Global Action to Prevent War: A Programme for Government and Grassroots Efforts to

Stop War, Genocide and Other Forms of Deadly Conflict

Author(s): JONATHAN DEAN, RANDALL CAROLINE FORSBERG and SAUL MENDLOVITZ
Source: Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Vol. 16, No. 1 (January-March 2000), pp. 108-116
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/45351753
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CAMPAIGN

Global Action to Prevent War:

A Programme for Government and Grassroots
Efforts to Stop War, Genocide and Other
Forms of Deadly Conflict
"JONATHAN DEAN, fRANDALL CAROLINE FORSBERG and
+ SAUL MENDLOVITZ

*Union of Concerned Scientists , Washington DC 20036 ,

f Institute for Defense & Disarmament Studies, Cambridge MA 02139,
-'-World Order Models Project, New York NY1011S

Summary

At the end of history's bloodiest century and the outset of a new

millennium, we have an opportunity to fulfil one of humanity's oldest
dreams: making the world largely free of war.
Global changes make this goal achievable. Nuclear weapons have shown
the folly of war. For the first time, there is no war and no immediate
prospect of war among the main military powers. For the first time, many
proven measures to prevent armed conflict, distilled in the crucible of this
century's wars, are available. If systematically applied, these measures can
sharply decrease the frequency and violence of war, genocide, and other
forms of deadly conflict.
To seize the opportunity, nations should adopt a comprehensive
programme to reduce conventional armaments and armed conflict. This
programme will complement and strengthen efforts to eliminate nuclear
arms. To assure its ongoing worldwide implementation, the conventional
reduction programme should be placed in a treaty framework. We propose
a four-phased process, with three treaties, each lasting five to ten years, to
lay the groundwork for the fourth treaty, which will establish a permanent
international security system. The main objectives of the treaties are to
achieve:

1. A verified commitment to provide full transparency on conventional

armed forces and military spending, not to increase forces during
negotiations on arms reductions, and to increase the resources allocated
to multilateral conflict prevention and peacekeeping.

2. Substantial worldwide cuts in national armed forces and military

MEDICINE, CONFLICT AND SURVIVAL, VOL. 16, 108-116 (2000)

PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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GLOBAL ACTION TO PREVENT WAR 109
spending and further strengthening of United Nations and regional
peacekeeping and peace-enforcement capabilities.

3. A trial of a watershed commitment by participating nations, including

the major powers, not to deploy their armed forces beyond national
borders except in a multilateral action under UN or regional auspices.

4. A permanent transfer to the UN and regional security organizations of

the authority and capability for armed intervention to prevent or end
war, accompanied by further substantial cuts in national armed forces
and increases in UN and regional forces.

This programme offers many valuable features: a global framework for

conventional forces that parallels the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; a
verified no-increase commitment for national armed forces based on full
data exchange; a commitment to undertake prescribed confidence-building
measures, including limits on force activities and deployments; a
commitment to a specified plan for increased funding of UN and regional
peacekeeping capabilities; a commitment to strengthen international legal
institutions; and after a trial period, a lasting commitment by each
participant not to unilaterally deploy its armed forces beyond its borders,
but instead to give the responsibility for peacekeeping and peace
enforcement to international institutions.
This programme of phased steps to reduce armed forces and strengthen
peacekeeping institutions will make war rare. It will foster the spread of
zones of peace like those in North America and Western Europe where,
after centuries of violence, international and civil war have given way to the
peaceful settlement of disputes.

The Need, Opportunity and Programme for a Comprehensive

Approach to War Prevention

The UN and its member states are failing to prevent new outbreaks of
armed conflict, and are paying high costs for this failure. The statistics are
dismaying. According to some estimates, up to 45 million people, 90 per
cent civilians, have been killed in 170 wars since the end of the Second
World War. Thirty major wars are now taking place, most inside national
boundaries. In addition to the tragic loss of life and limb, war's damage to
productive economic activity is immense. It lasts for decades, sometimes
generations, multiplying the human costs of conflict. In Lebanon, for
example, 20 years after civil war broke out, the Gross Domestic Product is
still only half of its previous level.
Despite their enormous resources, the governments of the industrialised
countries have been unable to prevent frequent outbreaks of deadly
conflict; instead, they react to them. Responding to dislocation,
destruction, and loss of production and trade, the industrial countries have

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110 J. DEAN ET AL.
spent billions of dollars on economic rehabilitation of war-ravaged areas,
humanitarian aid, refugee relief, peacekeeping forces, and in some cases
military intervention. Instead of repeatedly financing these costly forms of
remediation, which are always too little and too late, governments around
the world should be investing in the prevention of war.
Today, we have a rare opportunity to mobilize government and public
support for a comprehensive approach to war prevention. Positive
relationships among the world's top military powers (the USA, Russia,
France, Germany, Great Britain, and China) have created an unprecedented
opportunity for co-operation to reduce the global deployment, production,
and trade of weapons and to strengthen UN and regional peacekeeping
capabilities.
This may be a waning opportunity. Many military leaders believe that
over the next 10 to 20 years, we will see new forms of armed confrontation
between the most heavily armed nations (the United States, Russia, and
China); and other nations are poised to acquire new armaments that
neighbouring countries may find threatening. Today, when there is no
near-term risk of major war, is the ideal time to prevent the rise of new
military threats by reducing global arms deployment, production, and
trade, and limiting armaments to low levels not perceived as threatening.
In addition, innovative concepts for war prevention have been formed
in the crucible of the century's conflicts, ranging from the First World War
through the Cold War. These include confidence-building measures,
transparency and information exchange, mutual constraints on force
deployments and activities, negotiated reductions in standing forces, and
agreed restrictions on arms production and trade. Equally important are
new measures in the area of peacekeeping: early warning and rapid action
to prevent the outbreak of war, including diplomatic intervention,
mediation, arbitration, and preventive deployment of armed force; and
armed and unarmed post-conflict peacekeeping, peace-building, and,
occasionally, peace enforcement. Another useful innovation is the trend in
international lending toward limits on military spending.
These useful approaches to preventing war have been applied separately
and incompletely; none has been fully successful, and none is likely to be
so if they remain separate. In the 1960s, the United States and the Soviet
Union proposed plans for general and complete disarmament
supplemented by UN peacekeeping, but these plans were shelved in favour
of separate programmes for partial arms limits and reductions. For nuclear
arms, this approach worked because the many issues into which nuclear
arms control was divided - testing, bilateral reductions, non-proliferation,
ending production of fissile material, and disposing of fissile material -
were all supported by strong public rejection of nuclear weapons. For
conventional forces, in contrast, the disaggregation of disarmament into
separate projects fragmented public and government interest, dividing
support among many worthwhile measures, such as limits on arms transfers

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GLOBAL ACTION TO PREVENT WAR 111
or cuts in military spending. The only areas where there was real success,
the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe and the ban on antipersonnel
landmines, were exceptional in generating broad popular support.
Now, instead of striving for peace in fragments, it is time to bring
together these diverse approaches - conventional force reductions, limits
on arms production and trade, cuts in military spending, measures to stop
proliferation, confidence-building steps, training for peaceful conflict
resolution, and structures for peace-building, peacekeeping, and peace
enforcement - in a unified programme to prevent war, and to incorporate
this programme in a treaty that will assure its enduring implementation.
A comprehensive approach is needed to be effective and to mobilize
widespread public support; and broad public support is needed to change
government policies. A comprehensive approach will complement and
strengthen existing peacemaking and arms control programmes by building
a broader coalition of interested publics and officials to support these
programmes. Equally important, a comprehensive effort to prevent war
and reduce conventional forces will parallel and strengthen efforts to
eliminate nuclear arms, and help create the international stability needed to
make abolition feasible. In fact, one goal of this programme is to support
efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, and we believe the success of this
programme is essential to that goal.

Successive Treaties to Reduce Conventional Arms and Armed Conflict

Several changes in norms and peace-enforcement capabilities are needed to

prevent war and other forms of large-scale violence. These changes, which
can be achieved over a period of years, are: first, strengthening non-military
means of resolving conflicts and preventing violence (ranging from the
establishment of civil liberties to diplomacy, mediation and arbitration,
grassroots action, and civilian resistance); second, firmly establishing the
rule of law in international as well as domestic affairs, in part by limiting
the accepted uses of armed force to deterring and defending against
aggression, genocide, and other forms of mass violence; and, finally,
replacing national armed forces intended for intervention to stop
aggression or genocide with UN and regional forces structured to perform
these roles and with national forces for border defence.
An effective programme to achieve these changes should be politically
attractive but militarily cautious, aiming to make changes in a careful
manner, without creating new situations of uncertainty in which the risk of
war might rise. The four-phased process which follows aims to meet these
objectives.

Phase 1 : First Treaty to Reduce Conventional Armaments and Armed

Conflict (TRAAC Î), Five to Ten-Year Duration
Phase 1 has two main goals: to prevent the outbreak of smaller civil and

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112 J. DEAN ET AL.
inter-national wars and genocide by strengthening the means of peaceful
conflict resolution available to the international community; and to start
reducing the longer-term risks of major regional and global wars by
building confidence in international commitment to this goal.
Phase 1 will begin with the adoption of an initial Treaty to Reduce
Conventional Armaments and Armed Conflict (TRAAC I), in which
participating nations promise to work to reduce the risk and frequency of
armed conflict through a combination of global and regional reductions in
national armed forces and improvements in the military and non-military
means available to the international community to prevent or end armed
conflict. In the near term, participants will commit themselves to provide
full transparency regarding their own armed forces, military personnel and
spending, arms inventories, production, and trade, and planned future
forces; not to increase any of these major indicators of military power for
a period of five to ten years, during negotiations on global reductions in
armaments; and to take various steps to strengthen global and regional
conflict prevention and peacekeeping, including steps to:

1. Establish a professional conflict mediation service at the disposal of the

UN Secretary General and the Security Council.

2. Apply a prescribed set of confidence-building measures in all bilateral

relationships that could lead to armed conflict.

3. Establish regional security organizations where they do not already

exist, and systematically strengthen the conflict prevention and
peacekeeping capabilities of all regional security organizations.

4. Create readiness brigades in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, matching

the brigade that now exists in Europe, and make these brigades available
for both UN and regional peacekeeping and peace-enforcement
missions.

5. Establish additional headquarters units at the UN and create a $500

million contingency fund to permit the rapid start of new peacekeeping
operations.

6. Refer more international disputes to the International Court of Justice,

while moving toward compulsory submission, and create an
International Criminal Court to prosecute war crimes, genocide and
other crimes against humanity.

7. Initiate or expand nation wide domestic programmes for training in the

peaceful settlement of disputes in schools and communities.

Phase II: Second Treaty to Reduce Conventional Armaments and Armed

Conflict (TRAAC II), Five to Ten-Year Duration
Phase II will launch a full-fledged effort to reduce the risk of major regional
and global war with a second Treaty to Reduce Conventional Armaments

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GLOBAL ACTION TO PREVENT WAR 113
and Armed Conflict (TRAAC II), which makes substantial global and
regional cuts in the main indicators of military power (force components,
inventories of weapon systems, military personnel, and spending), and
places commensurate limits on arms production and trade.
Aiming ultimately at low levels of armaments in all parts of the world,
TRAAC II will make proportionately larger cuts in countries with larger
armed forces. For example, countries with aggregate inventories of major
weapons (combat aircraft and armed helicopters, tanks, armoured
personnel carriers, heavy artillery, and naval ships over 1,000 tons)
numbering over 10,000 (the USA, Russia, China) might reduce their forces
by 35%, while those with inventories totalling 1,000 to 10,000 would cut
by 25%, and those with inventories under 1,000 by 15%. These global cuts
may be supplemented by additional confidence-building arms limits and
reductions in areas plagued by long-standing regional conflicts. Cutbacks in
arms production and trade will accompany the global and regional cuts in
armed forces; but since arms acquisition during reductions will be minimal,
there will be greater than proportionate cuts in production and trade and
in the size of arms industries.
Just as in Phase I, efforts will continue during Phase II to strengthen
institutions for conflict prevention and resolution, and to prevent the
outbreak of smaller civil and international wars, violent ethnic conflicts,
and genocide. These efforts will be funded by a tax of 1/1 000th of 1% of
all international financial transactions.

Phase III. Third Treaty to Reduce Conventional Armaments and Armed

Conflict (TRAAC III), Ten-Year Duration
The main goal of Phase III will be to build confidence in the peacekeeping
and peace-enforcement capabilities of the UN and regional security
organizations. In a third Treaty to Reduce Conventional Armaments and
Ajmed Conflict (TRAAC III), participating countries, including the major
powers, will test the effectiveness of the international security system by
making a commitment not to deploy their armed forces beyond national
borders except as part of a multilateral deployment under UN or a regional
auspices. Since the UN and regional security organizations will have
expanded their peacekeeping and peace-enforcement capabilities
throughout Phases I and II, the assumption is that by Phase III they will be
willing and able to take responsibility for launching and leading rapid
multilateral military action aimed at preventing or ending the outbreak of
war or genocide. Multilateral action under UN auspices will be authorized
by a reformed Security Council.
At any time in Phase III, if participating nations conclude that their security
is being threatened by a failure on the part of the international security system,
they will have the right to withdraw from TRAAC III; and because TRAAC II
cuts will reduce national forces by no more than about one-third, capabilities
for unilateral foreign military intervention will still exist.

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114 J. DEAN ET AL.
Withdrawal from TRAAC III will not vitiate the commitments made
under TRAACs I or II, but a successful TRAAC III trial - that is, a period
of ten years with no withdrawal and no unilateral military action on the
part of nations with large or very large armed forces - will be a prerequisite
for proceeding with Phase IV.
During the TRAAC III trial, negotiations will be conducted on another
round of reductions in conventional forces and in military spending, to be
carried out in Phase IV, when there is full confidence in the effectiveness of
the international security system.

Phase IV. Fourth Treaty to Reduce Conventional Armaments and Armed

Conflict (TRAAC IV), Indefinite Duration
Following the trial run in TRAAC III, the TRAAC IV agreement, a treaty of
indefinite duration, will transfer the responsibility and capability for global
peacekeeping and peace enforcement (but not for the defence of national
territory) from individual nations to the international security system
operated by the UN and regional security organizations. This transfer will
permit and require further cuts in national forces like those in TRAAC II
(35, 25 and 15%, respectively, for countries with very large, large, and small
forces). It will also require a further increase in the standing forces
composed of volunteers maintained for peacekeeping and peace-
enforcement by the UN and regional security organizations. Production of
major weapons will be restricted to systems needed by individual nations for
defensive security (defence of national territory) and those needed by the
UN and regional organizations for peacekeeping and peace-enforcement.
By largely eliminating the capabilities of all nations for foreign
intervention or cross-border aggression, while significantly increasing the
forces under UN and regional command, TRAAC IV will complete the
process of giving international institutions the full array of means needed
to keep the peace among nations.

Ultimate Goals

As confidence in the international security system grows and military

threats diminish, further changes in worldwide military capabilities will be
desirable and should be possible.
The initial goal will be for all nations to convert fully to defensive
security systems, in which national are forces are limited strictly and
narrowly to territorial defence (air defence, coastal defence, and border
defence), and the UN and regional security organizations alone are capable
of large-scale military intervention in distant areas to prevent or end large-
scale violence. Efforts to achieve this goal are likely to be mutually
reinforcing. As confidence in the international security system grows and
national armed forces shrink, the multilateral forces needed to deter and
defend against cross-border aggression and other forms of large-scale

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GLOBAL ACTION TO PREVENT WAR 115
violence will be smaller and more likely to succeed. At the same time, as
expectations of peace grow, nations and national leaders will be more
comfortable with the idea of limiting their armed forces to border defences.
Eventually, the world's nations may reach a certain point of
commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the rejection of
armed force as a means of obtaining various ends - a point at which nothing
more will be required on the part of the UN or regional security
organizations than to verify adherence to defensive security limits on the
part of individual nations, and to prevent the use of violence for gain or for
political intimidation by non-state actors such as terrorists and criminal
syndicates. Meanwhile, organized non-state violence will be rare, because
general adherence to the norm of non-violence will be fostered by
consistent government commitment to exclusively peaceful means of
resolving conflicts and achieving political and economic ends.

The Benefits of Global Action to Prevent War

This ambitious programme focuses on one urgent task: stopping organized

mass killing, in all its forms. This urgent goal can be achieved in a few
decades without radical change in intractable political or economic
structures; but working toward and reaching this goal will facilitate many
other positive changes.
The potential benefits of sustained global action to prevent war are
numerous, and they are both tangible and intangible. The main goal is to
save lives and societies from the horrors of war. Another important tangible
goal is to free up financial and human resources for urgent human needs.
Less easily measured but of great value are the potential benefits to the
quality of human life. An effective war-prevention system will strengthen
commitment to democratic values and processes, foster tolerance and equal
treatment before the law, promote equity and basic human rights in social
and political interactions, reduce violence within nations, and help preserve
the natural environment.
Removing war from the landscape of daily life will not create a Utopian
world: it will simply eliminate the most destructive feature of human
society, allowing human energy to be devoted more fully to other problems
and to productive, life-enhancing activities.

What You Can Do

There are many ways in which groups and individuals can help develop and
promote Global Action to Prevent War. For example:

• Send comments on the programme and suggestions for outreach

opportunities to Global Action at IDDS (the Institute for Defense and
Disarmament Studies, address below).

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116 J. DEAN ET AL.
• If you are willing to publicly endorse the programme, inform Global
Action at IDDS by mail, fax, or email. (Be sure to include a return
address so that we can confirm your endorsement and send you
programme updates.)

• Make copies of the statement (or order free copies from IDDS) to give
to your friends, or circulate through organizations of which you are a
member.

• Send copies to friends and relatives in distant places - other towns,

states, or countries. Help us find out whether, as we hope, Global
Action to Prevent War looks equally attractive from any vantage-point
on the globe.

• Write to your local newspaper or radio station, or contact members of

your local or state government, to request their endorsement and public
support.

• Work with local groups to hold conferences where Global Action goals
can be debated, and organize petitions and other publicity to help get
out the word.

• Last but not least, let us know what you are doing for Global Action to
Prevent War, so that we can build a stronger coalition, disseminate
creative ideas for promotion, and share important milestones of
achievement along the way.

(6 November 1999)

Correspondence: Institute of Defense and Disarmament Studies, 675 Massachusetts

Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139 USA (Fax 001-617-354-1450, e-mail: globalaction
pw@idds.org).

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