Declan Hayes
NATO is a beaten docket, whose race has run and whose chips have all been lost, Declan Hayes writes.
The Gambler, Dostoevsky’s superlative novella about the gambling addiction he was afflicted with, is a remarkable tour de force NATO’s leaders should read before they gamble what is left of their own depleted resources away on the unlikely event they can take down China and Russia.
US President Eisenhower’s propaganda stunt ‘Atoms for Peace’ acquires new meaning as Iran uncovers the mystique of atomCoincidentally, it was on March 5 that Russia projected its latest demand for sanctions waiver in a written guarantee “at least” from President Joe Biden or at the very minimum from Secretary of State Antony Blinken in regard of its ambitious economic, scientific-technological and military collaboration in the pipeline with Iran. March 5 also happens to be the anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The fate of the NPT may now hinge on the US response. For, if the Biden administration rides the high horse, that will almost certainly be a deal-breaker for the current negotiations at Vienna on the US’ return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA).
U.S. troops arrive at Nuremberg International Airport on Feb. 28 to join the NATO Response Force. which was activated for the first time in history in a collective defence context. (NATO)The New York Times recently published an article by David Sanger entitled “Putin spins a conspiracy theory that Ukraine is on a path to produce nuclear weapons.” Unfortunately, it is Sanger who puts so much spin in his reporting that he leaves his readers with a grossly distorted version of the what the presidents of Russia and Ukraine have said and done.
This is a serious issue, perhaps the most serious of issues in Europe, but coming as it does immediately on the heels of Russia’s prior list of demands being resolutely rejected by the U.S. and NATO yesterday, the prospects of Washington and Brussels positively responding to this one either don’t appear good.
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22 March 2021 — Morning Star Online
16 March 2021 — Moon of Alabama
Less than a month ago the British government chided Iran to ‘come back into compliance‘ with the nuclear deal:
“I don’t think that we should be sending a signal that we are going to overlook this non-compliance or just brush it under the carpet,” James Cleverly, Britain’s junior foreign minister who covers the Middle East and North Africa, told the BBC.
“This is in Iran’s hands, they are the ones breaching the conditions of the JCPOA, they are the ones that can do something about this, and they should come back into compliance,” he said.
2 March 2021 — Medact
As many of you will be aware, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into international law just over a month ago, and 54 states have now ratified the Treaty.
However, the UK government continues to refuse to engage with the Treaty, even though the elimination of nuclear weapons is on the horizon.
15 February 2021 — Global Justice in the 21st Century
by Richard Falk
[Prefatory Note: The short essay below is my contribution to the latest thematic Forum of the Great Transition Initiative. It responds to a beautifully crafted paper by the Founder of GTI under the auspices of the Tellus Institute, Paul Raskin. Paul’s initial paper and a series of fascinating responses can be found at https://greattransition.org/gti-forum/interrogating-the-anthropocene. GTI has developed a powerful and sophisticated global network for dialogue about achieving a visionary future despite the dark clouds that now fill the sky.]
25 October 2020 — Medact
I am really excited to be able to let you know that last night, Honduras became the 50th state to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). This means that in 90 days time, the Treaty becomes international law ─ banning all use, possession and development of nuclear weapons. Continue reading
27 August 2020 — Roots Action
RootsAction.org is joining with a rapidly growing list of organizations and individuals from around the world to send an urgent appeal to the presidents, prime ministers, and legislatures of nine nuclear nations: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
6 August 2020 — Medact
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4 August 2020 — Consortium News
The mere possession of nuclear weapons violate the Nuremberg Principles, decreed a day before Nagasaki, and other international laws, argues international law professor Francis Boyle.
The human race stands on the verge of nuclear self-extinction as a species, and with it will die most, if not all, forms of intelligent life on the planet earth. Any attempt to dispel the ideology of nuclearism and its attendant myth propounding the legality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence must directly come to grips with the fact that the nuclear age was conceived in the original sins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945.
3 August 2020 — John Pilger
In a major essay to mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, John Pilger describes reporting from five ‘ground zeros’ for nuclear weapons – from Hiroshima to Bikini, Nevada to Polynesia and Australia. He warns that unless we take action now, China is next.
27 July 2020 — American Herald Tribune
No nation that possesses nuclear arsenals or those aspiring to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes has been subjected to the kinds of rigorous inspection and verification regimes — some bordering on humiliation and hijacking the country’s sovereignty — than Iran.
21 July 2020 — The National Security Archive
Germans and Italians Did Not Seek Formal Agreement to U.S. Nuclear Weapons Storage on Their Territory
6 July 2020 — FAIR
In order to eliminate the nuclear threats from the US, the DPRK government has made all possible efforts, either through dialogue or in resort to the international law, but all ended in a vain effort…. The only option left was to counter nuke with nuke.
Does this statement made by the North Korean government sound like a threat to launch a nuclear strike on the US?
24 May 2020 — Indian Punchline
M.K. Bhadrakumar
An American OC-135B takes off at Kubinka air base in Russia to conduct aerial surveillance of Russian military assets under the Open Skies Treaty.
Geopolitics has returned with a bang although Covid-19 is still very much around and a ‘second wave’ is also expected. The US President Donald Trump’s arms control negotiator, Special Presidential Envoy Marshall Billingslea said in an online presentation to a Washington think tank on Thursday that the United States is prepared to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” in order to win a new nuclear arms race.
23 May 2020 — Moon of Alabama
The Trump administration is hostile to any agreement that restricts its abilities to build, test and deploy nuclear weapons.
5 February 2020 — National Security Archive
U.S. Learned of the First ICBM Test from a Soviet Press Release and the Second from a Remark Made to a French Politician
Washington, D.C., February 5, 2020 – In the eyes of U.S. intelligence and the military services, the greatest threat to American national security during the early Cold War was the emerging Soviet missile program with its ability to deliver nuclear weapons to targets across the United States. Before the era of satellite surveillance, the U.S. scrambled to develop ever more effective intelligence-gathering methods, notably the U-2 spy plane, spurred on by having missed practically every important Soviet breakthrough of the time – including the first intercontinental ballistic missile tests and the world-changing Sputnik launches.
22 January 2020 — National Security Archive
Joint Chiefs Wanted to Keep SecDef Melvin Laird Out of the Loop on Nuclear War Plans, Declassified JCS Document Shows
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The New Dark Age 