BASIC held the fourth of its roundtables this last 12 months, on NATO’s nuclear policy, under the grant from the Hewlett Foundation on April 28th. This time it was in non-NATO Helsinki, in collaboration with the Peace Union of Finland and the Foreign Ministry. Gathering participants from Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Netherlands and Britain, we discussed the deterrence review, relations with Russia and the prospects for NATO contributing more actively to the agenda of global nuclear disarmament.
BASIC News
March 2011
Estonia
BASIC held a joint workshop on NATO’s nuclear deterrent and Baltic security with the International Centre for Defence Studies in Tallinn, Estonia on March 15th. Issues ranged from future nuclear deterrence posture and alternative strategic tools, to the variety of threat perceptions and the Alliance’s relationship with Russia.
February 2011
BASIC launched its Trident Commission in Parliament on February 9th. Speakers at the event warmly welcomed the establishment of the Commission and pointed to its potential to change the political landscape of the debate in Britain. Minister of State for the Armed Forces Nick Harvey attended the launch, strongly welcoming the establishment of the Commission.
Getting to Zero Update
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) officially entered into force on February 5, 2011, and Russian and American leaders expressed their expectations for another, more challenging round, of arms control negotiations. BASIC has established a new high-level Trident Commission to examine the decisions around the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons system.
January 2011
New START was ratified by the US Senate in December, and then by Russia last week. It is expected that the instruments of ratification will be exchanged to bring it into force by the end of this week, in Munich at the security conference.
This Week – Moving Beyond New START
Whilst protests and potential revolutions rock the Middle East, and comparisons are made with 1989, the post Cold War Euro-Atlantic security elite meet in Munich for the annual security conference. This has in recent years been the venue of choice for major announcements affecting European security, and in particular relations between NATO and Russia.
NOVEMBER – DECEMBER 2010
We approach the end of 2010 on the verge of a vote in the U.S. Senate on the new START treaty, brought to the floor on December 15th, and for a possible vote as early as tomorrow, December 22nd. Its ratification is significant for verification measures, as well as for the global nuclear disarmament agenda if only because it lays an important foundation stone for future initiatives between the United States and Russia, and helps to open the way for the Administration to bring the test ban treaty to the Senate.
October 2010
October 2010 for BASIC