As a intermediate result of the recent negotiation between 132 UN member states in late march 2017, on May 22
William Perry: Have we forgotten the Cold War? Nuclear threat more real than ever!
Statement of William Perry, former Secretary of Defense for the United States, on the risks of the conflict about North Korea's nuclear weapons programme (via "The Hill").
U.S. Peace Movement Supports Petition to change Nuclear Launch Procedures
18 organizations of the US peace movement started to collect signatures under the appeal to the members of the US Congress, to support the law amendment introduced by Rep. Ted Lieu and Sen. Ed Markey to change the launch procedures for nuclear weapons in order to prohibit the president of the USA from unilaterally ordering a nuclear first strike without a US Congress decision. By 15 April 2017 the petitition received 188,087 signatures -- To all U.S. Senators and Representatives: We call on you to take action to ensure that no president can unilaterally launch a nuclear war. U.S. nuclear launch procedures have been designed for speed, not for democratic decisions. The president (or his designee) is the only person who can order the use of nuclear weapons and there are no checks or balances on that authority. As President Richard Nixon observed in 1974, “I can go back into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.” While it should be inconceivable that any American president would conduct a nuclear first strike, President Trump’s past statements and erratic behavior make it imperative that we put checks and balances on nuclear launch authority. Only Congress can declare war, and that authority should apply to a nuclear first strike as well. Please co-sponsor H.R. 669/S. 200 to make America and the world safer by prohibiting the president from unilaterally starting a nuclear war.
Arms Control and Disarmament — SIPRI and the recommended LINKs
In January 2017 SIPRI presented a new publication:
Reintroducing Disarmament and Cooperative Security to the Toolbox of 21st Century Leaders
edited by Dan Plesch, Kevin Miletic and Tariq Rauf
… To the vast majority of people, ‘disarmament’
The American Conservative: Trump, New START, and U.S.-Russian Relations
In the case of New START, it was conventional hawkish boilerplate back in 2009-2010 that Russia benefited more from the treaty, but this wasn’t true. It represented the continuation of a mutually beneficial arms reduction process, and it ensured that reductions by both sides would be verified by inspections....
SIPRI Jahrbuch 2016: Rüstung, Abrüstung und internationale Sicherheit
Das SIPRI Yearbook 2016 stellt Originaldaten aus den Bereichen globale Militärausgaben, internationale
SIPRI: Current Leaders must learn again Arms control and Disarmament
In January 2017 the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published a report “Reintroducing
Frank-Walter Steinmeier: Reviving Arms Control in Europe!
European security ...is under threat once again. So, once again, Europe’s security must top our political agenda. Even before the Ukraine conflict began in 2014, there were growing signs of a brewing confrontation between rival blocs... Arms-control agreements, history has demonstrated, are not the result of existing trust – they are a means to build trust where it has been lost. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation...Soon after the crisis – when the US-Soviet relationship was at an all-time low – both superpowers decided that it was time to work across the divide, through small and concrete steps. This principle was also at the heart of Willy Brandt’s Neue Ostpolitik in the 1960s and 1970s....
SIPRI-Analysis: Global nuclear weapons: downsizing but modernizing
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute annual nuclear forces data which highlights the current trends and developments in world nuclear arsenals. The data shows that while the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world continues to decline, none of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future.
