ABSTRACT: Introduction to the book "Which disarmament": how the idea came for a research on disarmament options, the work of IRDISP.

(Irdisp - Which disarmament - Franco Angeli - Milan - October 1988)

The idea of working on this book began in the first months of 1985. At the time the perspectives concerning disarmament were neither rosy nor brilliant: after the interruption of November 1983, the Geneva negotiations between the U.S. and USSR had been resumed, however the positions remained almost irreconcilable. In the meanwhile, the deployment of new weapons systems in both blocks were unremitting, as well as the constant increase of military expenditure almost everywhere in the world. The new leader Mikhail Gorbachev settled in the Kremlin, but it was too soon to make any sensible forecasts on his choices concerning domestic and international policy.

It was, in other words, such a gloomy period for those who believed it urgent to slow down and reverse the arms race, that it was necessary to stop and think. Did the arms control and generally the entire negotiation approach still make sense? Or was the time ripe to relinquish all efforts to negotiate and concentrate mainly on acts of unilateral disarmament? In the latter case, which goal was to be given priority? The reform of certain aspects of the current Italian and Atlantic defensive organization (such as: giving up prime use of nuclear weapons), or the focusing of all energies on radical reforms such as defensive defense or non-violent popular defense?

A preliminary step is always necessary when attempting to answer these questions: to try to understand which security it is realistic to pursue, and from which threats. Our intention, here at the IRDISP, was that of trying to correct certain distortions in the way in which most medias currently represent the threats to our security. On a military level there is, for example, a systematic underevaluation of the risk involved in the presence of thousands of nuclear weapons on our continent. An attitude which echoes an equally systematic underevaluation of the conventional capacities of the Warsaw Pact.

Finally, hardly any attention is given to non-military threats, those threats against which armies are not only useless, but even harmful. Confronted with problems such as the demographic boom and the accompanying ecological disaster, or the Third World's public debt, for example, what are the armies doing if not subtracting financial, scientific and technological resources which are desperately needed elsewhere? Similarly, the presence in Europe of millions and millions of men in the army, far from being capable of facing it, has aggravated, by consolidating it, that which any Western citizen perceives as the true threat from the East: the lack of democratic freedom in the countries of real socialism.

These are, in synthesis, the premises in consideration of which the papers collected in this book have been developed. The fact that the book is being published when the negotiations on the arms control are once again starting to be fruitful makes the different contributions all the more up-to-date. The question is precisely that of considering with more continuity which disarmament and which security we are pursuing, and how to obtain them. However, in this book no final answers to such problems are to be found. The intention was that of proving that there are feasible alternatives to military competition, that they are many and not necessarily in contrast with one another. By that we mean defining priorities and options.

All the contributions presented in this book have been written explicitly for this book. The only exceptions are: chapter 4, "Simulation of a nuclear conflict in Europe", which Andrea Ottolenghi developed for the World Health organization; chapter 7, "Redefining national security" by Lester Brown, published in the 1986 issue of the 'State of the world' yearly of the 'Worldwatch Institute' with the title "Redifining National Security". Both however appear for the first time in this book in Italian translation.

The translations, all from English and revised by the editor are by: Danila Curcio (chapter 7), Paolo Miggiano (chapter 10), Carlotta Pittori (chapters 1, 5, 11). Most of the pictures were created at Mauro Magni's Graph '87 graphic arts studio. The entire project followed, so to say, the editor, who started conceiving the project while at IRDISP, then moved to the Institute for International Affairs (IAI) where at the time I was a researcher (summer 1985 - summer 1987), in the mean time the research became an IAI-IRDISP joint project. Among other things, in December 1985 a one and a half day meeting was held at the IAI head office between the authors who contributed to this research, in order to better define the terms of the single papers. The final preparation before publication was held at IRDISP in the first few months of 1988.

At this stage it must be said that if the publication of the book was not further delayed, this is thanks to Paolo Miggiano, Cesare Ruotolo and Marco Tagliavini, and later Francesco Angelino. If, in spite of all their efforts, there are some mistakes, the responsibility is entirely the editor's.

Rome, June 1988