After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, many people became complacent. Roughly 30,000 nuclear warheads still exist, many of them at frightening levels of alert. Two more countries have crossed the nuclear threshold by openly testing nuclear devices. More than 500 million small arms and light weapons circulate, some in the hands of 300,000 child soldiers. Levels of global military expenditure remain at 90 percent of their Cold War zenith.
Every state has a right to self-defense enshrined in the UN Charter.
But national defense plans should not imperil strategic stability and make other countries feel insecure. Only cooperative security arrangements can uphold the norms of disarmament treaties and conventions, reinforce the rule of international law and invest law-abiding countries with the moral authority to enforce compliance by outlaw states. The writer, United Nations undersecretary-general for disarmament affairs, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune .