The INF Treaty Crisis Is A Global Security Problem

Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball

The author is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. He wrote this editorial for the January-February issue of Arms Control Today.

WASHINGTON ; DC (IDN-INPS) – Next month, it is very likely the Trump administration will take the next step toward fulfilling the president’s threat to “terminate” one of the most far-reaching and most successful nuclear arms reduction agreements: the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which led to the verifiable elimination of 2,692 Soviet and U.S. missiles based in Europe. The treaty helped bring an end to the Cold War and paved the way for agreements to slash bloated strategic nuclear arsenals and to withdraw thousands of tactical nuclear weapons from forward-deployed areas.

Time To Leave The Nuclear Age, Create A Green Planet At Peace

Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Alice Slater

While Medea Benjamin is codirect or of CODEPINK for Peace and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic, Alice Slater serves on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War and is the UN Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

NEW YORK (IDN) – A deafening chorus of negative grumbling from the left, right, and center of the U.S. political spectrum in response to Trump’s decision to remove U.S. troops from Syria and halve their numbers in Afghanistan appears to have slowed down his attempt to bring our forces home. [P18] 

Nonproliferation Policy and Priorities – U.S. Perspective

Viewpoint by Dr. Christopher Ashley Ford

The author is Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. The following are extensive extracts from his remarks at the 7th European Union Nonproliferation and Disarmament Conference in Brussels, Belgium, on December 18, 2018.

UN Rejects Resolution Calling for Russian-U.S. Compliance with Nuclear Treaty

By Ramesh Jaura

NEW YORK (IDN) – In a tug of war between two nuclear giants, the UN General Assembly has rejected a resolution calling for U.S.-Russian compliance with and strengthening of the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. And this within months of President Donald Trump's October announcement to "terminate" the 1987 Treaty "in response to Russian violations of the agreement".

Who’s Deceiving Whom? Open Source North Korea Under The Microscope

NYT Coverage of Think-Tank Report Risks Credibility of Open-Source Research on North Korea

Viewpoint by Joshua H. Pollack

The writer is a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and editor of the Nonproliferation Review. This article first appeared on NKNews.Org on December 11, 2018.

NEW YORK | MONTEREY (IDN-INPS) – Along with the features of daily life that few of us could have anticipated a generation ago – smartphones, rent-a-scooters, Greek yogurt in every grocery store – something new has come to the world of think tanks and NGOs: the budding democratization of imagery intelligence.

New Report Warns of the Perils of Scientific Collaborations with North Korea

Partner Countries Include China, USA, Australia and Germany

By Ramesh Jaura

NEW YORK (IDN) – Direct collaboration between North Korean and foreign scientists including those from China, Australia, the United States, Germany, and Romania, is playing "an expanding role" in the regime’s pursuit of technological advancement, a new study has found.

Parliamentarians for Nuclear Disarmament Emphasize Need to Combat Climate Change

By Aleksandra Gadzinski

KATOWICE (IDN) – Nuclear weapons and climate change are the two major existential threats to the survival of humanity, civilization and the planet Earth. With this in view, in January 2018 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the legendary Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes to Midnight, due to the threats from nuclear weapons and climate change, said Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator of the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) at an event on December 9.  [P 17] JAPANESE TEXT VERSION  PDF

Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change Threaten Human Survival

John Avery interviews David Krieger

COPENHAGEN | SANTA BARBARA, CA (IDN) – One of the five “M’s” can trigger a nuclear war any time: malice, madness, mistake, miscalculation and manipulation. "Of these five, only malice is subject to possibly being prevented by nuclear deterrence and of this there is no certainty. But nuclear deterrence (threat of nuclear retaliation) will not be at all effective against madness, mistake, miscalculation or manipulation (hacking)," David Krieger tells John Scales Avery in an exceptional interview. [P 16] JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF  

It is High Time for the U.S. and Russia to Get Off the Treadmill to Catastrophe

Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball

The author is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. He wrote this editorial for the December issues of Arms Control Today.

WASHINGTON, DC (IDN-INPS) – Earlier this year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “[t]he Cold War is back...but with a difference. The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present.”

Indeed, the United States and Russia are planning to spend trillions of dollars to replace and upgrade their nuclear arsenals at force levels that far exceed what is required to deter nuclear attack. China is also improving its nuclear weapons capabilities.

U.S. INF Treaty Termination May Once Again Trigger Nuclear Arms Race

By Daryl G. Kimball and Kingston A. Reif

The following is the text of the analysis in Issue Brief (Volume 10, Issue 10, December 4, 2018) by the Arms Control Association (ACA). Daryl G. Kimball, is the executive director and Kingston A. Reif the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy of ACA. – The Editor

WASHINGTON; DC (IDN-INPS) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared [on December 4] Russia in material breach of the landmark 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and announced that the United States plans to suspend U.S. obligations under the treaty in 60 days unless Russia returns to compliance.