Security policy – against the logic of violence

In times of forced war preparation, a book with the title “More security without weapons” promises a strong piece. Werner Wintersteiner, Germanist and peace researcher at the University of Klagenfurt and there as well as founders as well as until his retirement head of the Center for Peace Research and Peace Education, dared to dig up and transform into today. A historical witness is called here who, like most pioneers, has long been forgotten from a peaceful coexistence policy, has been pushed out of public awareness. Despite and precisely because of crises and wars, the 1950s to 1980s were characterized by the design of strategies in order to break out of the deadly logic of the blockage. Politicians, scientists, peace movement and sometimes parties were committed. Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy and chairman of the board of trustees of the German Foundation for Peace Research, as well as Horst Afheldt, head of the physicist and philosopher’s appeal in 1970 Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker founded security -political working group on Max-Planck-Institutnamed as the keyword for the east-west dialog supported by the SPD.

The Austrian Federal Councilor Hans Thirring was part of the Phalanx of the Kalten warriors provocative heads. The physicist had recognized the consequences of nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles early on and was convinced that “the oppressive load of armaments spending and the impending danger of completely annihilation by a nuclear war is perceived as such unbearable that the call for disarmament and peaceful coexistence becomes louder and more urgent”. However, he was also aware of the limits of his authority and international attention in the small, at that time by ÖVP and SPÖ, alpine country, especially in times when the western states were committed to a militant anti -communism and a “politicizing professor” can quickly be suspected of being suspected of being an “agent moscow”.

Regardless of this, Thirring pulled his conclusions, dictated by his conscience, and presented a plan to unilaterally disarmament Austria in 1963. This step of a country, which is at the time as a neutral country, should be initial igniter for a new, more peaceful security policy on the world stage: for individual neutral countries, which is particularly favorable due to their geographical and political situation, could be an opportunity that has never been established in history and at the same time achieve a significant profit itself. Consistent disarmament, guaranteed limits and contracts with neighboring countries that settle on area disputes seemed possible. Such a neutrality would also be the prerequisite for the respective states to act as a mediator in conflict, crisis and war regions.

Werner Wintersteiner has earned the fact that Thirring’s peace plan has been broken down and won 13 authors who analyze its seriousness in the historical context, shortly after the crises around Berlin 1961 and Cuba in 1962. The year 1963 was a good time for such an initiative, since the political leaders in the USA and the USSR looked into the thermonuclear abyss and understood that they would play with the downfall of mankind and therefore necessary peaceful coexistence.

In two other chapters, the authors of Thirring discuss possible current importance and international experiences with Pacific concepts. Such suggestions were not practical in Austria at the time, but the idea was in the world. Andreas Gross illustrates this in his contribution on the “Switzerland without Army” initiative at the end of the 1980s, which at least support more than a million citizens. And the Slovenian cultural scientist Marko Hren reports how a “Slovenia without the army” was seriously discussed in his homeland in his homeland. The Austrian philosopher Leo Gabriel refers to the world’s only example of a state without the army: Costa Rica.

Thirring proved to be witty, stubborn anti-communist and anti-Soviet zeitgeist as well as to meet mistrust in the east, for example by with relish a sentence from a lecture by the KPDSU general secretary Nikita Khruschtschow in Vienna: »Just as people cannot be driven into the paradise with the stick to want to go to communism through a war. ”The Austrian friend of the peace made it clear using the example of the Cuba crisis that has just been survived that communism was not based on territorial aggression and submission, but was carried out by the conviction that inner contradictions in one country would bring people to the revolution.

Against the background of today’s wars and military ambitions, Thirring Analysis of the Winter War 1939/40 of the Soviet Union against Finland should also be worth considering: “Every real expert in Kremlin policy will … agree that for the decisive men of the Soviet Union, the existence of a pacified border (especially if this pacification is still duly underlined) The possible property further west of the military base, the value of which becomes less with increasing reach and efficiency of the intercontinental missiles from year to year. «This evaluation arose in a sober consideration of the interests on both sides and the practical policies of the competing states, apart from political and medial apron, not by chance to the benefit of the armaments industry.

As exciting as the claim of Thirring in 1963 and as necessary it is to snatch his ideas to the forgetting – from the review of the reviewer, they are hardly to be transferred to the present. At that time, two contrary social systems led by Washington and Moscow faced each other, which tried to outdo the other and also did not want to do without the proverbial “last battle”, even if this would mean the fall of mankind.

With the demise of real socialism, the world has changed fundamentally, with the recovering Russia as a great power and the demanding awakening of China as equal competitors of the United States and the West, the international rules of the game have changed. Capitalist and socialist ideology is no longer faced here, but nationalisms and hegemonic claims collide. The still neutral states in the Cold War are there or have already done it to reveal their political and military neutrality. The Austrian general in retirement Günther Greindl considers an unarmed neutrality possible. His reminder is to be taken seriously: “The security of a state is resting … on three pillars, democracy, diplomacy and defension.” At the same time, he warns his country to join the western air defense system “Sky Shield”. “The EU Peace Project is on a geopolitical wrong path in the Kielwasser of NATO new, which may turn Europe into a battlefield for the third time for the third time.”

Under today’s conditions, a completely new approach is actually more important than all previous ones – even if it would brood more politically and militarily. The outcome of the 1980s have already been considered and partially also tested as part of negotiations between the two military blocks NATO and Warsaw contract. Peace researcher Christine Schweitzer confirms – perhaps with a little too much optimism – the topicality of strategies for defensive defense, structural non -encompassing and civil social defense.

The bottom line remains, not the acquisition of manifold, but only the courage to peace can enable the survival of mankind. Once again the Austrian general is cited: »The war in Ukraine does not change the fact that the EU and Russia are neighbors who live on the same continent. This geopolitical constant remains the focal point for a European security architecture and a permanent peace in Europe. «

Werner Wintersteiner (ed.): More security without weapons. On the topicality of Hans Thirring’s peace plan. Promedia, 248 pages, Br., 24 €.