Italy

Roundtable on NATO’s Nuclear Posture and Burden Sharing Arrangements: an Italian Perspective

BASIC held a roundtable in Rome on June 15, 2011 in cooperation with the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). The roundtable explored Italian perspectives on the future of NATO\’s nuclear posture and burden sharing. It also looked at Italy\’s position on the current debate about tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Europe.

The main points raised at the roundtable were as follows:

February 2011

BASIC launched its Trident Commission in Parliament on February 9th. Speakers at the event warmly welcomed the establishment of the Commission and pointed to its potential to change the political landscape of the debate in Britain. Minister of State for the Armed Forces Nick Harvey attended the launch, strongly welcoming the establishment of the Commission.

Experts Call NATO Strategic Concept ‘Missed Opportunity to Reduce Role of Obsolete Tactical Nukes from Europe’

U.S. and European nuclear arms control and security experts criticized NATO\’s new “Strategic Concept” as a conservative, backward-looking policy, a missed opportunity to reduce the number and role of the 200 forward-deployed U.S. tactical nuclear bombs and engage Russia in a dialogue on removing all tactical nuclear weapons from Europe.