Opinions

This section includes opinions on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by journalists and experts in the field. Opinions are drawn from newspaper articles and comment pieces from leading international newspapers, websites and conference presentations.

>> Trident – UK Nuclear Weapons
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>> The Middle East and Iran

A crisis in financing Britain’s replacement of Trident?

Nick Ritchie and Paul Ingram, BASIC, August 2010

Funding the budget to cover the cost of replacing Britain’s current Trident submarines was always going to be a contentious issue for the British government as it approached the ’Main Gate’ stage in the Successor programme, the point at which contracts for constructing the new submarines will be in place and annual costs would increase dramatically. It is projected to be easily the most expensive defence procurement project for the decade from 2015/6, sucking the finances out of other major projects.
Read report by BASIC

Like for like renewal of Trident will come at expense of conventional forces

RUSI, 28 July 2010

The UK’s current commitment to maintain a nuclear-armed missile submarine on deterrent patrol at all times (Continuous At-Sea Deterrence, or ‘CASD’), is driven as much by institutional and political momentum as by strategic necessity, and plans to order a new generation of submarines after 2015 now threatens to be at the expense of further reduction in conventional forces according to a new report from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
Read article by RUSI

Continuous At-Sea Deterrence (CASD): Costs and Alternatives

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, RUSI, July 2010

There is now a stark gap between the assumptions on which planning for the UK’s conventional and nuclear forces, respectively, are based. Discussion of options for conventional capability in the current SDSR is based on the assumption that a significant threat of attack on the UK homeland by other states will not re-emerge without an extended period of strategic warning.
Read report by RUSI

The ‘Trident’ Decision

Dr James M Acton, Euroscience Open Forum, Barcelona, 19 July 2008
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Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation: The Doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction is Obsolete in the Post-Cold War Era.

By George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn | 07 March 2011  Wall Street Journal
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Pakistan doubles its nuclear arsenal: Is it time to start worrying?

By Alexander H. Rothman and Lawrence J. Korb | 11 February 2011  Bulletin of American Scientists
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Offense and defense after New START

By Pavel Podvig, in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,  6 January 2011
Read article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

After New START, What Next?

By Daryl G  Kimball, Arms Control Today, February 2011
Read article in Arms Control Association

Nuclear powers come in from the cold

Rebecca Johnson, in The Guardian, 7 July 2009
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Nuclear weapons decision-making in Europe

Anna Maria Gomes MEP, Euroscience Open Forum, Barcelona, 19 July 2008
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Nuclear weapons decision-making in France and the role of independent scientific advice

Bruno Tertrais, Euroscience Open Forum, Barcelona, 19 July 2008
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Evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence?

Steve Fetter, Euroscience Open Forum, Barcelona, 19 July 2008
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Commentary: Restoring U.S. nuclear-free leadership

Thomas Graham Jr. and Max Kampelman, in The Washington Times, 2 April, 2008
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Toward a Nuclear-Free World

George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn, in The Wall Street Journal, 15 January 2008
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By Louis Charbonneau, Reuters February 15, 2011

Several former IAEA officials told Reuters ElBaradei’s support for the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East is widely viewed in Israel as a call for the unilateral destruction of Israel’s nuclear arsenal
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Egypt’s Nuclear Dimension

Feb 13th 2011, Joe Cirincioni

As a free Egypt transforms itself, analysts are nervously watching for signs of new nuclear ambitions. Concern revolves around three issues.
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WMD no-first-use in the Middle East: A way to move forward in 2012?

By David Friedman, Emily B. Landau, Ephraim Asculai, Tamar Malz-Ginzburg, and Yair Evron, 7 February 2011
Read article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Stuxnet is the world’s problem

By Isaac Porche, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 9 December 2010

The highly sophisticated Stuxnet computer worm suspected of sending Iran’s nuclear centrifuges into self-destruction mode forces a difficult debate on whether longstanding firewalls in our country’s democracy should be breached for the sake of national security.
Read article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

SPIEGEL Interview with IAEA Head Yukiya Amano

‘We Still Know Too Little about Tehran’s Nuclear Activities’  11 January, 2011
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