Inclusion of the Baltic Republics in the Nordic nuclear-free zone

Abstract

INCLUSION OF T H E BALTIC R E P U B L I C S IN T H E N O R D I C N U C L E A R - F R E E Z O N E Rein Taagepera University of California, Irvine A nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) in Northern Europe has been dis- cussed for several decades as an international confidence-building measure. It is usually envisaged to include Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, which presently have no nuclear weapons on their soil. Such delineation should facilitate the establishment of the NWFZ, since no changes in the status quo are required: the zone would only represent a commitment not to introduce nuclear weapons in the future. Yet nothing has come of the proposal, largely because the area proposed is lopsided: it includes two NATO countries (Denmark and Norway) and two neutral ones (Sweden and Finland), but no Warsaw Pact territories. As such, the NWFZ proposal has too little to offer to the NATO countries; it could tie their hands in some future contingency without imposing the least obligation on the Warsaw Pact countries. A compensating inclusion of Warsaw Pact territories is difficult because the only geographically thinkable areas are the Soviet Baltic and Arctic coasts, and including a slice of a superpower's territory in the Nordic NWFZ would involve an asymmetry of its own. In the 1970s such inclusion was considered too unrealistic to be even mentioned by anyone. However, in its absence the Nordic NWFZ has remained unrealized. This is regrettable for two reasons. (1) A continued lack of tension in Northern Europe cannot be taken for granted (witness the recent submarine incidents), and the nuclear-weapon-free status quo should be formalized before frictions arise. (2) A formal NWFZ in Northern Europe would be a confidence-building measure with potential for imitation in other areas of the world. Since 1981 the inclusion of the Soviet Baltic republics in the proposed Nordic NWFZ has become thinkable in may quarters, although the establishment of the zone (with or without the Baltic republics) remains problematic. Such inclusion was proposed in an Open Letter by fBS Vo[ ~ V f N~ I (.~Drin~ Lc~sJ ,%R