Last week, the annual gathering of the Valdai International Discussion Club was held in Sochi, Russia. Today, this conference does not deserve the attention such events used to have a decade ago, when many Western experts saw it as a unique opportunity to gain access to Russian policy-makers, particularly President Vladimir Putin. The only topic… Read more »
Tag: Nuclear
What “Chernobyl” Teaches Us About the Superiority of Democracy
Authoritarian structures made Chernobyl an unavoidable accident. The HBO series “Chernobyl” has garnered rave reviews all over the world. Norwegian newspapers have been almost unanimous in their praise of the series. And with good reason. This is television drama at its very best. One largely overlooked aspect of the series is what it teaches us… Read more »
Nuclear Disarmament and The Nobel Peace Prize
Since the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Linus Pauling in 1962, contributions to nuclear disarmament have recurrently been an explicit motivation for granting the Prize.1 According to the Nobel Peace Prize committee, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) received the Prize this year for creating new momentum in disarmament efforts by again… Read more »
A Daring Peace Prize
In selecting the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has made a daring move. This year’s laureate was the driving force behind the recently concluded Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. As of last Friday, October 6, the date of the prize announcement,… Read more »
India’s Nuclear Behavior
India’s Nuclear Policy has been the subject of debate for many decades now. A non-signatory to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the country has pursued an atomic bomb amid regional tensions and precarious relations with its neighbors. India has also used its nuclear weapon to bolster its national identity tied to the concept of ‘security’. Despite… Read more »
The Iranian Nuclear Issue
I have been tracking the Iranian nuclear issue for about ten years. Important in its own right, this issue also has significant implications for the international agenda on nuclear weapons disarmament. Let it be noted at the outset that the expression in question – “Iranian Nuclear Issue” – is a freighted one; it suggests the problem… Read more »
Why Not Nuke ISIS?
Last week I received a call from a journalist doing background research for an article. The journalist wanted to know whether I thought a nuclear weapon could be used against ISIS. I was admittedly surprised at this question. But apparently the journalist queried me about this issue because others are asking about it as well…. Read more »
The Hitler Analogy
The Hitler analogy – also known as the Munich analogy – is deployed frequently in political debate. In Munich in 1938, the British prime minister made the historic error of failing to comprehend the extent of the evil represented by Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain signed a peace agreement with Hitler that Hitler never honoured and that… Read more »
Apocalypse a Bit Later: The Meaning of Putin’s Nuclear Threats
The words that Russian President Vladimir Putin chose for describing the nuclear angle of the special operation for seizing and annexing Crimea in March 2014, might appear so odd that it is well-nigh impossible to make sense of them. “Yes, we were ready,” he said to the question about whether the option of putting strategic… Read more »