ABSTRACT
The prospect of conventional disarmament in Europe holds out great consequences not only for the continent but also for the entire world. Conventional disarmament in Europe therefore should lead to progress in nuclear disarmament, thus progressively reducing our race to self-extinction. Seen in the context of the process of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, conventional disarmament in Europe will be the culmination of efforts to re-establish mutual trust and peaceful coexistence. If it signals an equally new approach to Third World security problems, devoid of East-West confrontational attitudes, then it will relieve Europe as well as other regions the burden of the present overemphasis on a state’s military power, an approach that has proved to be expensive, dangerous, and even elusive. A new security system that will assure the security of all states will be an indispensable complement of the lessening of the ideological military confrontation in Europe.
