In their fourth The Wall Street Journal OpEd promoting the need for global nuclear disarmament, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Senator Sam Nunn call for nations to begin moving now toward a new, safer and more stable form of deterrence with decreasing nuclear risks and an increasing measure of assured security.
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This Week: Iran’s nuclear program
The IAEA Board meets this week, and will receive the latest report from the Secretary General on Iran’s nuclear program. Since Yukiya Amano’s assumption of the lead post at the IAEA, reports have been more critical of Iran’s failure to ‘implement a number of its obligations’.
Unrest Complicates 2012 Middle East Meeting
The upheavals sweeping across the Middle East have cast a long shadow over diplomatic negotiations aimed at organizing a conference on establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in that region, according to officials involved in the process.
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.
The technology requires four fully-armed submarines to provide Britain’s nuclear deterrent
The UK Defence Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, argued against the cut in submarines on BBC Radio Scotland last night. He maintained that the UK requires all four submarines to provide a continuous at sea deterrent (CASD); and that to reduce that number reduces the United Kingdom's ability to deploy that deterrent.
It will be too late to halt Trident’s replacement if we don’t talk now
Britain's nuclear weapons strategy will be subjected to unprecedented independent scrutiny by a group of senior defence, diplomatic, scientific and political figures who have come together to form BASIC's Trident Commission. BASIC has set up this independent, cross-party commission to examine the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons policy and the issue of Trident renewal. The Commission will report on evidence received in early 2012.
This Week – Hopes and Doubts about WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East
The increasingly violent clashes between security forces and protesters protests across the Arab world, inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, are causing some diplomats to raise doubts about the prospects for holding a conference next year on a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.
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.