By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO | 11 June 2024 (IDN) — On a warm evening almost a decade ago, I sat under the stars with Daniel Ellsberg while he talked about nuclear war with alarming intensity. He was most of the way through writing his last and most important book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of […]
How Can Putin Avoid Nuclear War? By Being a Little Crazier?
By Mike Whitney* This article was originally published on The Unz Review. WASHINGTION STATE | 9 June 2024 (IDN) — President Putin’s press conference on 28 May in Uzbekistan might have been the most unusual and extraordinary event in his 24-year political career. After addressing the Constitutional issues surrounding Ukrainian President Zelensky’s decision to remain […]
The Specter of Nuclear Conflict Continues to Haunt
By Daryl G. Kimball The writer is the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA). The following article appears as the Focus of the June 2024 issue of Arms Control Today. WASHINGTON, D.C. | 6 Jun 2024 (IDN) — Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale, illegal, and brutal assault on Ukraine in […]
Biden Should Stop Gambling with Nuclear Armageddon
By Jeffrey D. Sachs* This article was published in Common Dreams and is being republished with the author’s permission. Each of the last five presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, have brought us closer to the brink. We desperately need leaders with a knack for peace who can steer the nation, and the world, toward a […]
Smiling Buddha Turns 50: Impacts in Brazil and Worldwide
By Leonam dos Santos Guimarães* RIO DE JANEIRO | 29 May 2024 (IDN) — On 18 May 1974, India carried out its first nuclear explosion, called “Smiling Buddha”, in the Pokhran desert. That explosion was described by the Indian government as a “peaceful nuclear explosion.” India justified the explosion as a display of its technological […]
Fifty Years On: The Decision of India to Conduct Its First Nuclear Tests
By Ashish Kumar Singh* NEW DELHI | 18 May 2024 (IDN) — On this day in 1974, India conducted its landmark first nuclear tests in Pokhran, Rajasthan, as part of the ‘Smiling Buddha’ operation. Until it actually happened, secrecy surrounded the event, as many major world powers at the time attempted to restrict the proliferation […]
A Nuclear Deal with Iran Is Essential to Duck a Nuclear Holocaust
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden | 30 April 2024 (IDN) — Rightly the debate over a way to end the Iranian (nuclear?) bomb crisis remains one of the prime issues in Western foreign policy. Compared with that the partial war in Ukraine seems to be almost trivial. Likewise, Israel versus Hamas, the de facto rulers […]
Why Not the Whole World as A “Zone of Peace”?
By P. Soma Palan* COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 21 April 2024 (IDN) — I refer to your Article under the Heading “Indian Ocean – a zone of peace sinking in troubled waters”. I wish to express my seemingly radical views on the subject of attaining world peace in the backdrop of the increasing militarization of […]
Will the Ukraine and Gaza Wars Encourage Russia to Support Nuclear-Armed Iran?
By Meir Javedanfar* TEL AVIV | 19 April 2024 (IDN | ELN) — According to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency’s recent report, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) currently has sufficient uranium enriched to 60% to build three nuclear weapons if it decides to do so. Building a nuclear bomb would provide the IRI […]
Space Warfare Is the Newest Fighting Domain
By Bharat Dogra* NEW DELHI | 14 April 2024 (IDN) — In December 2019, when the Space Force was formed in the USA, President Trump called this a big moment and added that there are “going to be a lot of things happening in space. Because space is the world’s newest war-fighting domain.” Mark Esper, […]