[Reuters/Jim Young]

The Nuclear Security Summit in Washington has been another occasion to keep the Obama anti-nuke bandwagon on the rails. It has also been delivered a boost with the Ukrainian government announcing it will give up its weapons-grade uranium stockpile. This kind of balances the not-so-useful comments by Sarkozy that he “cannot jeopardise the security and safety of my country” by following suit. Also the failure of the Israelis to turn up. And the fact that the Iranians and the North Koreans were not welcome.

But ok, the point here was to take another step to bolster the otherwise drifting non-proliferation regime, and this meant strengthening the resolve of the Believers and pressuring the Outsiders. Obama’s charm offensive on the Chinese and the Russians seems to be working in this respect, at least in front of the cameras. But we’ll have to wait for the NPT review conference next month to see where the US wants to take the details of this roadshow next.

The Netherlands didn’t make it into the BBC report on the summit, but premier Balkenende did everything he could to get on the media map. Following the debacle over Afghanistan in February, its been a no-holds-barred damage limitation excercise for the Dutch reputation. Thus the government reported gleefully in mid-March that Obama had telephoned Balkenende to invite him personally to the nuclear summit and “to discuss other subjects on the international agenda.”

With this as the entrance ticket, Balkenende could not waste the opportunity to further boost the importance of the Netherlands at this top setting. This he did with the classic Dutch move – if in doubt, establish a new court in The Hague. The proposed tribunal would cover those suspected of leaking  nuclear secrets or materials or who break the rules on nuclear proliferation. Balkenende claimed to have gained support for his suggestion to strengthen international law from the US, France, and Germany during a ‘working dinner’ (presumable somewhere between the dessert and the cheese / Port combo).

We’ve seen this manoeuvering before, notably for a tribunal to cover those arrested for piracy in the Indian Ocean, still something of a legal black hole. The Netherlands proposed an international tribunal for piracy under the umbrella of the UN back in May 2009 but has so far been unable to gather enough support, including from the UN itself. So Balkenende’s foray in DC yesterday opened up a new front in the constant move to establish The Hague as THE site for international law. It is after all “de juridische hoofdstad van de wereld,” as he told De Telegraaf.

This is all nice and good for the Dutch ‘brand’ in international affairs, but the first defendants in this proposed tribunal could be Dutch themselves. On 7 April news broke that four men had been arrested for fraud, forging export and customs documents, and being members of a ‘criminal organisation’ for doing business in ’dual-use’ materials with Iran. It may not have been nuclear-related, but it was certainly some seriously underhand military-related business that brought the heavy hand of the state in to stop it.

With Obama and Medvedev signing a major bilateral deal on reducing nuclear weapons, the wind seems to be once again getting back behind the non-proliferation ideal. Iran and North Korea continue to shoot holes in the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT) effectiveness, and the Treaty is further stressed almost beyond use by the non-signatories such as Israel, Pakistan, and India. But Obama put the issue back on the agenda in his ‘nuclear-free world’ speech in Prague last year, and now 12 months later he produced the first fruits. If the momentum can be maintained - by pulling in the Russians and Chinese to visibly turn the screws on Iran with sanctions at the current Nuclear Security Summit, then upgrade the credibility of the NPT at the Review conference coming in May – we could be witnessing a remarkable rebirth of a Treaty that not so long ago was considered defunct.

Where does this leave nuclear strategic planning? Well, it starts to raise the issue of what to do with all those US nuclear weapons still stationed in Europe. They are located, as best we know, at bases in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey (not the UK, interestingly enough, since they have already been withdrawn), and come to between 150-240 in total.

What are they? Pretty much old-style free-fall tactical weapons to be used by adapted fighter-bomber aircraft. Their military significance is therefore pretty limited, and since 1991 around 90% of these weapons have already been withdrawn from their European sites. So why bother? Former Dutch minister president Ruud Lubbers , the man who faced down the anti-nuclear movements during the Cruise missile debate in the 1980s, has been calling for the removal of these weapons (between 10 and 20) from the Volkel Air Force Base in the southern part of the Netherlands. So are their days numbered?

Juurd Eijsvoogel, international affairs editor with the NRC, came with the response last weekend. The value of these weapons is symbolic not military, that is true. They stand for the Cold War era protection of Europe by the US military, and this last vestige of nuclear-ness takes on a greater meaning for that reason. Would removing them not signify the yet further drifting apart of the two continents in the 21st century, each disregarding the other when it comes to security concerns?

In some ways, yes. But times are changing in positive ways as well, and Obama’s move to reduce nuclear weapons comes in the exact period when NATO’s Strategic Concept is being revised. The Concept will almost certainly look to bind the Organisation more around common concerns and turn away from the Afghanistan-or-bust position that was the norm under Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. For Eijsvoogel this means it is not the time to start acting unilaterally to disrupt the process of NATO rejuvenation (for that is really at stake with this new Concept, now that Bush is gone, Iraq is ‘over’, and the French are back in). Lets not be too hasty – our Eastern European colleagues have every reason to want to believe in a stable European home, and NATO – read the US – provides this.

Fair enough. But would it not be a perfect moment in that case to reflect on what the Russians have been calling for over the past decade? A re-assessment of the European security infrastructure, that isn’t locked in to a Cold War mentality dominated by NATO? I grant that Moscow is not always the most reliable of partners. But Eijsvoogels’ call for the status of US weapons in Europe to be judged by a NATO discussion decided by consensus somehow seems to miss the boat. The Russians are increasingly involved in European security, namely via energy supply. Now is the time to bring that into the equation as well.