High-Level Group Issues

Appeal to Biden and Putin to Reduce Nuclear Weapons Dangers

 

Call for Results-Oriented Dialogue to Rediscover the Road to a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

For Immediate Release: June 8, 2021, 9am ET

Media Contacts:; Ira Helfand, past president, IPPNW (1-413-320-7829); Sergey Batsanov, Pugwash Conferences (+41-791-554-610); Rachel Bronson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1-312-404-3071); Daryl Kimball, executive director, Arms Control Association (1-202-463-8270 ext. 107).

(Washington and Moscow)—In advance of the first summit between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Joseph R. Biden in Geneva on June 16, a group of more than 30 American and Russian organizations, international nuclear policy experts, and former senior officials have issued an appeal to the two Presidents calling upon them to launch a regular dialogue on strategic stability, to take meaningful steps to reduce the risk of nuclear war, and make further progress on nuclear arms control and disarmament.

The statement was organized by leaders of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Pugwash Conference on Science and Global Affairs, the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Peace, and the Arms Control Association.

In the statement, which was delivered to the two governments on June 7, the signatories urge the two presidents to: “Commit to a bilateral strategic dialogue that is regular, frequent, comprehensive and result oriented leading to further reduction of the nuclear risk hanging over the world and to the re-discovery of the road to a world free of nuclear weapons.”

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Center on National Security
May 13, 2021
Interview with Nicolai Petro

Vital Interests: Nicolai, thanks for joining us today on the Vital Interests forum. We have had several conversations on this forum dealing with Russia but it would be good to delve into this topic some more. You’re a perfect person to talk to having just come back from Europe where you spent time in Ukraine and Italy and can provide us with fresh insights. 

Recently President Putin gave his annual state of the nation address to the Russian Federal Assembly. He talked about the spiritual and moral values which sustain Russia and distinguish it from other nations which were forgetting about these essential values. This struck me as an interesting statement by Putin and worth exploring. From your informed perspective what are the spiritual and moral values that Putin is referring to that define Russian society today?

Nicolai Petro: Since 2013 Putin has focused particular attention on Russia’s heritage as a multicultural nation. In his September 19, 2013 speech at the Valdai Conference he emphasized multiculturalism at a time when his counterparts in the West were disavowing it. He later made a distinction between multiculturalism and pluriculturalism, defining Russia as a pluricultural society.

The distinction as I understand it is that multiculturalism encourages individual cultural self identification, whereas pluriculturalism emphasizes the need for cultural collectives to retain their cultural identities within the larger community. To make the distinction clear to your readers, the United States would be an example of a multicultural society. The European Union, by contrast would be an example of the pluricultural society because it says, “Look you Catalonians, you Corsicans, you Welsh – you have an identity that should be encouraged and recognized as a positive social value even though you don’t have statehood.” The distinction is apparent even in their respective mottos: “Out of Many, One” for the United States, and “United in Diversity” for the European Union.

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ACURA Viewpoint:
The West Needs to Rethink Its Approach In Ukraine

ACURA: American Committee for US-Russia Accord
May 5, 2021
By Nicolai Petro

The West’s approach to achieving peace in Ukraine has focused on Russia’s role … while ignoring domestic factors because they are consistent with the broader US policy of portraying Russia as a destabilizing actor in world affairs.

It is also in keeping with the dominant approach to international relations—Realism—which sees domestic actors as irrelevant when considering a nation’s foreign policy. This view is a myth, left over from the 1950s, the Golden Era of U.S. foreign policy when senator Arthur Vandenberg, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, famously put it “politics stops at the water’s edge.” It is telling that Joe Biden, who remembers that era, called on Ukrainian political leaders in his speech to the parliament on December 9, 2015, to put aside their “parochial differences” and think about the common good.

But this has not occurred, and we have not stopped to ask why.

It is because we insist on seeing Ukraine through the prism of Russia, rather than through the complex realities of Ukraine. This has prevented the emergence of any policy toward the country, other than to see it separated from Russia. It has even unwittingly led the U.S. to support Western Ukrainian demands for an ethnically and culturally  monolithic Ukraine, against Eastern and Southern Ukrainian demands for cultural pluralism.

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Dear CCI Friends,

A very important Webinar on NATO Expansion is being offered by the Quincy Institute on May 11. Check it out below to see what time it will be offered in your time zone.

Ambassador Jack Matlock will lead off with others following. Anatol Lieven, a Russian and international specialist will moderate the event. It should be terrific!

Let’s plan to interact via email or Zoom following this event to determine a course of action. More to follow.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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