Ernie Regehr (a CPG member and author of Disarming Conflict: Why Peace Cannot Be Won on the Battlefield)  was the moderator. Sylvie Lemieux (CPG member and co-chairperson CNANW) was the facilitator of the discussion.

The four guest speakers were:
1. Wolfgang Sporrer, Adjunct Professor- Conflict Management, The Hertie School, Berlin/German (OSCE, Minsk Accords),
2. Sergio Duarte, former UN High Representative for Disarmament,
3. Sergey Batsanov, Russian diplomatic service from 1975 to 1993, former Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, currently Director of the Geneva Office of Pugwash Conferences, and
4. Mariia Levchenko, Peacebuilding Officer with Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR).

Peace Table Working Group members: Dr. Sylvie Lemieux, Bev Delong and Robin Collins. With support from Ernie Regehr, Cesar Jaramillo and Adele Buckley.

 

Restoring a Strained Global Security Architecture: CPG’s Recommended policy options for the Government of Canada

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“Restoring a Strained Global Security Architecture”
Recommended policy options for the Government of Canada

We are living through an exceptionally challenging international security situation for maintaining peace and the primacy of international law. We believe Canada has both an opportunity and an obligation to contribute to efforts to protect human security and strengthen global governance.

See: CPG policy recommendations – 1Nov2022

Video recording of event

Conference outline and speaker biographies

Roche: Trudeau is right to resist defence lobby’s call for more military spending

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NATO doesn’t do holistic peace. Always demanding more money for arms, it intimidates its own members.
OPINION
By Douglas Roche

EDMONTON—Credit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is a politician, with telling the truth. A leaked Pentagon document, bearing the seal of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Trudeau told NATO officials privately that Canada will never reach the military spending target of two per cent of GDP agreed to by members of the alliance. Asked about this, Trudeau pointedly did not deny saying it.

The prime minister did say: “I continue to say, and will always say, that Canada is a reliable partner to NATO, [a] reliable partner around the world.”

Canada currently spends 1.29 per cent of its GDP on NATO, which this year, translated to $29-billion. This makes Canada the 13th largest military spender in the world, and the sixth largest in NATO. The government plans to spend $553-billion over the next 20 years to buy new weapons systems like fighter jets, armed drones, and warships.

To move to a full two per cent would require the government to starve already under-funded health and housing needs. The public would never stand for it.

The two-percent target is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on a gullible public by the military-industrial complex, which drives American policy, which, in turn, drives NATO. Trudeau deserves credit for challenging it.

It’s not easy for Trudeau to do this, for he is surrounded by military hawks for whom no amount of military spending is ever enough. The Conference of Defence Associations Institute released an open letter, signed by dozens of political and military luminaries, calling on Ottawa to stop backsliding on national defence.

The institute wants “a major reassessment of our defence posture” and more money for NATO. This is the defence lobby speaking, and they have big voices (Richard Fadden, Andrew Leslie, and Rick Hillier are among the signatories). They drown out another set of equally distinguished Canadians (including Margaret MacMillan, John Polanyi, and Veronica Tennant) who have pleaded with the government to understand that peace doesn’t come from the barrel of a gun.

Thanks to the Ukraine war, the militarists today are beating a very loud drum. Russia’s ruthless invasion of Ukraine has unleashed a demand for more arms, and world military expenditures this year will climb well over $2-trillion.

Public attention in the West is fixated on defeating Russia at all costs. So it is easy for the war planners (who command the headlines) to proclaim that the government must “make significant additional funding available to address the long-standing deficiencies in military capabilities and readiness.”

NATO is driving the new clamour in Canada for more military spending. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg doesn’t hide his displeasure with us for not meeting the two per cent target. What Stoltenberg doesn’t say out loud is that NATO policy is driven by the United States, which undertakes excessive military spending beyond belief.

America’s planned $842-billion military budget for 2024 is greater than the next 10 greatest military spenders combined.

All this is commanded by the military-industrial complex, led by five powerful defence contractors in the U.S., who virtually control the proceedings of the armed services committees in Congress. The military-industrial complex (warnings about it go back as far as the Eisenhower administration) operates on the assumption that future “strategic competition” with Russia and China is inevitable. There’s no cap for research on artificial intelligence weaponry.

Canada is caught up in this headlong dash for rearmament. NATO is now an express train roaring through a dark tunnel. No one knows what’s on the other side of the tunnel, but the fear-mongers tell us it must be bad. Once again, fear overcomes good judgement. Thankfully, Trudeau has—at last—issued a red flag to NATO.

Pierre Trudeau, the father of the present prime minister, told me in 1984, when I was named Canada’s ambassador for Disarmament, that NATO’s obsolete policies were one of the biggest thorns he had had to endure as prime minister. George Kennan, the famous U.S. diplomat who first proposed the policy of containment of the Soviet Union, called NATO expansion “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” Still, the expansion goes on (Finland has just been taken in) and the false belief that bigger and better weaponry will bring peace continues to bamboozle the public.

The fallout from Justin Trudeau’s reluctance to keep paying obeisance to NATO is just getting started. The peace movement in Canada, hitherto cowed by the spurious charges that calls for negotiations to end the Ukraine war amount to appeasement of Russia is awakening.

The Canadian Pugwash Group is now mobilizing its members to advocate for international leaders to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table.

Trudeau has opened up the issue of just how much money is required for adequate Canadian defence. Just look at the faces of his cabinet as they surround him in Question Period: a group split between those who’ve been swayed by the NATO machine; the others fearful that NATO will lead them into perpetual militarism. Public opinion on NATO’s efficacy will be an important factor in how Trudeau responds to the brow-beating he is now taking from his military alliance “allies.”

The issue of peace in the world is far larger than the Russia-Ukraine disputes. Peace is a global issue. Thus, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is now preparing “A New Agenda for Peace,” which will address a myriad of challenges the international community faces today. Guterres says that in order to protect and manage the global public good of peace, we need a peace continuum based on a better understanding of the underlying drivers of conflict, a renewed effort to agree on more effective collective security responses, and a meaningful set of steps to manage emerging risks. This is a holistic approach to peace.

NATO doesn’t do holistic peace. Always demanding more money for arms, it intimidates its own members. How else can you explain Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s cut, in the recent budget, of $1.3-billion from Canada’s already meagre international assistance program? NATO bloats; the poor suffer.

Douglas Roche is a former Canadian senator and author. His new book, Keep Hope Alive: Essays for a War-free World, will be published in the fall.
The Hill Times
April 21, 2023

Doug Roche: Pope Francis focuses on Ukraine battlefield

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The Hill Times
Pope Francis focuses his remaining energies on Ukraine battlefield
Seldom in the modern history of the Catholic Church has a pope been plunged into both external and internal crises at the same time.
OPINION | BY DOUGLAS ROCHE | March 13, 2023

“Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador proposed that Francis be part of an international commission to mediate an end to the conflict. Moscow is unlikely to be agreed to that because Francis views President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “senseless, repugnant, and sacrilegious.”

Read further: 031323_HT_1RochePope

Jaramillo: A negotiated settlement is the only path to peace in Ukraine

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A negotiated settlement is the only path to peace in Ukraine

CESAR JARAMILLO

Cesar Jaramillo is executive director of Project Ploughshares and chairperson of the Canadian Pugwash Group.

With Ukraine’s successes in beating back Russia’s invasion thus far, the call for a decisive military win has permeated society, including governments, prominent media outlets and academia. In some sectors, calling for a peaceful settlement has become a fringe position, while support for further militarization hardens. But while it may be a hard pill to swallow for some, the most realistic endgame involves a negotiated settlement. The dogged pursuit of an ill-defined “win” for either Russia or Ukraine will not only prolong the war and increase human suffering – it will heighten the risk that nuclear weapons will be used.

Russia has made well-documented threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. While such threats are unacceptable and demand global condemnation, their being spoken did not create the risk. The risk exists because the weapons exist, justified by a perilous doctrine of nuclear deterrence. This doctrine has been sustained and perpetuated by all states with nuclear weapons, including those now denouncing Russia’s nuclear bravado.

Indeed, key stakeholders in the conflict – including Russia, the United States and other nuclear-armed NATO members – possess more than 95 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons. Despite differences in policy and ideology, all states with nuclear weapons ultimately share the belief that, under certain circumstances, they would be justified in considering their use.

A crushing defeat in its most ambitious military operation in more than seven decades would very likely be viewed by Russia as a threat to its vital interests, and by President Vladimir Putin – who has explicitly framed the war as an existential struggle with the West – as a fatal blemish on his legacy. Such circumstances would be dangerously consistent with known Russian policy around its use of nuclear weapons.

So the question is not just whether Mr. Putin would succumb to a humiliating defeat with a nuclear arsenal at his disposal – it’s also whether this is a gamble the world is willing to take.

While the provision of military aid by the West – NATO in particular – has been critical in bolstering Ukraine’s ability to resist Russian aggression, and may strengthen its hand at eventual peace negotiations, the increasing deployment of arms will neither win the war nor resolve its underlying causes. Further militarization could significantly undermine the prospects for a negotiated settlement and continue the cycle of violence and destruction, with no end in sight. Tens of thousands have already perished; how many more could die if this happens? And how much higher would the risk of nuclear escalation be?

A negotiated settlement would not be capitulation, nor a sign of weakness, and agreeing to negotiations would not bind any party to a particular outcome. Rather, negotiations would be a first step in finding common ground and possible solutions.

Points of disagreement include the status of the regions claimed and illegally annexed by Russia – both Crimea in 2014 and the Donbas region in the latest incursion – and Ukraine’s prospective NATO membership. Other thorny issues have arisen from the armed conflict itself, including questions of accountability, breaches of international law and war crimes. Unilateral concessions will not be on the table, so compromise will be required.

The nature of the NATO-Russia security relationship will be a key factor in any negotiated settlement. Since 1999, more than a dozen Eastern European states, including former Soviet republics, have joined NATO. And while NATO expansion does not justify Russia’s illegal and destabilizing aggression in Ukraine, it is impossible to deny that it has been a known irritant for Moscow. Security assurances that minimize Russia’s real or perceived vulnerability to NATO forces in the region would need to be part of a negotiation. Central to this issue is Ukraine’s prospective membership in the alliance, which is a known red line for the Kremlin.

Critically, for a negotiated settlement to become a viable alternative, there must first be broad recognition, at high political levels, that this is the desired goal. Thus far, however, that is not the case.

A negotiated settlement is a sensible and realistic approach to ending the war. Efforts to stop the carnage would not constitute a surrendering of principles, but a triumph for humanity, diplomacy and pragmatism. It is high time to end the war in Ukraine.

Order of Canada Members Urge Canada to Act to Reduce Threat of Nuclear Warfare

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Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (CNWC) call on the Canadian government to:

1. Urge NATO and its three nuclear weapon state members (US, UK, and France) to commit never to be the first to launch a nuclear attack, and to work toward universalizing that commitment (which China and India have already made); and

2. Encourage the United States and Russia to take all their strategic nuclear weapons off high alert (of the nine states with nuclear weapons, only the US and Russia maintain dangerous high-alert deployments).

We also urge you to publicly acknowledge the current nuclear crisis and call on all states with nuclear arms to honour the norm against nuclear weapons use that has been respected for the 77-years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Open Letter linked here

 

Paul Meyer: As satellite use grows, geopolitical conflicts could spill into outer space

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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-as-satellite-use-grows-geopolitical-conflicts-could-spill-into-outer/

Paul Meyer is a former Canadian diplomat, an adjunct professor of international studies at Simon Fraser University and a fellow of the Outer Space Institute. He is past chair of Canadian Pugwash Group. 

We are witnessing an exponential growth in the number of satellites in orbit and the wide array of valuable services they enable. Approximately 5,500 satellites are currently active and tens of thousands more are set to be deployed before the end of the decade, largely through the efforts of the private sector.

Roche: Canada quiet as Ukraine war inches Doomsday Clock closer to midnight

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With the risk of nuclear weapons being used in the war, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says the globe has entered ‘a time of unprecedented danger.’

OPINION
BY DOUGLAS ROCHE
The HILL TIMES

EDMONTON—The most shocking thing about moving the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been—is that nobody seems very shocked by it. The world has become inured to a looming Armageddon, and that is truly scary.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists launched the clock in 1947 at the beginning of the Cold War, symbolizing how close humanity is to self-annihilation. That year, the hands of the clock were set at seven minutes to midnight, indicating moderate risk. In 1991, the Cold War over and a new era of East-West peaceful relations seemingly beginning, the hands were set back to 17 minutes to midnight.

For the following three decades, the clock shifted steadily forward. For the past three years, it was set at 100 seconds before midnight to signify that humanity faces two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change. “The international security situation is dire,” the Bulletin said, “not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.

”This year, the clock has been advanced 10 seconds because, with Russia threatening to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war, we have entered “a time of unprecedented danger.” There is no path to a just peace under the shadow of nuclear weapons, the Bulletin said, adding: find a path to serious peace negotiations in Ukraine. At a minimum, the scientists added, the U.S. must keep the door open to principled engagement with Moscow, reducing the dangerous increase in nuclear risk the war has fostered. “Every second counts.”

I asked Global Affairs Canada for the government’s response to the Bulletin’s urgent plea for action. I received a statement repeating Canada’s condemnation of Russia’s nuclear rhetoric as reckless. “Russia’s actions have shaken the foundations of the international world order.” Canada continues to uphold the Non-Proliferation Treaty and “encourage[s] nuclear risk reduction measures and further steps towards nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.”

In other words, the extreme warning of the Doomsday Clock is just business-as-usual for Canada. There was no Canadian appeal for negotiations to end the Ukraine war, no recognition the Non-Proliferation Treaty is failing its primary duty to negotiate nuclear disarmament, no request to that the U.S. and Russia start talks to renew the soon-to-expire treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons, and certainly no acceptance of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which bans nuclear weapons outright.

The kind of answer I had hoped for from Canada was actually uttered by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland: “The Doomsday Clock is sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity. We are on the brink of a precipice. But our leaders are not acting at sufficient speed or scale to secure a peaceful and liveable planet.”

There is no doubt Canada wants to see the Ukraine war end, but the route to that end is seen by the government through the prism of more military hardware. NATO is focused on more tanks for Ukraine instead of a negotiated solution that would produce mutual security for Ukraine and Russia. It is this standard military thinking that the Doomsday Clock is trying to overcome.

But does anybody care? Are people out on the streets protesting against government mismanagement of the planet’s future? Is any politician calling for an emergency summit meeting of the UN Security Council? Has the movement to abolish nuclear weapons suddenly taken on new strength?

Public outrage against the desecration of humanity is blunted. People have become accustomed to warnings from experts that the modernization of nuclear weapons is preparing the way for another Hiroshima. The public stays passive at the dramatic evidence of climate change in the rapidly increasing rate of violent storms. The scenes of millions of desperate refugees displaced by wars and droughts have become all too familiar.

Our society is becoming hardened to tragedy. Even the very real threats of human catastrophe, the outlines of which are being sketched by the scientific community every day, are met with a shrug. Fatalism has set in, a sense that nuclear weapons and climate change, and even the never-ending variants of COVID, are such big problems that they are beyond the ordinary person’s grasp.

Add to this ennui massive distrust in government as the agent of solutions to world crises, and the sense of helplessness merely expands. We should be crying out, imploring action to turn the hands of the Doomsday Clock back from midnight.

I am reminded of the torch singer Peggy Lee’s famous song, “Is That All There Is?” Standing in front of her blues band, Lee wistfully sang of clowns and dancing bears at the circus and then, when it was over, plaintively asked:
Is that all there is?
If that‘s all there is, my friends
Then let’s keep dancing.

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Douglas Roche asked Global Affairs Canada on Jan. 24: “The Doomsday Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight — the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been. What steps is Canada taking to relieve the threat of use of nuclear weapons at this perilous moment?””

Global Affairs Canada replied on Jan. 25: “Canada condemns Russia’s nuclear rhetoric as reckless and unacceptable. Russia’s egregious actions in Ukraine continues to pose serious threats to the safety, security, and safeguards of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities, and contravene international law. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a depositary state of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Russia’s actions have shaken the foundations of the international world order. We look forward to working with Japan and our other G7 partners on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation which has been identified as a priority for this year’s meeting. Canada continues to uphold the NPT and work with partners and allies to encourage nuclear risk reduction measures and further steps towards nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. We also continue to call all military activities near nuclear power plants to cease immediately.  We are engaged with the International Atomic Energy Agency-led monitoring mission.”

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Douglas Roche is a former Canadian Senator and author.

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