March 4th, 2010
It remains a prominent hope of at least some of those managing the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan that a combination of reintegration and escalated fighting will create openings for the diplomacy that is essential to finally ending the war that, in the words of Prime Minister Harper,[i] will never be won. In the current parlance […]
Read MoreFebruary 27th, 2010
The signs are growing that over the next year there could be an agreement to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from Europe. Both the forthcoming US Nuclear Posture Review and the current NATO Strategic Concept Review could set the stage for dispatching at least one Cold War relic — namely, the ongoing positioning of US […]
Read MoreFebruary 18th, 2010
The UN’s one disarmament negotiating forum recently seemed set to emerge from a wasted decade of deadlock, but the celebrations were premature. Disarmament is obviously way too important to be left to the Conference on Disarmament, so it’s time to look for another venue – and on that Canada has, or at least had, a […]
Read MoreFebruary 15th, 2010
Two former German security officials have responded, not entirely helpfully, to former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson’s sharp rebuke of the German Government’s call for the removal of US nuclear weapons from its territory.[i] Accusing Robertson of relying on “outdated perceptions” that are rooted in the Cold War, Wolfgang Ischinger and Ulrich Weisser make some good […]
Read MoreFebruary 10th, 2010
When the German Government became explicit in calling for the removal of nuclear weapons from German territory[i] some energetic backlash was to be expected. Now it’s started. Most thought strong reaction to removing the remaining US tactical nuclear weapons from Europe would come from the likes of Poland – an east European country not yet […]
Read MoreFebruary 3rd, 2010
This commentary by Douglas Roche and Ernie Regehr in the February 3, 2010 issue of Embassy: Canada’s Foreign Policy Newsweekly, grows out of last week’s conference, “Practical Steps to Zero Nuclear Weapons.” High-ranking officials of the US State Department, NATO and the United Nations were in Ottawa last week to meet with the leaders of […]
Read MoreJanuary 31st, 2010
CIGI Senior Fellow Mark Sedra has launched an excellent new blog on Afghanistan, “Dispatches from the Field: Perspectives on the Afghanistan Conflict,” available athttp://www.cigionline.org/publications/blogs/dispatches. In addition to his own commentaries, Mark regularly invites guest postings. The following is my January 24 post from Kabul, sent during my recent visit there. It doesn’t take long for […]
Read MoreJanuary 30th, 2010
Earlier this week, January 25-26, a group of Canadian NGOs[i] sponsored a conference attended by officials and experts from the United States, Canada, and NATO headquarters to consider and critique a set of recommendations prepared by the sponsoring groups. The recommendations, which focused on issues related to the forthcoming review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation […]
Read MoreJanuary 11th, 2010
Three states with nuclear weapons remain outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Now the Commission on “Eliminating Nuclear Threats” helpfully proposes treating them as if they were nuclear weapon states within the NPT; but only if they agree to “uphold non-proliferation and disarmament norms and practices at least as rigorous as those accepted by nuclear-weapon […]
Read MoreJanuary 4th, 2010
With the international community’s nuclear stand-off with Iran intensifying, a new report on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament calls for a redefinition of the fundamentals of the dispute. Bringing Iran into full accord with the global nonproliferation regime will require “acceptance by the international community of the reality of Iran’s enrichment program…in exchange for acceptance by […]
Read More