Focus On: Three Minutes to a New Day?
| Author | Jan Øberg |
| DOI | 10.1177/002234338402100201 |
| Published date | 01 June 1984 |
| Date | 01 June 1984 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Focus
On:
Three
Minutes
to
a
New
Day?
JAN
ØBERG
Lund
University
Peace
Research
Institute
(LUPRI)
1.
Introduction
We
are
living
in
a
climate
of
Cold
War.
Many
perceive
the
risk
of
a
Hot
War
as
increasing
-
leading
to
a
post-nuclear
’winter’.
The
armament
and
militarization
processes
are
developing
rapidly
at
the
same
time
as
Western
civilization
-
its
capitalist
as
well
as
socialist
variety
-
is
in
deep
crisis.
Disarmament
and
arms
control
negotiations
-
for
a
long
time
treated
as
’the
only
hope
for
Humankind’ -
have
mainly
served
the
arms
race,
and
involved
weapons,
states
or
political
problems
and
circumstances
which
were
utterly
counterproductive
in
terms
of
reaching
the
high
goals
of
really
reducing
the
destructive
potentials
of
nations
and
realizing
general
and
complete
disarmament.
At
the
same
time,
there
is
a
fundamental
doubt
about
the
conventional
-
and
nuclear,
you
may
say
-
wisdom
of
security
affairs.
Leading
politicians,
experts,
former
ministers,
pensioned
and
’dissident’
generals
as
well
as
a
substantial
share
of
public
opinion
in
many
countries
are
questioning
this
presumed
rationality
and
ask:
How
could
the
present
situation
develop
if
the
assumptions
and
theories,
the
means
and
the
politics
of
what
is
called
’national
defence
and
security
in
the
inter-
national
system’
are
correct
and
represent
some
of
the
most
sophisticated
models
of
thinking
we
know
of?
It
seems
that
they
question
more
than
isolated
political
acts
and
events
or
the
behaviour
of
single
nations;
rather,
they
challenge
the
classical
paradigm
of
’national
security’
as
we
have
known
it
at
least
since
1945
and,
in
principle,
since
Machiavelli.
Thus,
there
seems
to
be
a
need
for
developing
some
kind
of
new
paradigm(s).
That
is,
a
fundamentally
new
way
of
thinking
(defence
philosophy)
about
security
at
the
level
of
human
beings,
local
communities,
nations,
and
regions
as
well
as
in
terms
of
the
global
system.
Much
of
the
discussion
in
politics
and
research
focusses
on
hardware
issues,
technology,
’packages’,
or
abstract theories
of,
for
example,
deterrence
which
are
completely
isolated
from
social,
cultural,
and
moral
issues.
And
many
seem
to
be
convinced
that
if
only
enough
hard,
’encodable’
data
about
the
consequences
of,
let’s
say,
some
type
of
nuclear
war
or
about
the
economic
benefits
from
disarmament
are
presented
for
decision-makers,
then
a
more
peaceful
development
can
start.
It
hardly
will,
however.
One
dimension
often
forgotten
is
that
the
world
security
problem
has
much
to
do
with
the
way
we
think,
with
life
practices
of
individuals
and
collectives
in
modern
Western
society
and
with
our
basic
value-orientation
and
norms.
The
problematique
is
treated
more
often
than
not
as
an
isolated,
technical
issue
rather
than
as
an
existential
challenge
involving
the
whole
human
being
and
entire
societal
structures
and
dynamics.
This
may
be
completely
rational
-
after
all,
there
is
a
system-logic
in
the
way
in
which
society
and
its
decision-makers
respond
to
perceived
challenges
and
define
problems
and
concepts.
However,
a
more
sober-minded
consideration
would
be
that
we
are
dealing
here
with
matters
of
existential
value,
of
life
and
death,
of
morality
and
criminality,
of
permanence
and
extinction,
of
psychic
well-
being
and
mental
illness.
It
would,
I
think,
be
foolish
to
take
for
granted
that
something
called
’science’
or
rational
expertise
-
and
only
that
-
can
solve
such
tremendously
complex
problems;
likewise,
we
should
hardly
expect
them
to
be
solved
by
the
few
for
the
good
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