With parliamentary elections scheduled next Sunday in Russia, the Russian bear is growling. President Dmitry Medvedev struck out last week against the U.S. plans for a missile defense system across Europe, warning that Russia might pull out of the New START treaty, and announcing a series of counter-measures.
Russia
This Week – Supercommittee failure looms
It looks as though the U.S. bipartisan supercommittee charged with finding at least .2 trillion in budget cuts over the next decade is about to collapse amid recriminations.
The Future of NATO’s Nuclear Weapons
Amb. Rolf Nikel explains Germany's approach to questions surrounding tactical nuclear weapons based in Europe in light of NATO's Strategic Concept, and Deterrence and Defense Posture reviews.
This Week: Reykjavik 25 years
It was cold, wet and windy but it was uniquely exhilarating. The Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik, which I covered 25 years ago as a reporter, produced 24 hours of adrenalin-fuelled highs and lows as the Soviet and US leaders raised hopes of a historic agreement on a nuclear weapons free world only to spectacularly dash them.
This Week – NATO Ministerial
NATO’s defence ministers meet in Brussels this week (Wednesday-Thursday), and will discuss a number of priorities for NATO. Longer term planning and the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR) is likely to be eclipsed, in public at least, by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces’ last desperate attempts to resist the transfer of power and the role NATO has in the coming months, by the plans for withdrawal from Afghanistan and by the debates over NATO’s missile defense plans and proposals for cooperation with Russia.
This Week – Do we really need Russia to Tango?
This Tuesday will mark the 20th anniversary of President George H.W. Bush’s announcement of the U.S. Presidential Nuclear Initiative (PNI). The U.S. PNI was a unilateral measure taken to reduce nuclear deployments with a focus on tactical nuclear weapons, in expectation of reciprocity from the Soviet Union.
Revising NATO’s Nuclear Posture: The Way Forward
Dr Oliver Meier argues that NATO’s Strategic Concept did not live up to the expectations put forward earlier under U.S. President Barack Obama’s Prague Agenda. Meier proposes four steps that the Alliance should take through the ongoing Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR) in order to improve its nuclear stance.
“Concern Grows Over Prospects for Middle East Disarmament Meeting”
BASIC's Program Director Anne Penketh is interviewed by Elizabeth Whitman in this article covering the slow pace of progress toward holding a conference on a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East in 2012.