Confidence and Security Building Measures and the European Neutrals

Abstract

Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs), to use the Stockholm Conference terminology, are instruments which aim at reducing the possibilities of armed conflicts resulting from accident, misunderstanding, miscalculation or failure of communication as well as at strengthening confidence among states. In other words, they constitute means to change the perception and nature of the threat and to lessen tensions. An agreement on a set of mutually complementary CSBMs which would alter the threat significantly within the forseeable future, if enforced, could certainly help modify the nuclear dilemma as it now stands.

The author, solely responsible for the following pages, wishes to thank René Haug for his stimulating comments. These remarks were prepared at the time of the Stockholm Conference which ended in the Fall of 1986. This conference constitutes only a stage in a long process of identifying, deciding upon, and implementing measures which could significantly increase confidence and improve security within the European continent. The measures suggested in Stockholm by the Neutral countries should thus be seen from a long-term perspective and not exclusively in the context of the Conference itself (February 1987).