May 11th, 2010
After omitting any reference to disarmament in the Foreign Affairs Minister’s opening statement to the current NPT Review Conference, Canada’s statement to the Conference’s disarmament committee (Main Committee I) addresses the key themes. The disarmament statement was presented by Canada’s Ambassador for Disarmament, Marius Grinius, to Main Committee I of the Review Conference of the […]
Read MoreMay 4th, 2010
Canada has managed the extraordinary feat of presenting its opening statement to the NPT Review Conference without any substantive reference to “disarmament” – one of the three foundational pillars of the Treaty. Actually, the statement by Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon did make one, and only one, mention of disarmament – a reference to the DPRK’s […]
Read MoreMay 4th, 2010
“This disclosure is a monumental step toward greater nuclear transparency that breaks with outdated Cold War nuclear secrecy and will put significant pressure on other weapon states to reciprocate.” Hans M. Kristensen (Federation of American Scientists) As noted here yesterday,[i] based on a New York Times report, the US Government has issued a fact sheet disclosing […]
Read MoreMay 3rd, 2010
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference opened in New York today – a good occasion to recall the size of the nuclear arsenal that the Treaty promises, through Article VI and earlier Review Conferences, to eliminate. The short answer to the question of how many nuclear warheads actually exist is that it’s a secret. […]
Read MoreApril 26th, 2010
NATO Foreign Ministers met in Estonia last week, and the opportunity they missed was the one to rethink the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe. It was an opportunity occasioned by a somewhat guarded joint letter from the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Norway,[i] calling on the surface for little […]
Read MoreApril 21st, 2010
A recent NGO conference in Afghanistan, sponsored by Ottawa’s Peacebuild, explored various dimensions of reconciliation and the need for a comprehensive peace process. The following is an adaptation of my presentation on the role and functioning of multilateral military forces in the absence of such a process. While the task at hand is to discuss […]
Read MoreApril 1st, 2010
In 2005 Canada joined five other states to propose a plan to move the four priority issues mired in the stalemated CD into a UN General Assembly process for action. The plan was abandoned in the face of strong opposition, but in the last session of the still moribund CD, Canada suggested it be given […]
Read MoreMarch 26th, 2010
The new US-Russia agreement to reduce their nuclear arsenals (which reports say they have now concluded) certainly warrants the Joe Biden phrase for major accomplishments – “a big …ing deal.”.[i] But in one sense it is less than meets the eye. The very fact of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is worthy of celebration. It signals, […]
Read MoreMarch 19th, 2010
The current nuclear disarmament debate in the United States has been given an unusual twist by a group of US Air Force officials and academics who reject the goal of elimination but argue for radical, and unilateral, reductions in the US nuclear arsenal. To say that elements within the US Air Force are calling for […]
Read MoreMarch 9th, 2010
While the battles of the US-led military surge rage with renewed intensity in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, off the battlefield, much of the talk and not a few questions focus on the merits reconciliation. Reconciliation in the Afghanistan context refers to diplomacy that seeks to engage insurgency leaders in pursuit of a political settlement that will […]
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