Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg again raises the issue of whether the United Kingdom should spend defence funds on full Trident replacement in the midst of other pressing demands during an economic downturn.
Nuclear posture
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
June 2010
June was a busy month as BASIC’s Executive Director toured Europe to discuss nuclear disarmament in the aftermath of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.
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
May 2010
May has been an intense and hectic month for BASIC and for nuclear diplomacy. The month-long global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT RevCon) in New York draws to a close today.
British last-minute contribution to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference
The new British government\’s announcement today of a total limit of 225 nuclear warheads is to be welcomed as a next step in the transparency and disarmament process, said Paul Ingram, Executive Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC).
Now is the time for action on tactical nuclear weapons: non-governmental organization statement
Letter of May 14, 2010 at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (signatories listed below):
As the United States and Russia negotiate reductions in their arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons, the world is at an historic moment that provides unique opportunities to withdraw from deployment, reduce and eliminate the particularly destabilising class of short-range nuclear weapons variously described as non-strategic, sub-strategic, tactical or battlefield weapons.
NATO’s Nuclear Posture discussed at the NPT Review Conference
The prospect of a shift in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s position on tactical nuclear weapons in Europe in 2010 was the subject of a BASIC event held at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.