Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe

An event at the Brookings Institution tomorrow will highlight the future of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, director of the Arms Control Initiative at Brookings, will discuss his recent paper “NATO, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control”, which sets out recommendations to achieve the eventual removal of the estimated 180 B61 gravity bombs in five European countries. He will be joined on the panel by experts Hans Kristensen, from the Federation of American Scientists, and Frank Miller of the Scowcroft Group.

NATO’s Nuclear Posture and Burden Sharing Agreements: an Italian Perspective

BASIC in cooperation with the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) hosted a roundtable in Rome on June 15, 2011 to explore the issue of “NATO’s Nuclear Posture and Burden Sharing Arrangements: an Italian Perspective.”

U.S. Defense Budget

Going up! But in the elevator of the U.S. defense budget, it’s not hats, coats and lingerie but funding for the nuclear weapons complex. The House Armed Services Committee meets on Wednesday to mark up, or revise, the 2012 defense authorization bill.

What’s next with Trident in the United States?

The United States and the United Kingdom have collaborated very closely for many decades on their submarine-based nuclear weapons systems, and developments in one country are likely to continue having an impact on the other. This brief reviews the United States' strategic nuclear submarine program within the context of U.S. and U.K. plans for replacing the fleets.

Budget Battles

Congress is in recess this week, in fact through May 1. But the battle lines have now been drawn over the fiscal 2012 budget as House Representatives prepare to resume the debate, with both sides of the aisle vowing to restore fiscal sanity to the nation while presenting widely divergent solutions.

This Week – U.S. Defense Budget

It’s a big week for the U.S. military budget for fiscal 2012 with details of the billion budget – the largest in the nation’s history – being unveiled today by the Pentagon. Also relevant to arms control will be the Energy Department budget and particularly that of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

U.S. Senate approves New START

The Senate passed the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia today, with a vote of 71-26.

See BASIC's Press Release, December 22:
http://tinyurl.com/2d5nxfd

America’s diplomatic secrets go public

“If you hang around with diplomats, they might be smiling to you, on the one hand, while at the same time, they're stabbing you in the back. It's reassuring because they are sticking to the same talking points in private and in public, whether they're talking to government officials or to journalists or to non-government organizations.”

Anne Penketh, BASIC's Program Director, was interviewed about the WikiLeaks dump of U.S. cables with Michael Shire of the National Journal and Susan Glasser of Foreign Policy on WAMU radio.