BASIC held a joint workshop with Tallinn-based International Centre for Defence Studies on NATO’s Nuclear Deterrence Posture and Baltic Security on Tuesday 15th March, one of a series of roundtables around Europe to focus on Alliance nuclear posture in the context of the new Strategic Concept and the review of deterrence and review currently under way. Nuclear posture was a source of significant internal wrangling in the run-up to the NATO summit in November last year, and differences remain.
Europe
Russia ratifies New START
The Russian parliament completed on January 26 its process of advice and consent for ratifying the New START nuclear arms treaty, and President Dmitry Medvedev signed the ratification bill on January 28.
Both houses of the Russian parliament were required to approve of the treaty. The Duma (lower house) provided its final approval on January 25, by a vote of 350-96, with one abstention. The 137 members of the Federation Council (upper house) voted unanimously for the treaty a day later.
Obama: NATO to erect missile shield for Europe
“In an astonishing demonstration of weakness, NATO heads of state have failed to tackle the Cold War legacy of the deployment of U.S. nuclear gravity bombs in Europe, threatening the credibility of NATO members’ claims to be interested in non-proliferation and global disarmament.”
Barack Obama’s hopes for a nuclear-free world fading fast
“I wouldn't say it was dead. It's in emergency resuscitation” … “If there is hope, no, it's not coming from Washington. The leadership of this is not going to come from Washington.”
Paul Ingram, executive director of BASIC, was quoted in the Guardian. To read more see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/16/barack-obama-nuclear-hopes-f…
Current NATO Nuclear Policy
Des Browne argued that “while there is no case for NATO giving up all its nuclear forces unilaterally, there is also no real case for continuing with the status quo….. The question for NATO as it revises its Strategic Concept ahead of Lisbon is what can it do to add to the disarmament momentum without either undermining alliance cohesion or taking unnecessary risks with alliance security?
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee sends nuclear weapons treaty to full Senate
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee today voted to refer the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) to the full Senate. If the treaty successfully goes through the ratification processes in the United States and Russia, the treaty will cap deployed strategic nuclear warheads at 1,550 in both countries and establish a set of mutual inspections that have not had a formal framework since the first START treaty lapsed last December.
Obama’s Half-Hearted Nuclear Turnaround
“There's no real indication of the deep shifts in thinking necessary to begin giving up the nuclear fix.”
BASIC Executive Director Paul Ingram quoted by Spiegel Online. Read more:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,687640,00.html
U.K.’s ‘special relationship’ with U.S. under microscope at G8
“The British and the British media have to be very careful in shouting too loudly about this. It's America's worst environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf, and if you are too defensive about this the mud sticks.”
BASIC Executive Director Paul Ingram quoted in the Times Colonist. Read more:
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/special+relationship+with+under+microscope/3181535/story.html