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Hans Blix: The most important lesson in diplomacy is not to humiliate

In an  interview  Dr Hans Blix -- after many years of experiences as a Swedish diplomat working in various positions in and for the UN -- shares his views on  current international relations and challenges and opportunities in the international rules-based order.  We are happy to share this interview, provided by the European Leaders Network ELN. A German edition for our German part of our homepage is in preparation. 

In this long interview, Dr Blix elaborates on his 2017 ELN commentary ‘From an Isolated Iran to an Isolated US’ in which he states arguments made against the Iran Deal are tenuous; adding he felt it: “important to say that the US is getting away with claiming they are withdrawing from an agreement – it was not an 'agreement'. The Joint Plan of Action was not signed, nor termed a treaty or agreement because that could never be submitted to the US Senate. It was very deliberate. A deal was agreed between countries and given its legal binding force by the Security Council..." 

As well as the Iran Deal, Dr Blix shares his views on supporting the integrity of international organisations, Russia-West relations, NATO, and attitudes toward global non-proliferation and arms control:

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Katrina vanden Heuvel: Withdrawal from the INF – Trump is pushing the world closer to nuclear peril

My daughter Nika was born just a few years after Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan signed the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, one of the world’s most important nuclear arms accords. With the stroke of two pens, the agreement banned an entire class of nuclear weapons, led to the destruction of nearly 2,700 warheads and diminished the threat of nuclear war in Europe. At the time, Gorbachev said, “We can be proud to plant this sapling, which someday may grow to be a full tree of peace.” Thirty-one years later, President Trump is taking an ax to that tree. This month, he announced that the United States will withdraw from the INF, all but inviting a new arms race: “We have more money than anybody else by far,” Trump said. “We’ll build it up until [China and Russia] come to their senses.”

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INF Treaty in jeopardy: Gorbachev appeals to the Presidents of Russia and the U.S.

INF was the start of the process of radically cutting back nuclear arsenals, which was continued with the 1991 and 2010 strategic arms reduction treaties and the agreements reducing tactical nuclear weapons. The scale of the process launched in 1987 is evidenced by the fact that, as Russia and the United States reported to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2015, 80 percent of the nuclear weapons accumulated during the Cold War have been decommissioned and destroyed. ... The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, however, is now in jeopardy. I call upon Russia and the United States to prepare and hold a full-scale summit on the entire range of issues. It is far from normal that the presidents of major nuclear powers meet merely “on the margins” of international gatherings. I hope that the process of preparing a proper summit is in the works even now…

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The American Conservative: Trump, New START, and U.S.-Russian Relations

In the case of New START, it was conventional hawkish boilerplate back in 2009-2010 that Russia benefited more from the treaty, but this wasn’t true. It represented the continuation of a mutually beneficial arms reduction process, and it ensured that reductions by both sides would be verified by inspections....

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