Category: ARMAMENTS

Interview by Ramesh Jaura with CTBTO Chief Dr Lassina Zerbo

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN | INPS) – If it were for Dr. Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), the treaty banning all nuclear tests would have entered into force “yesterday”.

This view not only reflects what he terms in a lighter vein his “notoriously optimistic” perspective. It is also grounded in a series of signals underlining that “the discussion about ratification has moved to a new level” so that the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, better known by its acronym CTBT, should not remain an “unfinished business”.

In an exclusive email interview with IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate (INPS), he spells out the reasons for his ‘optimism’, adding: A UN Security Council resolution banning nuclear tests, as President Obama is reported to be contemplating, might be a good thing. “But what really counts is the ratification of the remaining eight countries.” These are China, DPRK (North Korea), Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and the United States.

GENEVA (IDN) – Reacting to the Report of the Iraq Inquiry headed by Sir John Chilcot, published early July, the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize winning Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs have stressed the critical importance of heeding the lessons of the inquiry.

“In a world where nine countries possess over 15,000 nuclear warheads and global military expenditure is at a staggering US $1676 billion, while terrorism fuelled by extremist ideologies adds to the toxic mix of the traditional causes of war, the folly of not heeding the lessons of Chilcot will be catastrophic,” the Pugwash Conferences’ leaders warn.

The statement released on July 12 is signed by Jayantha Dhanapala, President, Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, Secretary General, Saideh Lotfian, Chair, Pugwash Council, Steve Miller, Chair, Executive Committee, and Tatsujiro Suzuki, Pugwash Executive Committee.

IDN | INPS Special Report

Alyn Ware and Jean-Marie Collin analyse the Declaration of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) early July, calling for taking nuclear weapons off high alert and adopting no-first-use policies. In this context, they explore whether President Obama’s reported plans along the same lines would fly.

BERLIN | PARIS | WELLINGTON (IDN | INPS) – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) convened in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, July 1-5 and called on all OSCE States with nuclear weapons or under extended nuclear deterrence relationships to reduce the risks of a nuclear war by taking nuclear weapons off high alert and by adopting no-first-use policies.

This plea was part of the Tbilisi Declaration, which was adopted by the OSCE PA on July 5. The Declaration also highlighted the risks of nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO, welcomed the UN Open Ended Working Group on Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations (OEWG) and supported the commencement of such negotiations in 2017.

By J C Suresh

TORONTO | INDIANAPOLIS (IDN) – “The largest NATO war games in decades, involving 14,000 U.S. troops, and activation of U.S. missile defenses in Eastern Europe are fueling growing tensions between nuclear-armed giants,” the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) has warned in run-up to the 28-nation North Atlantic Alliance’s summit on July 8-9 in Poland’s capital Warsaw.

The resolution adopted by the USCM’s 84th Annual Meeting June 24-27 in Indianapolis says: “More than 15,000 nuclear weapons, most orders of magnitude more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, 94% held by the United States and Russia, continue to pose an intolerable threat to cities and humanity.”

Analysis by Naimul Haq

DHAKA, Bangladesh (IDN) – Despite increasing global threats of nuclear attacks, Bangladesh – surrounded by nations possessing nuclear arms – is opting to remain a peaceful nation rather than join the nuclear club.

Endorsing the political will to pursue global peace and comply with international nuclear peace treaties, national security experts say that although the Cold War has ended potential for nuclear strikes is still alive.

In separate but united voices, they argue out that the threat of global nuclear war has decreased, but the risk of a nuclear attack has substantially increased as more nations have acquired technologies to develop nuclear weapons, besides the thirst of terrorists for acquiring such weapons of mass destruction.

Analysis by Bennett Ramberg*

LOS ANGELES (INPS-IDN | Yale Global) – Seventy years ago in June the United States placed on the global agenda a proposal that would have eliminated nuclear weapons for all time. Drawing on the US State Department’s Acheson-Lilienthal scientific advisory study, the Truman administration turned to the long-time confidant of presidents, Bernard Baruch, to craft a proposal for global action.

In June 1946, Baruch appeared before the newly constituted UN Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) to present the nuclear abolition plan that would come to bear his name. He called for establishment of an International Atomic Development Authority that would retain “managerial control or ownership of all atomic energy potentially dangerous to world security,” eliminate weapons manufacturing and dispose of all existing bombs while asserting “power to control, inspect, license all other atomic activities” coupled with assured enforcement.

Viewpoint by David Krieger *

SANTA BARBARA | USA (IDN) – The ten worst acts of the Nuclear Age described below have set the tone for our time. They have caused immense death and suffering; been tremendously expensive; have encouraged nuclear proliferation; have opened the door to nuclear terrorism, nuclear accidents and nuclear war; and are leading the world back into a second Cold War.

These “ten worst acts” are important information for anyone attempting to understand the time in which we live, and how the nuclear dangers that confront us have been intensified by the leadership and policy choices made by the United States and the other eight nuclear-armed countries.

Analysis by Jamshed Baruah

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) – When will the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) enter into force and become international law? This was the question on the minds of senior officials from around the world who had gathered in Vienna on June 13 to mark the 20th anniversary of the treaty, which is crucial to ushering in a world free of nuclear weapons.

The answer to the question is simple. CTBT has so far been signed by 183 States and ratified by 164. Its demanding entry-into-force provision requires 44 particular “nuclear technology holder” States to ratify the Treaty for it to enter into force.

Eight of them have yet to ratify: China, DPRK (North Korea), Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and the United States (China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States have already signed the Treaty).

Analysis by Rodney Reynolds

NEW YORK (IDN) – When President Barack Obama made a historic visit on May 27 to Hiroshima – where a U.S. nuclear attack on Japan in 1945 resulted in over 200,000 casualties – he offered no apologies for the human devastation nor provided any justification for the first and only use of nuclear weapons ever.

But he reiterated his call for a world without nuclear weapons – even as the U.S. continues to modernize its nuclear programme at a cost of over $1 trillion dollars proving there is still a widening gap between pledges and deliveries.

Despite all the good intentions, are we any closer, are we far removed, from a future nuclear war that could annihilate millions?

In a projection into the future, the Wall Street Journal on May 19 posed a more relevant question: “Would we drop the bomb again?”

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – During the Cold War barely a week went by without some reportage or debate on nuclear weapons. Not today. Yet most of the nuclear weapons around then are still around.

It would be alright if they were left to quietly rust in their silos. But they are not. When in 2010 President Barack Obama made a deal with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev to cut their respective arsenals of strategic missiles by one-third the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress, as the price for its ratification of the deal, decreed that Obama and future presidents be made to spend a trillion dollars on updating and modernizing America’s massive arsenal.

Now that chicken is coming home to roost – and a few other chickens too.

President Barack Obama’s unexpected legacy is that he has presided over an America that has been at war longer than any previous president. Moreover, of recent presidents, apart from Bill Clinton, he has cut the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile at the slowest rate.