Nuclear dangers

Foto: Martin Meissner/AP/TT Av Erni & Ola Friholt* 27:e mars 2019 Såhär kan det gå till “bakom kulisserna” på public service mediet, Sveriges Radio. Men det vet ju inte den som lyssnade på programmet. Vi tycker det är viktigt at förmedla hur det går för sig och kommer självfallet att publicera SR:s svar. Stocken 25 mars 2019 Bästa redaktion för Konflikt! Inför lördagens program om kärnvapenhotet hade Fredsrörelsen på Orust och Maj Britt Theorin kontaktats om intervjuer. Av hänsyn till det förespeglade programinslaget lade Maj Britt om sitt avtalade anförande ”Kvinnor och konflikter. Om kamp för demokrati och jämlikhet”. Istället blev ämnet kvinnors kamp mot kärnvapen, eftersom föredraget skulle spelas in för att (åtminstone delvis) användas i radioprogrammet. Dessutom gjordes en lång intervju med Maj Britt under kvällen. Eftersom det saknades tid inför radioreporterns hemresa till Stockholm uteblev den tidigare önskade intervjun med ordförande och sekreterare i Fredsrörelsen på Orust....

President Donald Trump has been exonerated of collusion with Russia. As I wrote a while back I expected this conclusion from the investigation carried out by Robert Mueller. The big clue lay in Trump’s anti-Russian posture. Trump has continued the expansion of NATO which Russia, more than understandably, sees as a provocative, unfriendly and dangerous move. Then there is the unwillingness to step forward to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian situation. The US, under the presidency of Barack Obama, refused to countenance President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that UN peace-keeping troops be deployed in southern and eastern Ukraine, and Trump has continued that policy. Then there’s the seeming refusal to extend the treaty (New START ) that dramatically lowers the number of intercontinental nuclear missiles on each side. Trump has also thrown money at the Defence Department while cutting social budgets, vowing to beef up America’s nuclear forces. Recently he...

Peace can never be achieved this way a) The issue is about peace, not only nuclear weapons. The US has not been willing to sign a peace agreement after all these years. After some kind of peace process and treaty has been achieved, you can turn to the specific issue of nuclear weapons. b) Making peace takes time, thorough preparations, lots of different expertise, long consultations and only face-to-face meetings when all are sure that, when the parties finally meet at top level, some kind of deal will be signed. c) This would have been an issue for the UN if it were respected and used fairly by member states around the world. Naive and egotist people believe they can do miracles without the institutions of the international system. Probably Trump and Kim are in the same category believing that they are all capable and great guys of history (worthy...

By Chas Freeman, Jr. February 20, 2019 Remarks to the St. Petersburg Conference on World Affairs Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University St. Petersburg, Florida, 12 February 2019 I’m here at your kind invitation to discuss China, how bad our relations with it may get, and how the contest we’ve initiated with China is likely to play out.  Let me take a minute or two to set the context for this discussion. The context Five hundred years ago this month, Hernán Cortés began the European annihilation of the Mayan, Aztec, and other indigenous civilizations in the Western Hemisphere.  Six months later, in August 1519, Magellan [Fernão de Magalhães] launched his circumnavigation of the globe.  For five centuries thereafter, a series of Western powers – Portugal, Spain, Holland, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and, finally, the United States – overturned...

A conversation with Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif The Western mainstream press hasn’t done much to enlighten their audiences to the plain fact that there is more than one side to a conflict between at least two. The Transnational is happy to make available some other views, particularly since Iran is the David and the West the Goliath and since omission is more effective in propaganda terms than fake. Iran’s views, its history, its reasons to do what it does and see the world as it does is woefully under-represented in the said press. So is leading media’s criticism of US policies vis-a-vis Iran. They systematically take the side of the strong, the bully and the war-threatening side of the conflict. If the Munich Security Conference has no other merits, it does offer an opportunity to hear many voices and here them from their own representatives and not through Western...

By Seyd Hossein Mousavian February 18, 2019 In his State of Union, President Trump focused his comments about the Middle East on Iran, the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS or IS), and the U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria. Despite his negative rhetoric about Iran, Trump did identify some potential common ground with the government in Tehran. The challenge for the next two years is to focus on that common ground, avoid a war between the United States and Iran, and prepare for an eventual U.S. return to the nuclear agreement with Tehran. Originally published by LobeLog February 7, 2019 here. While Iraqi President Barham Salih hailed Iran for supporting the Iraqi nation in the fight against IS, Donald Trump singled out Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terror. Moreover the Iraqi president rejected a plan floated by President Trump that calls for keeping U.S. forces in Iraq...

The number of nuclear weapons possessed by the US and Russia is a fraction of what it was during the height of the Cold War. Successive presidents on both sides, since the time of John F.  Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, have feared their destructive power. Their supposed value, so called Mutually Assured Destruction, known by its capitals, MAD, is in fact valueless. They cannot be used, and nearly everyone accepts that. Yet they continue to exist and, as President Mikhail Gorbachev and his ally in nuclear arms control, President Ronald Reagan, both said, there  is the fear of a false alarm or two errant officers in the silo entering simultaneously their keys which allows the firing  of the rocket. Yet here we are in 2019 with a new American nuclear initiative just announced last weekend. (I doubt that president Donald Trump is in the clutches of Russia. Otherwise, why would...

Press Release at the bottom An Open Letter on the INF & START treaties, nuclear risk-reduction and disarmament measures to preserve peace and achieve sustainable securityAdopted in Basel, Switzerland on January 15, 2019. To: Donald Trump, President of the United StatesVladimir Putin, President of the Russian FederationJens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of NATOMiroslav Lajčák, Chair of the OSCEFederica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Security and Foreign AffairsEliot Engel, Chair of the US House Foreign Affairs CommitteeAdam Smith, Chair of the House Armed Services CommitteeJames Inhofe, Chair of the US Senate Armed Services CommitteeJames Risch, Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Leonid Slutsky, Chair of the Russian Duma Committee on Foreign AffairsVladimir Shamanov, Chair of the Russian Duma Committee on DefenceKonstantin Kosachev, Chair of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Viktor Bondarev, Chair of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defence and Security CC: Xi Jinping, President of ChinaTheresa May, Prime...

By Dragana Maksimovic January 28, 2019 The author, MA student at University of Belgrade, become a TFF Associate in 2018. More here. There is one thing about which many peace researchers disagree and constantly debate: Are we really living in the most peaceful era ever, or are we facing a dangerous era of conflicts and struggles for global supremacy – very often masked as a fight for human rights but which can lead to a global war? There are those who agree with Steven Pinker when he claims that “today we are living in a most peaceful time in our species’ existence” (1) or with Barack Obama, the 44th president of The United States, who wanted to highlight how “worth it is reminding ourselves of how lucky we are to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history.’’ (2) Trying to validate his claims,...

New networking by NGOs and individuals Three main challenges to humanity’s survival We are handing to the new generations three overriding dangers to the health and maybe survival of the entire human population: 1. Nuclear war. 2. Climate changes, and 3. Increasing class differences. This last danger, the consequences of the increasing economic differences, is a subject too political for this presentation, but I am of the opinion that if we do not stop the increasing social injustice it will be even more difficult to save the planet. Working against nuclear war “Nuclear war is the greatest danger to the health and survival of mankind”, according to the World Health Organization. Since 1981 I have worked with the organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, IPPNW. We believed that if we could just make people understand the consequences of nuclear war, understand that nuclear war might be the...

By David Krieger December 4, 2018 It would be a mistake of significant proportions for the U.S. to unilaterally withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. It would end an important arms limitation treaty, one that eliminated a whole category of nuclear-armed missiles with a range from 500 km to 5,500 km. The treaty eliminated 846 U.S. nuclear missiles and 1,846 Soviet nuclear missiles, for a combined total of 2,692 nuclear missiles. President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the treaty in 1987. It was an agreement that followed their realization, “A nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought.” Fast forward to President Trump and his national security advisor, John Bolton announcing their intention to jettison the treaty that ended the Cold War; took Europe out of the cross-hairs of nuclear war; and allowed for major reductions in nuclear arms. After the signing of the...

  Reacting to the radio interview by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to mark Armistice Day, in which he was reported as saying, “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America… We need a true European army”, President Donald Trump blew a fuse. He tweeted: “President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting.” In fact Trump’s reaction was based on reading a false report of what Macron said. In that part of the interview he was talking about cyber attacks. Nevertheless, Macron was indeed angrily critical of Trump: “When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s Euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security”. The treaty...