December 9th, 2007
The US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear programs (NIE)[i] should decisively rob Washington hawks of any credible rationale for attacking Iran. What the NIE did not do, however, is explain or expose the surfeit of nuclear ambiguities that remain in Iran and that could be widely replicated in the event of the global surge […]
Read MoreDecember 3rd, 2007
It is likely that in the first half of 2008 Canada will have to disclose its response to the US-India request that India be exempted from the Nuclear Supplier Group’s (NSG) current rule against nuclear cooperation with any country that operates nuclear facilities not subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A […]
Read MoreNovember 27th, 2007
A year ago states decided, through a UN General Assembly resolution, to pursue”a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.”[i] At the same time they asked the Secretary-General to survey states for their views on the feasibility of such an Arms Trade Treaty. The Secretary-General […]
Read MoreNovember 12th, 2007
Rumors of an American war on Iran continue unabated,[i] even while any case for such a war grows progressively weaker, and as a result US Vice President Dick Cheney has been making what is for him a familiar move. Mr. Cheney is reportedly putting pressure on intelligence analysts to modify their reporting on Iran’s nuclear […]
Read MoreOctober 31st, 2007
The CBC has just produced a fine series of radio reports on Canadian military exports[i] highlighting key issues such as the Government’s failure since 2002 to issue its promised annual report on arms exports, the upward trend in sales, and high volumes of armored vehicles shipped to Saudi Arabia and the United States. In the […]
Read MoreOctober 19th, 2007
Warnings of the disaster that would come of an American attack on Iran are plentiful, increasingly urgent, and persuasive[i] – but it is not at all clear that they are working on the one vote that matters. The NewsHour on PBS television ran a short feature on the growing irrelevance of George Bush, but on […]
Read MoreArmed Conflict, Defence and Human Security, Nuclear Disarmament
October 14th, 2007
Without a negotiated settlement – that is, without a broad political consensus to support a new national order – inserting international military forces into any ongoing armed conflict risks prolonging and intensifying that conflict and puts the international community on one side of a civil war. And experience and logic tell us that political consensus […]
Read MoreOctober 11th, 2007
Some 80 percent of Americans think that nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous place. Only 10 percent think the world is safer because of nuclear weapons. But when the same Americans were asked how they felt about their own country’s nuclear weapons, 47 percent said they made them feel safer and 32 percent […]
Read MoreOctober 8th, 2007
Over a weekend of turkey and pumpkin pie there was also time to reflect on the sixth anniversary of the October 7, 2001 attack on Afghanistan – an attack that launched a war that not only continues, but by most accounts, apart from those of the Foreign Minister,[i] shows declining promise of victory. The architects […]
Read MoreSeptember 30th, 2007
Some months back, in a not for attribution briefing on Afghanistan, a Canadian military official observed that the Taliban are skilled at luring foreign forces into tactical military victories that actually become strategic victories for the Taliban. A new report from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on the situation in Afghanistan[i] essentially confirms that admission – […]
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