This report examines nuclear weapon-free zones and the lessons-learned that could be applied to the issue of tactical nuclear weapons currently based in Europe. The report was originally a background paper for the SWP-BASIC workshop on: “Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Europe: Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures in Practice”, Berlin 27-28 March 2014.
Content Type
Bumps on the road to Helsinki: Will we ever get there?
Eleven months before the 2015 NPT Review Conference is convened, there is still no sign that the Helsinki conference on the establishment of the WMD-free zone in the Middle East will be held. In what seemed to be a glimmer of hope in Geneva on May 14-15, the conference’s facilitator, co-conveners and future state parties to the zone met to discuss the conference’s modalities.
A Glance at the Ukraine Crisis’s Impact on Nuclear Weapons Considerations
This week, eyes are on Ukraine to see whether the presidential election held on Sunday will soon lead to more stability; while many Ukrainians look ahead to the challenge of grappling with the problems that led to the crisis – both internal and external. The crisis intensified dynamics of a deteriorating relationship between NATO and Russia, where prospects had already been bleak for nuclear arms control. The crisis has even led some to call for re-emphasizing the role of nuclear weapons in transatlantic security.
Documentary Film Screening: GARWIN
On June 13th, in conjunction with the Federation of American Scientists and the King\’s College London War Studies Department, BASIC hosted a screening of a feature length documentary about a scientist who shaped history: Dr. Richard Garwin.
Is UK disarmament quite so irrelevant?
The very quiet failure of this year’s Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee to agree any final document and the daunting challenge of the treaty Review Conference next year mean frustration is growing about the pace of progress by the nuclear-weapons states to disarm—so slow it feels like we are going backward.
TacNukes News No. 9
This edition of TacNukes News looks at the impact of the Ukraine crisis on the issue, and the U.S. Administration’s latest spending requests and plans for modernizing the B61 nuclear bombs.
A Middle East free of Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction
The idea of establishing a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in the Middle East was spearheaded by Iran in 1974, followed by Egyptian endorsement. In 1990, under President Hosni Mubarak’s leadership, Egypt broadened the concept of the zone to include other weapons of mass destruction and lobbied incessantly to bring discussions of the zone to the upper echelons of international relations, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the United Nations.
Multilateral Frustrations Generate Challenges for Disarmament Diplomacy
This week the Conference on Disarmament begins its second session of the year in Geneva, on the back of the two weeks of multilateralism in New York City at the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty’s third Preparatory Committee Meeting (PrepCom).