The US President has the authority to launch the US nuclear arsenal at any time and without reference to any other authority. During the Presidential election Democrats attempted to discredit Trump’s ability to handle the grave responsibilities of office that come from control of the country’s thousands of nuclear warheads. US nuclear posture and doctrine is now set to remain a high-profile, contentious issue in the first year of the Trump Administration.
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A Policy Proposal for the UK Government: Prevent a Nuclear Catastrophe
Paul Ingram, BASIC’s Executive Director, was one of the judges in the recent Young Student Pugwash competition. Participants were asked to write a blog in response to the below challenge. The winner is Caroline Leroy. We reproduce her blog post here.
The Implications of the Trident Test Failure
Executive Director of BASIC, Paul Ingram, recently authored a piece in the Huffington Post in response to the late surfacing of the June Trident test failure.
The dangers of vulnerable nuclear forces
For a while during the Cold War, the nuclear standoff was almost comfortable. When the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was briefed on the destructive power of the hydrogen bomb, he told his son Sergei, he was so upset that he could not sleep for several nights. But then, he said, he realised that these weapons could never be used and he could sleep again.
Dreadnought to carry Trident, an ominous legacy
The infamous maiden voyage of the Titanic in April 1915 forms a totemic story of…
Disarmament is more about international security than morality
The debate within expert communities over nuclear deterrence and disarmament can be infuriatingly complex and unrelated to the decisions taken in a political context. Disarmament is often dismissed by commentators in both arenas as naive and dangerous, yet it is at root about a cooperative search for security.
To Fix North Korea, Start with Syria
When North Korea launched a nuclear test on 9 September – its fifth so far – it was making a clear statement to the international community of its intentions to continue to pursue full nuclear capability.
The Russia Factor in US Policy Toward North Korea
North Korea's fifth nuclear test indicates that the country has not relented in its march toward greater nuclear capabilities. Citing the ostensible ineffectiveness of current American policy, several figures in Washington are calling for changes in the US's handling of the North Korean nuclear crisis.