November 7, 2018 at 1:04 pm
Last November I lamented ‘The Lost Art of Arms Control,‘ the abject failure to build on the platform left by the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, and US President Ronald Reagan, who famously urged Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall dividing Europe into nuclear-armed camps. Nearly 30Read More
July 11, 2018 at 11:37 am
In every cry of every Man, In every Infant’s cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear William Blake Was the June 12 Singapore Summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a breakthrough or a let-down, a successRead More
April 4, 2018 at 12:14 pm
On March 22, President Trump tweet-sacked National Security Adviser (NSA) Lieutenant-General H.R. McMaster, naming as his replacement John Bolton, one of the most hawkish, controversial and unpopular officials in the trigger-happy administration of George W. Bush. Bolton learned the news while appearing on the Fox ‘News’ Channel, his soapbox inRead More
February 7, 2018 at 11:49 am
At times of heightened international tension the first duty of diplomacy is simple to define, harder to practice: providing a venue for the meeting of otherwise warring minds. In co-hosting, with the United States, the ‘Vancouver Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula’ on January 16,Read More
November 29, 2017 at 1:40 pm
On 8 December 1987, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty eliminating all ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers. As the leaders shook hands in Washington, 2,692 such missiles were deployed across Europe, each armed withRead More
October 4, 2017 at 1:40 pm
The recent dramatic spike in tensions on the Korean Peninsula has sparked fresh calls for Canada to join the American Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system. Proponents of the system claim it can either intercept and destroy a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of striking North America – a dreadRead More
September 13, 2017 at 11:40 am
At noon local time, September 3, North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test, an estimated 100-120 kiloton detonation – seven or eight times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima – of what it claimed was a two-stage (fission-fusion) thermonuclear hydrogen warhead small enough to fit in the coneRead More
September 6, 2017 at 12:09 pm
Editor’s Note: In light of fast-moving developments, notably North Korea’s apparent hydrogen-bomb test on September 3, an update to this analysis will be provided shortly. On Nagasaki Day 2017, hours after the city’s mayor, Tomihasa Taue, stated that “a strong sense of anxiety is spreading across the globe thatRead More
January 11, 2017 at 12:04 pm
On December 23 – the day after US President-elect Donald Trump tweeted his intent to “greatly strengthen and expand” American “nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes” – the United Nations General Assembly voted to open negotiations next year on a treaty outlawingRead More