Nuclear Weapons

Photo: Kazakhstan officially hands over to UN document on ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapon. Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.

Kazakh Ratification Marks One Step Closer to Banning the Bomb

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Kazakhstan, the country where the Soviet atomic bomb was first tested exactly 70 years ago, has become the 26th State party by depositing with the United Nations Secretariat the ratification instrument to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) thus marking one step closer to the prospect of the entry into force of the landmark Treaty, which establishes a legal ban on nuclear weapons.

And this on August 29, the International Day against Nuclear Tests. This year, the UN officially commemorates the Tenth Anniversary of the Day.

Photo: A wide view of the Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security. 22 August 2019. United Nations, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias.

Grave Concern About US-Russian Actions Evoking Cold War

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – While nuclear experts and peace advocates have expressed heightened concern about the collapse of the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the United States and Russia are trading accusations over breaching commitments and taking actions evoking Cold War era.

The Treaty was signed by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. It required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometres.

Photo (l to r): Mary Soliman, Chief of the Regional Disarmament, Information and Outreach Branch, UNODA; Thomas Markram, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, UNODA; Emilia Javorsky, Scientists Against Inhumane Weapons, Future of Life Institute; Chris King, UNODA; and Eleonore Pauwels, the United Nations University. Photo by Nyoki Malafa.

UN Outreaches Youth with Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence

By Belen Bianco, UNODA

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) launched its youth outreach initiative on August 16. The first activity organized under this initiative brought together young people from across the New York area to UN Headquarters to join an expert-led discussion on the implications of artificial intelligence for international peace and security. The event was also organized in celebration of International Youth Day (August 12).

Photo: The U.S. Defense Department conducted a flight test of a conventionally configured ground-launched cruise missile at San Nicolas Island, California on August 18, 2019. Credit: Scott Howe | DVIDS – The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

Nuclear Arms Race Is Here

By Jessica Corbett *

MAINE, USA (IDN) – Nuclear experts and disarmament advocates are warning that the world is witnessing a new arms race after the Pentagon tested a new missile August 18 that would have violated a Cold War-era treaty the Trump administration ditched earlier this month.

After years of the U.S. government—under both the Obama and Trump administrations—and NATO accusing Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed in 1987 by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Washington formally withdrew from the deal, which banned ground-launched nuclear and conventional ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,000 kilometers, or about 310 to 3,400 miles.

Photo: "Against the dark background of the atomic bomb, the United States does not wish merely to present strength, but also the desire and the hope for peace. The coming months will be fraught with fateful decisions… may they be the decisions which will lead this world out of fear and into peace." (U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in an address to the 470th United Nations General Assembly on 8 December 1953) Credit: UN Photo/MB

The Devastating Arms Race Rages Unabated

Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." – U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in 'The Chance for Peace' address in April 1953.

NEW YORK (IDN) – The arms race has reached a new dimension as the United States President Donald Trump withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Europeans Should Refuse to Go MAD Again

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – If MAD was Mad then the decision of President Donald Trump to renounce the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is MADDER.

MAD is Mutually Assured Destruction, a concept which underlay the nuclear deterrence of the Cold War. Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan began the hard work of dismantling MAD with the INF, a treaty affecting the land-based missiles of Europe. It abolished missiles with a range of 500 to 2000 kilometres.

Australia Urged to Sign & Ratify the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY (IDN) – Australia must sign and ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), says a new report released here by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the Australian-founded initiative which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

The report comes amidst growing international tension with important agreements, including the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – widely known as the Iran nuclear deal – and the 1988 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the United States and Russia, being undermined.

Photo: Two aerial photos of atomic bomb mushroom clouds, over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 (left) and Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 (right). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US-Russia Relations and Finally Ban the Bomb

Viewpoint by Alice Slater

Author and nuclear disarmament advocate, Alice Slater is a member of the Board of World Beyond War, UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and a longtime member of CODEPINK.

NEW YORK (IDN) – August 6 and 9 mark 74 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where only one nuclear bomb dropped on each city caused the deaths of up to 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Today, with the U.S. decision to walk away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) negotiated with the Soviet Union, we are once again staring into the abyss of one of the most perilous nuclear challenges since the height of the Cold War.

Image: The United States conducted the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests, the Castle Bravo test, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of Operation Castle on 1 March 1954. Credit: U.S. Department of Energy. Credit: U.S. Department of Energy.

CEND Is Creating the Conditions to ‘Never Disarm’ – 74 Years Since Hiroshima, Nagasaki

Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf

The writer is a Vienna-based nuclear arms control specialist, who was Head of Verification and Security Policy Coordination, Office reporting to the Director General at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 2002—2011/2012, in which capacity he was the Alternate Head of the IAEA NPT Delegation. The views expressed in this paper are purely personal.

VIENNA (IDN) – With August 6 and 9 respectively marking the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no sentient human being who has met or seen the hibakusha (survivors), or visited the hypocentres in the two cities, or seen the photographic evidence of the destruction of these two Japanese cities, can avoid being shocked and horrified by the devastation that was inflicted by nuclear weapons.

Photo: Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez, Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva, addressing the panel on nuclear disarmament at plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament on 30 July 2019 in Geneva. Credit: Sri Lanka Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva.

Nuclear Disarmament Through the Vortex of Global Concern

Viewpoint by A.L.A. Azeez

The writer, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva, is concerned about the security landscape in most regions as well as globally. He pleads for all feasible measures to resume discussions on substantive matters. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are the foremost among them, he adds. The following are extensive extracts from his remarks made in his personal capacity as a member of the panel on nuclear disarmament at plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament on 30 July 2019 in Geneva.