By Tariq Rauf A Special Report on the collapse of the Eleventh NPT Review Conference, New York, 27 April– 22 May 2026.[i] NEW YORK | 25 May 2026 (IDN) — On the evening of Friday, 22 May 2026, Ambassador Do Hung Viet, the President of the Eleventh Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) solemnly took […]
A World of Surging Military Spending and Concentrated Starvation
Choosing Bullets or Bread? This article was first published on https://rjaura.substack.com/ BERLIN | 16 May 2026 (IDN) — In 2025, the global order revealed a sharp paradox. Armed conflicts, geopolitical rivalry, and military preparedness drove world military spending to an unprecedented $2.887 trillion. Meanwhile, hunger tightened its grip on the most at-risk populations. Two-thirds of all […]
A World Edging Back Toward the Nuclear Brink
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 29 April 2026 (IDN) — Not long ago, U.S. Strategic Command—the branch responsible for nuclear weapons—issued a stark warning: conflict conditions could “very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option.” That sober assessment captures a growing unease. President Joe Biden’s decision to send […]
IRAN: Sustainable Peace Takes Time
By David L. Phillips* OXFORD, UK | 29 April 2026 (IDN) — I spent hours with Ambassador Javad Zarif, Iran’s Permanent Representative to the UN and Foreign Minister in 2015. Rather convincingly, he maintained that Iran was not seeking a nuclear weapon but merely insisting on its right to enrichment. He called Iran’s nuclear program a […]
Preparing for War, Lacking Consensus: Tigray’s Divided Political and Social Landscape
By Daniel Tesfa, Shim Masha, Joëlle Stocker and Mirjam van Reisen MEKELLE, Ethiopia | 28 April 2026 (IDN) — Four years after the war in Tigray (Ethiopia) ended with the cessation of hostilities by the Pretoria Agreement, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), who represented the Tigray regional state in the agreement, has moved to […]
The Big Bomb Questions
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 22 April 2026 (IDN) — Rightly, the debate over how to end the Iranian nuclear (bomb?) crisis is now the number one issue in Western foreign policy. Compared with that, the civil war in Ukraine seems almost trivial—one that could be resolved in a week if only the West made […]
Situation Report: Sexual violence used as “weapon of war” in Sudan
Situation in Sudan (per 01 April) At least 3,396 survivors of sexual violence, out of which 97% are women and girls, have been registered at the health facilities run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in North and South Darfur between January 2024 and November 2025. MSF warned the figure represents only a fraction of actual […]
Life in a Lawless Nuclear World
Radiological Consequences of Military Attacks on Bushehr and Barakah Atomic Power Plants By Tariq Rauf The writer is a former Head of Verification and Security Policy at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). VIENNA | 30 March 2026 (IDN) — In 1975, the US-based RAND Corporation published a seminal report entitled “Moving Toward Life in […]
Trump’s Nuclear Diplomacy
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 4 March 2026 (IDN) — Besides President Donald Trump’s conviction that Iran is very close to building nuclear weapons (which the CIA disputes), there is a next crisis looming on Trump’s agenda. It might well be North Korea, which openly has the bomb, many of them. (Due to a […]
Europe Confronts a World Without Guarantees
The Merz Doctrine, and the Cost of Strategic Adulthood This article first appeared on https://rjaura.substack.com By Ramesh Jaura* BERLIN | 1 March 2026 (IDN) — For nearly eight decades, Europe thrived under the sturdy canopy of a security order that felt immovable. The United States was the bedrock of NATO, its power a shield against […]