2008

Toward true security

Some eight years into the 21st century, the threats to international security posed by the numbers, deployments and spread of nuclear weapons remain all too ominous. Disconcertingly, the possibility of a surprise attack – perhaps a tragic miscalculation or a criminal action – is an ongoing reality some six decades into the nuclear age.

A world free of nuclear weapons

The United States should take the lead in forging a new global consensus on nuclear disarmament, married to an action plan of urgent interim steps to control and reduce nuclear weapons, according to two Cold War veterans Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr, former General Counsel and acting director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and Ambassador Robert L Barry, former ambassador to the Stockholm Conference on Disarmament in Europe and member of the board of the British American Security and Information C

Success with Iran requires moves towards disarmament

I have recently reflected that my youthful passion for disarmament originated from a black and white sense of justice, and that I have retained it through the insight that acts of logical self-interest often lead to immense risk and could ultimately lead to the destruction of civilisation. While climate change and other environmental threats arise from our corporate materialistic lifestyles, the threat of nuclear proliferation and Armageddon comes from fear, competition and the quest for power amongst elites. The injustice feels more carnal, the universal threat more outrageous.