ABSTRACT
Measures and initiatives aiming at alleviating the East-West conflict, preventing its deterioration into an armed conflict in or around Europe, and reducing the risk of nuclear war must be important and legitimate parts of the security policies of any European state, aligned or not. Detente is, after all, something that can only exist in peacetime, and in peacetime the Nordic countries are nuclear-weapon-free already. They have rather more to do with the process of establishing a zone. A battlefield-nuclear-weapon-free corridor would, according to the Swedish documents, constitute an important confidence-building measure which should contribute towards reduced tensions in Europe and reduce the risk of an immediate recourse to battlefield nuclear weapons were an armed conflict to break out. When the Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe began its work in Stockholm in January 1984, it did so accompanied by great public interest and high hopes for significant disarmament results.
