As bellicose rhetoric increases, CND calls for dialogue, de-escalation and a new approach to security:
“Tensions between NATO and Russia are reaching alarming proportions. We call for an end to this confrontation: if it doesn’t end, everyone will lose and many will die.
Current tensions have been three decades in the making. Despite dramatic changes across Europe after 1989, with the demise of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO – under US leadership – began the process of expansion into eastern Europe. This has continued to include former Soviet republics and NATO has gone on to become a global military force, abandoning its ‘defensive’ remit and engaging in war far beyond the North Atlantic. NATO expansion has caused significant regional tension and its continued expansionary plans are threatening to drag Europe into a devastating war – because it refuses to take Russian security concerns into account. NATO’s refusal to rule out membership for Ukraine is provocative and destabilising. Dialogue is essential to resolve these issues – war is not the answer.
Meanwhile the people of Ukraine are suffering and the country is already paying a heavy economic and human price as a result of these hostilities. Despite the Minsk agreements, the violent clashes in eastern Ukraine continue. NATO and Russia are adding fuel to the fire through arms deliveries, troop deployments and military exercises. These provocations and preparations for war have to stop.
Both NATO and Russia are nuclear-armed and any war could be catastrophic. Three NATO members – Britain, France and the United States – possess nuclear weapons. Five European states – Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey – host US/NATO nuclear bombs and are committed, under ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangements, to use these weapons of mass destruction upon command from NATO.
NATO, a nuclear-armed alliance, which threatens the use of nuclear weapons, cannot create genuine security and should be dissolved. Europe needs a new type of security policy, based on cooperation, mutual respect and trust.
- We call for a clear commitment that the NATO nuclear alliance will not expand further.
- We call for continued diplomatic efforts to reduce current tensions, rather than militarised responses.
- We call for serious efforts to build common security across Europe with a European nuclear-weapon-free zone at its heart.”