The second hand of the Doomsday Clock is now only three minutes to midnight. This is the closest to apocalypse we have come since 1984 – the coldest of Cold War years, just a year after Able Archer, the…
From the 1950s until the 1990s, nuclear weapons were viewed as the greatest threat to human life on the planet. Jonathan Schell, whose book The Fate of the Earth (1998) perhaps best crystallised the danger…
With the end of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race came to a virtual halt, but the nuclear threat remained. In regional rivalries, such as those in the south Asia subcontinent, northeast Asia, and the…
Polling is shortly to close in the battle to become the next Scottish Labour leader, the result of which will be announced on December 13. Given the party’s position in the polls, whoever takes on this…
Behind the flag-waving and cheers surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Australia are serious questions about the safety and security implications of Australia’s agreement to…
Talks in Vienna about the future of Iran’s nuclear programme have failed for the time being. The countries involved have agreed to resume discussions in December with a view to reaching a political agreement…
With instability plaguing the Middle East since the emergence of Islamic State (IS), Iran is once again faced with spiralling instability and Western military interventions just across its border. It also…
Two odd facts. First, the United Nations General Assembly has declared today, September 26, the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. You might yawn. Why bother? That’s never…
Nowhere was the relief over Scotland’s decision last week to remain part of the United Kingdom more acutely felt than with those responsible for Britain’s nuclear deterrent system, Trident. The Scottish…
Predicting or worrying about disasters is a popular pastime. But we tend to take notice when somebody with money at stake becomes concerned. Financial people likely sat up when Paul Singer, manager of…
Ever since I was a teenager in the renewed Cold War of the 1980s, I have feared losing not only my life, but the lives of everyone, absolutely everyone, in a nuclear conflagration. It is easy to forget…
The conventional wisdom holds that a deal with Iran over its hotly disputed nuclear programme would be a good thing. As Syria continues its meltdown and other unstable neighbouring countries show little…
When we agree to send our young men and women to war, we expect the reasons why to be made clear. At least some of us will want to subject that explanation to scrutiny at the time, and often even more…
This week marks the tenth anniversary of the the United Nations Security Council adopting resolution 1540. The resolution – an important, but perhaps underappreciated, element of the non-proliferation…
As the curtain fell on the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit, the Dutch organisers must surely have experienced mixed emotions: relief that the summit was a success, yet frustration that media attention was…
South Korea has made a suprisingly public announcement that it plans to develop cyber-weapons for potential use against North Korea. The decision to make its plans known is baffling and the potential consequences…
Amid warnings from Washington that the US will be watching very closely, the interim deal agreed late last year to scale-back Iran’s nuclear programme has come into force, a positive development in a slow-burning…
In 1943, when Niels Bohr, one of 20th century’s greatest scientists, was briefed on the Anglo-American nuclear weapons project, he was worried about the political consequences more than the scientific…