Established in 1991, the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference is a forum for political dialogue between representatives from national and regional parliaments in the Baltic region. In preparation for this year’s annual conference, the Standing Commission, which conducts business between the annual conferences, was welcomed in the Hamburg city hall. IFSH peace researcher Dr. Margret Johannsen was invited as an expert guest.
In her talk, Dr. Johannsen spoke about peace and security in the Baltic region while focussing particularly on the topics of arms control and confidence building. According to Dr. Johannsen, because it would not be possible to negotiate a new, comprehensive arms control treaty currently, taking small steps would be a more promising strategy. So-called “voluntary political declarations”, a far cry from formal agreements, could lead the issue of arms control out of stalemate. The idea is not a new one: at the end of the Cold War especially, US-American as well as Soviet leadership made mutually one-sided promises to considerably reduce the number of tactical nuclear weapons. The concept harks back to Charles Osgood’s model, proposed during a time in which, because of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the world appeared to be on the edge of war. Today, according to Dr. Johannsen, the Treaty on Open Skies could provide experimental ground for unconventional action. The 34 party states evidently value the treaty’s potential to build trust. Moreover, the fact that the aerial surveillance flights would mostly take place “under the radar” of the public and the press could be advantageous, though it would be regrettable from a foreign policy and security policy standpoint. Instead of relying on prolonged negotiations when it comes to politically controversial topics, Dr. Johannsen concluded, the opposing parties would be content for the time being to avoid controversies in the interest of the technical process of confidence building.