Following the ‘Four Former Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ in the USA led by Henry Kissinger, and similar initiatives in Europe, the Australian ‘group of 6′ has been published recently in Australia’s largest two daily broadsheets.

Led by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, the opinion pieces were both published with accompanying articles in the papers. Read more »

Alice Slater | April 7, 2009

Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus
www.fpif.org

Committing the United States and Russia “to achieving a nuclear free world,” Presidents Obama and Medvedev issued a joint statement breathtaking in its positive tone. It marks an astonishing shift from the hostile policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations and offers new hope to a world weary of the endless nuclear arms race. Read more »

Publication date : 25 March 2009

The veterans of France’s nuclear testing, after years of futile approaches to military authorities and legal tribunals, all systematically dismissed or (if successful) referred to appeal by the ministry, have now won an apparently decisive victory. Read more »

Mise en ligne le : 24 mars 2009

Après des années de vaines démarches auprès de l’administration militaire et d’actions devant les tribunaux, systématiquement déboutées ou renvoyées en appel par le ministère lorsqu’elles étaient gagnantes, les vétérans des essais nucléaires français viennent de remporter une victoire apparemment décisive. Read more »

On a planet without nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants

Publication date : 20 March 2009

« Disarm and Live », beginning by liberating humankind from the threat of self-destruction by nuclear weapons, is the objective pursued by ACDN since its foundation in 1996 and by the international « Abolition 2000 » network. Now in 2009 it is more topical than ever. Read more »

Un an après le discours de Cherbourg :
Le mauvais gag de la Force de frappe française
Désarmer volontairement ou pas, telle est la question.

Mise en ligne le : 21 mars 2009

C’était tout juste il y a un an.

Le 21 mars 2008, le président de la République, Nicolas Sarkozy, prononçait à Cherbourg, à l’occasion du baptême (sans mise à l’eau) du SNLE-NG “Le Terrible” (sous-marin nucléaire lanceur d’engins, de nouvelle génération), un discours où il annonçait à la fois la poursuite de l’effort de la France en faveur de sa force de frappe, et des gestes de sa part en faveur du désarmement. Il revenait aussi, quoique fort discrètement, à une conception des “intérêts vitaux” français -que cette “force de dissuasion” nucléaire est censée protéger- beaucoup plus proche de la stratégie traditionnelle gaullienne (où ces “intérêts vitaux”, quoique jamais explicités, tendaient à se confondre avec la défense du territoire français) que de celle exposée le 19 janvier 2006 par Jacques Chirac dans son discours de l’Ile Longue (d’après lequel la défense des “intérêts vitaux” français par l’arme nucléaire pouvait aller de l’attentat terroriste commandité par un Etat étranger jusqu’à la rupture de nos “approvisionnements stratégiques”, en passant par la défense d’un Etat ami). Read more »

A year ago, Nicolas Sarkozy spoke in Cherbourg
The Farce of France’s Nuclear Strike Force
Publication date : 21 March 2009

It was just a year ago.

On 21 March 2008, the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, spoke in Cherbourg, on the occasion of the baptism (without immersion) of the submarine “Le Terrible” (SNLE-NG - new-generation missile-launching nuclear sub). In his speech he announced both a continued French effort to maintain her strike force and a number of French gestures in favour of disarmament. He returned also, though very discreetly, to a conception of France’s “vital interests” - supposedly being protected by the nuclear “deterrent force” - which came close to the traditional Gaullist strategy (for which these vital interests tended implicitly to be the same as defending French territory) - much closer than had been the conception expounded on 19 January 2006 by President Jacques Chirac in his speech at l’Ile Longue (he had implied that defense of “vital interests” by nuclear means could be triggered by anything from a terrorist attack backed by a foreign state to the defense of a friendly state through the breaking of our “strategic provisioning“). Read more »

Despite the end of the Cold War in 1989, nearly 20 years ago, the US-Russian relationship has deteriorated dramatically. US promises were made to Gorbachev that if Russia did not object to the admission of a reunified Germany into NATO, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the alliance would not be expanded eastward. NATO now includes former members of the Soviet bloc and has expanded right up to the Russian border. Although promises were given at the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference to maintain the strategic stability of the ABM Treaty between the US and Russia, the US unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty and is now perceived to be threatening Russia’s security with plans to build missile and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. In retaliation, Russia threatened to put missiles in Kalingrad bordering Poland and Lithuania. Read more »

By David Krieger

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”
– H.G. Wells

As with so many other areas of vital importance to the nation and the world, George W. Bush showed no interest in the abolition of nuclear weapons. Instead, he allowed for the possibility of first use of nuclear weapons by the United States, a policy conducive to nuclear war, nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Read more »