Conflict and Cooperation: The Nordic Nuclear-Free Zone Today

Abstract

Maude, G. Conflict and Cooperation: The Nordic Nuclear-Free Zone Today. Coop eration and Conflict, XVIII, 1983, 233-243.

This article discusses three major lines of thinking about a proposed Nordic nuclear-free zone, namely the viewpoints of Olof Palme, Johan Jørgen Holst, and Osmo Apunen. These viewpoints constituted the key themes of the Nuclear Weapons and Northern Europe seminar held in Helsinki on 2-3 June 1983 under the auspices of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. The article assumes the existence of a mounting degree of pressure in Northern Europe for such a zone and therefore attention is paid not to the question of the use-value of a NWFZ but to the method of its realization. It is concluded that notwithstanding the firm line taken by the present Norwegian government, NATO cannot — in the interests of its own power politics — long resist acceptance of a Nordic NWFZ. In this respect the article argues that the most acceptable model is the apparently least ambitious one.