Gower’s position creates — in the phrase coined by Professor Robert J. Lifton — an “atrocity producing situation” by institutionalizing blind obedience, and the world well knows what it led to in Hitler’s fascist regime. The claim that submarine commanders have no choice but to obey when ordered to attack with nuclear weapons is a clear violation of the Nuremberg Charter, Principles and Judgment. It was Gower’s shocking assertion that such orders cannot be disobeyed that forced Cdr. Forsyth to publicly lambast his comrade in arms
· Mounir Satouri (Greens/EFA, EELV) · Jordi Solé i Ferrando (Greens/EFA, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya) · Diana Riba i Giner
"Germany and Spain have both remained silent publicly on this invitation to join nuclear exercises. However, we are surprised to see that, without any real public debate on the nuclear stakes of this program, they are engaging in an industrial partnership for the FCAS. This Franco-German-Spanish project is the largest armament project of the century. First estimates are of the range of €100 billion of public funds. Already in the 2021-2024 phase (1B), these States will spend €3.5 billion (only for the FCAS); a cost shared equally among them."
In its latest review of long-term nuclear triad costs, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in May -- before the new missile’s cost figures were released -- that if carried out, the Pentagon and Energy Department’s nuclear forces plans would cost a total of $634 billion through 2030.
We believe a WMDFZ in the Middle East can be advanced through a treaty-based approach involving three key components:
1) A WMDFZ Treaty—a text freely arrived at by relevant governments and stakeholders through an inclusive process.
2) A Regional Organization—to oversee the treaty’s eventual implementation, verification and compliance.
3) Civil Society Engagement—to advance a robust civil society movement ensuring governments deliver on their commitments to non-proliferation and human security.
In a proactive effort to turn the vision of the Zone into practical steps, we began crafting a living Draft Treaty text that could form the basis for discussion, and we established a preparatory organization named the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO).
The existence of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons - and its entry into force on 22 January 2021 - rang as an earthquake among states possessing or supporting a nuclear deterrence policy, write Jean-Marie Collin, Susi Snyder, and Tuva Widskjold.
there Admiral Charles Richard was in April this year, with his siren calls, urging the US Senate to consider a simple proposition. “Sustainment of modernization of our modern nuclear forces … has transitioned from something we should do, to something we must do.” As Commander of the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM), he was aching to impress the Senate Committee on Armed Services that the nuclear deterrent was there to be polished and improved.
Presented as part of “Truth, Dissent, & the Legacy of Daniel Ellsberg: A 50th Anniversary Conference Commemorating the Release of the Pentagon Papers” by the University of Massachusetts Amherst with The GroundTruth Project on April 30, and May 1, 2021.
This conference was collectively organized by the UMass Amherst Departments of History and Journalism; Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries; the UMass Amherst College of Humanities and Fine Arts; and The GroundTruth Project, with generous support from the Office of the Chancellor.
Jonathan Power, journalist. IDN-InDepthNews is flagship agency of the global International Press Syndicate Group speaking out for people, planet and peace.
“The real differentiator here is the acquisition strategy, with a lot of competition -- a lot of ‘fly before you buy’ -- built in,” CSIS' Tom Karako says. “The relatively longer NGI development timeline for homeland ballistic missile defense can be mitigated by near-term improvements” in ground missile defense.
Camus : Faced with the terrifying prospects that are opening up before humanity, we see even more clearly than before that peace is the only fight worth engaging in. This isn’t a plea any more, but an order that has to rise up from peoples to governments, the order to choose once and for all between hell and reason.
The Atlantic Council has printed a 26,000-word anonymous report laying a strategy for the US to combat China, including regime change.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | 3 feb.
The head of Strategic Command announced the United States must prepare for the “very real possibility” of nuclear war with China or Russia.
Tom Sauer (2020) Power and Nuclear Weapons: The Case of the European Union, Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 3:1, 41-59, DOI: 10.1080/25751654.2020.1764260
As the political philosopher Hannah Arendt once stated: “The danger is that these [deterrence] theories are not only plausible because they take their evidence from actually discernable present trends, but that, because of their inner consistency, they have a hypnotic effect; they put to sleep our common sense, which is nothing else but our mental organ for perceiving, understanding, and dealing with reality and factuality” (quoted in Harrington 2016, 105–106)