'After Trident: Peace and Proliferation?'

Monday 23 April 2007
The David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies
Annual Lecture
‘After Trident: Peace and Proliferation?'
Distinguished journalist and writer John Gittings will deliver the 2007 David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies Annual Lecture at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth on Wednesday 25 April. The lecture, which is open to the public, will take place at the Old Hall, Old College, King Street, Aberystwyth and start at 6.00 p.m.

The David Davies Memorial Institute forms part of the Department of International Politics and was originally conceived as a vehicle for bridging the worlds of academia and practitioners together, and the Annual Lecture and the Institute's Lecture Series on Issues of Public Policy show the benefits of such an engagement in understanding the most important challenges.

'After Trident: Peace or Proliferation?'
In a synopsis of his lecture John Gittings wrote:
"The British government decision on Trident renewal forms part of a much wider rebuff to the non-proliferation and peace agenda. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) risks total collapse at its next review; new nuclear powers are setting the pace for others; another “war” is being threatened which will last "for generations". There has been no post-cold war dividend, and the chance to make up for lost time has been missed. War, not peace, is once again seen as the universal default mode.

It is now clear that traditional arguments in favour of peace and non-proliferation are never going to succeed. The view that one "cannot predict the unpredictable", used to justify the Trident renewal, will always result in decisions being reached on a worst-case scenario. New arguments need to be developed with a broader appeal based not only on strategic calculation but on a compelling alternative world view.

Looking both forward and back into history we have to rediscover peace, not war, as humanity’s central concern. Just as the test of the good ruler was to maintain peace within the four corners of the kingdom, so today modern states have a shared obligation to exercise good governance across the globe. The effort to reshape our common goals will require a sustained exercise in the re-education of elites, and the mobilisation of multitudes."

John Gittings is a distinguished journalist (he was China specialist and foreign leader writer at The Guardian from 1982-2003) and writer. His latest publication is entitled The Changing Face of China: From Mao to Market (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Note for the Editor:
The David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies was founded in 1951 to commemorate and carry forward Lord Davies’s project of creating a just world through international cooperation, law, and organisation. The DDMI, originally based in London, was the vehicle for taking forward Lord Davies’s vision. 

In 2002, the internationally renowned Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth welcomed the DDMI.  The move to Aberystwyth is of particular significance because the Department, the first of its kind in the world, was created as a result of a bequest by Lord Davies in 1919.

Securing disarmament as a means to a more just world order was a key driving force behind Lord Davies’s founding of the Department in 1919, and the control and elimination of the most destructive weapons humanity has invented continues to guide the research and outreach activities of the DDMI.  Professors Booth and Wheeler lead work in this area within the DDMI, and they have just embarked on a new project on ‘Trust Building in Nuclear Worlds’. 

The DDMI's priorities have evolved with a changing global order, as the internationalist project that initially moved Lord Davies to action has grown beyond the still critically important questions of disarmament and international organisation to encompass an expanded security agenda, questions of international and global responsibility, and the status of the individual in a world of states. 

The Institute's research activities are multidisciplinary in approach and focus on exploring ethical, political, strategic, and legal questions in a policy-related context.  The DDMI is currently engaged in research led respectively by Professor Clark, Professor Linklater, and Dr Bain on international legitimacy, the concept of harm in world politics, and the ‘Responsibility to Protect' agenda, which includes issues related to humanitarian intervention, state-building, and obligation.

From its inception, the DDMI has sought to build bridges between academic and practitioner communities, and it provides a forum in which policy-makers, officials, NGOs, the media, academics, and the wider public can share different views and perspectives on the most important challenges in contemporary world politics.