Leiden. The Netherlands, 16 June. America’s greatest thinker, Groucho Marks, once famously said that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. One might say the same about European strategic intelligence. I have now just about read every single European security and defence strategy available and they all share a profound similarity. The joke goes something like this.

President Obama’s trip to Europe generated many headlines. By combining the G-20 meeting with a NATO summit and routine bilateral discussions, very few international security issues were left untouched. Among those is nuclear disarmament.

In 1986 at the Reykjavik summit, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, both passionate about nuclear disarmament, shocked deterrence experts with an unimaginable proposal – total nuclear disarmament.  “It would be fine with me if we eliminated all nuclear weapons,” said Reagan.  “We can do that,” replied Gorbachev, “Let’s eliminate them.  We can eliminate them.”

The United States has few more important policy goals than eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The risk that the repressive Pyongyang regime could transfer nuclear weapons and materials to rogue states or terrorist groups weighs particularly heavy on the minds of U.S. policymakers.

Programmes for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants have become an integral part of peacekeeping operations and post-conflict reconstruction plans. There is hardly any UN peacekeeping mission that is not confronted with aspects of DDR programmes. A number of countries have also implemented demobilisation programmes as part of a national security sector reform or force reduction. DDR programmes constitute a vital link between military and civilian aspects of peace operations.