When the U.N. nuclear watchdog Director General Yukiya Amano reported to the IAEA Board of Governors this week, updating about Syrian and Iranian atomic activities, Paul Ingram, BASIC's executive director said “There is little in Amano's report that would enable the United States or other nations to press for new Iranian sanctions” ….”Tehran is already subject to four rounds of U.N. Security Council resolutions and independent penalties from a number of nations.”
Russia
Iran Update: Number 149
- Latest IAEA assessment of Iran’s nuclear program echoes recent Agency reports
- The impact of Stuxnet
- International divide over sanctions grows
- Speculation on Iran’s intentions and capabilities
- Iranian rocketry, missile developments
- Middle East protests: context and meaning for Iranian leadership and U.S. influence
Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation
In their fourth The Wall Street Journal OpEd promoting the need for global nuclear disarmament, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Senator Sam Nunn call for nations to begin moving now toward a new, safer and more stable form of deterrence with decreasing nuclear risks and an increasing measure of assured security.
Unrest Complicates 2012 Middle East Meeting
The upheavals sweeping across the Middle East have cast a long shadow over diplomatic negotiations aimed at organizing a conference on establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in that region, according to officials involved in the process.
This Week – Hopes and Doubts about WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East
The increasingly violent clashes between security forces and protesters protests across the Arab world, inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, are causing some diplomats to raise doubts about the prospects for holding a conference next year on a WMD-free zone in the Middle East.
This Week – U.S. Defense Budget
It’s a big week for the U.S. military budget for fiscal 2012 with details of the billion budget – the largest in the nation’s history – being unveiled today by the Pentagon. Also relevant to arms control will be the Energy Department budget and particularly that of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
January 2011
New START was ratified by the US Senate in December, and then by Russia last week. It is expected that the instruments of ratification will be exchanged to bring it into force by the end of this week, in Munich at the security conference.
This Week – Moving Beyond New START
Whilst protests and potential revolutions rock the Middle East, and comparisons are made with 1989, the post Cold War Euro-Atlantic security elite meet in Munich for the annual security conference. This has in recent years been the venue of choice for major announcements affecting European security, and in particular relations between NATO and Russia.