One of my second or third reactions to the news last Friday was shock over the impact on our agenda that depends so heavily upon establishing a positive relationship between the US and Russia. I have been avoiding being pessimistic in public because that doesn't help anyone, but it really doesn't look good. From my perspective, though, while the Russian response on Friday was undoubtedly disproportionate, it would be wrong to characterize this as Russia displaying a disinterest in negotiations with the United States and instead challenging democracy head-on.
Blog
Italian op-ed for nuclear disarmament
In an op-ed published on 24 July 2008 on Il Corriere della Sera, Gianfranco Fini, Massimo D'Alema, Giorgio La Malfa, Arturo Parisi and Francesco Calogero called for Italy and Europe to make their contribution to the propagation of new 'shared vision' and pave the way toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
Possible savings from paring down the arsenal
Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (Arizona) recently made a speech at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and said: We should work to reduce nuclear arsenals all around the world, starting with our own,
adding: We do not need all the weapons currently in our arsenal.
France and Getting to Zero
On March 21, speaking at Cherbourg with the new French atomic submarine, Le Terrible, as a backdrop, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads in France’s arsenal to fewer than 300, half the maximum that France possessed during the Cold War.
A world without nuclear weapons: The international dimension
BASIC joined with The US Institute of Peace (USIP), and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to co-sponsor a March 6 debrief on the recent meeting of the Hoover Group
in Oslo. Ambassador Max Kampelman, Ambassador James Goodby, and Dr George Perkovich, all participants in the Oslo meeting, discussed the means of revitalizing the international disarmament movement.
Oslo meeting
George Shultz and Sam Nunn are addressing the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG, clerked by BASIC) in London on Thursday after the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament that is underway now in Oslo, Norway.
From the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament website:
The Government of Norway, in cooperation with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Hoover Institution, is convening an international conference on Achieving the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons, in Oslo 26-27 February 2008.
Congressmen, Reagan administration policy experts, and activists call for reducing US nuclear arsenal
US Rep James McGovern (D, Massachusetts) hosted a briefing titled 'Global Security Priorities in the 21st Century' on February 6, 2008, in Washington, DC. Panelists who participated in the briefing called for the United States to reduce its nuclear weapons arsenal and use the savings to increase funding for non-proliferation programs and international assistance for children as a means of strengthening US national security.
The panelists included:
US TV commercial heightens awareness over nuclear terrorism
The Partnership for a Secure America, a bipartisan group of government and foreign policy veterans, will start airing a television commercial in major cities to raise awareness about the threat of nuclear terrorism (see NTI report).