ARMAMENTS

Photo: Sikorsky HSS-2 Sea King US helicopter whose production has been licensed to manufacturers in UK, Italy, Canada and Japan. Credit: US Navy

World’s Largest Arms Importers Include Nuclear Powers

By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK (IDN) — A significant spike in arms imports by Europe, East Asia and Oceania during the last five years has reaffirmed the continuously sharp increase in global arms sales—a rising trend undaunted by a faltering world economy or the two-year-long pandemic lockdown.

According to a new study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released March 14, Asia and Oceania remained the largest importing region for major arms, receiving 43 per cent of global transfers during 2017–21.

: Thalif Deen; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 14 March 2022

Image: Nuclear warheads shot outside the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque, New Mexico. CC BY Flickr: Megan Eaves

A Conflict Over Ukraine Embroils Four of the World’s Major Nuclear Powers

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The spiraling crisis in Ukraine has an ominous underlying fact: it is a conflict that involves four of the world’s major nuclear powers: the US, Russia, UK and France, with the remaining five, namely China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel on the sidelines as spectators—at least so far.

Mercifully, the nuclear option is not on the negotiating table—but it is still very much in the air.

: Thalif Deen; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 27 February 2022

Photo: CTBTO Executive Secretary Floyd meets Dominica’s Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit. Credit: CTBTO

Latin American and Caribbean Countries Support the Nuclear Test Ban

By Reinhard Jacobsen

VIENNA (IDN) — The Commonwealth of Dominica announced its decision early February to join the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) that bans nuclear explosions by everyone, everywhere—on the Earth's surface, in the atmosphere, underwater and underground. The Treaty was signed 26 years ago but it has yet to enter into force.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 25 February 2022

Putin’s War of Aggression on Ukraine and the Non-proliferation Regime

By Daryl Kimball

The writer is executive director, Arms Control Association. This editorial is issued in the March 2022 issue of Arms Control Today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) — President Vladimir Putin has chosen the path of destruction instead of diplomacy. His months-long build-up of a massive Russian invasion force encircling Ukraine and his decision on February 21 to order Russian soldiers into the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk have set in motion a catastrophic war.

: Arms Control Association; OPINION; 24 February 2022

Photo: SGI President Daisaku Ikeda. Credit: Seikyo Shimbun

Nuclear Disarmament Requires Prompt Resolution, Says a Buddhist Peacebuilder

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | TOKYO (IDN) — Along with the United Nations, the community-based Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International (SGI) offers a beacon of hope particularly when the world is plagued by crises threatening the survival of humankind.

Every year since 1983, SGI President Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder and educator, has issued a peace proposal. His latest—and the 40th—titled "Transforming Human History: The Light of Peace and Dignity"—was released on January 26.

: Ramesh Jaura; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 21 February 2022

Photo: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) agreed in April 2021 to continue to work together, in cooperation with Ukrainian authorities, towards safe and cost-effective solutions to decommission the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and manage radioactive waste in the Exclusion Zone. Photo: M. Klingenboeck/IAEA

If You Want to Deter a Military Invasion, Should You Go Nuclear?

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — North Korea, whose economy has been severely undermined by rigid sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the United States, in retaliation for its active nuclear weapons program, has long justified its growing military arsenal on sheer political and ideological grounds.

The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ouster of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, were perhaps facilitated by one fact: none of these countries either had nuclear weapons or had given up developing them.

: Thalif Deen; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 10 February 2022

Photo: This photo provided by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's government shows what it says a test launch of a hypersonic missile on Jan 11, 2022 in DPRK. (KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY / KOREA NEWS SERVICE VIA AP)

North Korea, Perpetual Victim of the US Military-Industrial Complex

Viewpoint by Alice Slater

The writer is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. She is also the UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. www.warbeyondwar.org

NEW YORK (IDN) — It seems hard to believe that in these possible end times in the midst of a global pandemic with an endless succession of catastrophic climate disasters and thousands of nuclear weapons poised and pointed in the US and Russia, ready to destroy life on earth, we are beset by a bought, corrupted mainstream media that assaults us with the “wrongdoings” of Russia and China, and most recently North Korea, with barely a mention in their assaultive reporting of how the US might be a cause.

: Opinion Editor; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 31 January 2022

Photo: North Korean farmers in a field. Wikimedia Commons.

A Politically Isolated North Korea Garners Support from two Nuclear Powers at the UN

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — North Korea, long described as a “hermit kingdom”, apparently isn’t living in total political isolation or is cut off from the rest of the world.

Or so it seems, judging by the failure of the US and some of its UN allies to impose sanctions on five North Korean officials—sanctions really aimed at a country that continues to defy the West with its multiple ballistic nuclear tests.

: Thalif Deen; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 30 January 2022

Image: Nuclear weapon programmes worldwide. Wikimedia Commons.

Six Country Coalition Criticises the Modernisation of Nuclear Weapon Programmes

Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte

The writer is President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

NEW YORK (IDN) — On the eve of the opening of the Tenth Review Conference* of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the five states recognized as possessors of such armament—China, United States, France, United Kingdom and Russia—issued a Joint Declaration recalling the affirmation by presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that “a nuclear war cannot be won a should never be fought”, adding that those weapons should serve defensive objectives, prevent aggression and avoid war.

: Sergio Duarte; OPINION; 28 January 2022

Photo: Protest in Bonn, West Germany against the nuclear arms race between the U.S./NATO and the then Soviet Union. Wikimedia Commons.

Clarion Call for Policies to End the Nuclear Arms Race

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | PRAGUE (IDN) — On January 24, 1946, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus its very first resolution Resolution 1 (I), which established a commission of the UN Security Council to ensure "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction". The Resolution is entitled "Establishment of a Commission to Deal with the Problems Raised by the Discovery of Atomic Energy".