November 5th, 2009
Transparency and verification are central to sustainable nuclear disarmament and a compelling new report on nuclear weapons materials includes a look at ways in which “societal verification” can contribute to a more effective nonproliferation regime. The just released 2009 report of the International Panel on Fissile Materials[i] (IPFM) examines, in addition to its main focus on […]
Read MoreOctober 28th, 2009
The new German Foreign Minister has pledged to pursue the removal of the last of US nuclear weapons on German soil. It’s a move that will either signal the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons in Europe or the beginning of a new political quarrel within NATO. It seems anachronistic in the extreme, not […]
Read MoreOctober 21st, 2009
The 28 wars now being fought on the territories of 24 countries leave a legacy of squandered potential well beyond their immediately measurable consequences. Project Ploughshares has been tracking global armed conflict since 1987 and the good news is that the current count of 28 armed conflicts in 24 countries is the lowest on record […]
Read MoreOctober 13th, 2009
A new CIGI study, “From Nuclear Energy to the Bomb,” offers a clear and compelling review of one of the central challenges of disarmament diplomacy. This study[i] comes out of the Nuclear Energy Futures project of CIGI and provides a clear account of the real and potential links between a state’s peaceful nuclear energy capacity […]
Read MoreOctober 8th, 2009
It’s hard to dispute the prevailing conclusion that all options in Afghanistan have become bad.[i] That includes the option that still earns only occasional and grudging mention – negotiation. But what distinguishes this option from all the others is its inevitability. In his recent and widely dissected assessment of the Afghan security assistance mission, Gen. […]
Read MoreOctober 1st, 2009
One welcome result of the discovery that Iran has been secretly building another uranium enrichment plant has been to refocus diplomacy more on demands for transparency, and less on the hitherto favored but largely ineffective demand that enrichment be suspended. Today’s talks in Geneva between Iran and the P5[i] plus Germany, hosted by the European […]
Read MoreSeptember 25th, 2009
The five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council are of course also the five nuclear weapon states that are recognized as such by the NPT. They have made few collective disarmament commitments, but there are some important ones and it is worth looking at the evolution of their collective disarmament language, up to […]
Read MoreSeptember 15th, 2009
September 24 promises a couple of encouraging firsts. It will be the first time a US President has chaired a session of the UN Security Council, and for the first time the Council is expected to pass a resolution that will include substantive disarmament elements relevant to the nuclear arsenals of its five permanent members […]
Read MoreSeptember 12th, 2009
“We call on all member States of the UN – including Canada – to endorse, and begin negotiations for, a nuclear weapons convention as proposed by the UN Secretary-General in his five-point plan for nuclear disarmament.” This statement has at last count been signed by more than 300 Canadians named to the Order of Canada.[i]The […]
Read MoreSeptember 12th, 2009
The inimitable Barney Frank had it about right when he allowed that he “would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending.”[i] The Massachusetts Congressman’s wishful thinking came to mind when President Barak Obama […]
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