Last week the curtain closed on the 69th session of the UN First Committee on Disarmament. It is the forum for states to discuss the wide ranging disarmament agenda, including nuclear weapons to small arms, and fully autonomous weapons.
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Can we create a world free from nuclear weapons?
The second in our ‘We need to talk about nukes’ events with BASIC came at an interesting time for British politics:
US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement: A Violation of International Law?
“The great alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom is rooted in shared interests and shared values,” President Obama proclaimed with UK Prime Minister David Cameron by his side.
Protecting the Baltics without sliding into conflict
In the old Cold War in Europe, there was only one serious flashpoint, one place where a dangerous confrontation between Western and Russian forces was likely, and that was Berlin. In today’s confrontation there are many, stretching from the Caucuses to the Baltic Sea.
Scotland stays in the UK but decisions on Trident still to come
It’s not only the Royal Bank of Scotland that will this morning have ditched their contingency planning for a vote in favour of Scottish independence.
North Korea-Russia Rapprochement: A Setback for a Non-Nuclear Korea?
Through the second half of the twentieth century, North Korea’s communist regime managed to survive in large part thanks to the backing of its key ally, the USSR. Post-Cold War Russia later modified its position toward its old Cold War ally, and bilateral relations became damaged when the then-USSR established diplomatic ties with South Korea in 1990.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons: The bigger picture
NATO heads of states discussed the multitude of threats at their summit in Wales earlier this month. The debate was predictably dominated by the Russian – Ukrainian crisis, though delegates also discussed how best to strengthen Afghan National Security Forces. Buried within the summit declaration was the condemnation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for carrying out nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests.
Iran’s uranium enrichment plant: central to negotiations over Iran’s nuclear power
Enriching uranium is the most difficult part of building a nuclear bomb. If you can get hold of 15 pounds of highly-enriched uranium, which is a lump about the size of a grapefruit, and have a reasonably sophisticated engineering industry, you can build a nuclear bomb.