A flurry of media reports in the past week have sounded the alarm over purported advancements in Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme and Israel’s willingness to launch a first strike to prevent Iran obtaining a bomb. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have raised the stakes in the full knowledge that the U.S. is less than three months from a presidential election.
2012
Book review of “The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir”
In The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir, Seyed Hossein Mousavian gives us a rich history of Iran’s nuclear programme and describes his own attempts to achieve a “grand bargain” with the West. He offers a combination of text book and personal accounts but, more importantly, a political analysis of the behavior of all actors involved both past and present.
Dissecting the DDPR
NATO’s Chicago Summit in May provided the Alliance with its second opportunity in two years to re-think the presence of U.S. theatre nuclear weapons in Europe, but for the second consecutive time, NATO failed. In this report, BASIC policy consultant, Ted Seay, examines key decisions made (and not made) in Chicago, in relation to the future of NATO's nuclear sharing arrangements and the Alliance as a whole.
Backgrounder on P5 conference: Washington and the future
Arms control officials from the P5 (U.S., UK, Britain, China and France) meet in Washington from June 27-29, 2012 for a third round of discussions on meeting their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In this background paper, Cormac Mc Garry examines progress at earlier conferences and makes recommendations for the future.
Entente Nucléaire
The third briefing report from the BASIC Trident Commission focuses on the nuclear relationship between the United Kingdom and France, and the two countries’ attempts at nuclear cooperation.
Russia’s Iran Game
Russia’s refusal to follow the leadership of the West, and to resist attempts to strengthen multilateral sanctions, has complicated efforts to put stronger pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.
Iran’s Nuclear Impasse: Breaking the Deadlock
This report, published by Oxford Research Group, is based upon a series of consultations with individuals close to the decision making process on the Iranian nuclear file with the aim of envisioning a workable and realistic solution to the impasse. It looks into the principles that need to be observed in talks between the E3+3 and Iran over the coming months if they are to have any chance of success.
NATO military budget: together, slim is better
John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, wrote an op-ed for the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung on NATO's defense 'obesity problem'. This was based on his presentation to the Shadow NATO Summit III in Washington D.C. earlier in May.