Digests and Blog

By Xiaodon Liang Next week, the world's most notorious arms trafficker, Viktor Bout, will go on trial in New York. Bout's case underscores the urgent need for stronger national and international efforts to curb illicit gun running and conventional arms proliferation. Viktor Bout walks out of a Thai jail August 2009 after an initial ruling barring his extradition to the United States. Source: Narong Sangnak/EPA Bout faces four conspiracy charges stemming from a U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting operation conducted in 2007 and 2008. According to the…

By Oliver Meier On July 7, in a rare show of unity on nuclear issues between France and Germany, the ambassadors of both countries sent a joint proposal to NATO members on the future of the new Weapons of Mass Destruction and Disarmament Committee (WCDC). Despite this compromise, however, the Alliance's role in nuclear arms control remains a contentious issue. In the run-up to the NATO summit in Lisbon in November last year, which adopted the Alliance's new Strategic Concept, Berlin and Paris were deeply divided on a range of nuclear issues, including on nuclear arms control. While the German…

By Peter Crail The following entry was originally posted on The Hill's Congress Blog on September 29, 2011. During Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN last week, many attendees turned their backs and walked out. Although they were reacting to another anti-West tirade by the embattled president, the reaction was also indicative of Iran's own increasing isolation over its human rights abuses, its destabilizing role in the region, and of course, its nuclear program. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Speaks at the UN (Image Source: Associated Press) In the past month, we…

U.S.-Russian negotiations on strategic arms reductions have demonstrated time and again that U.S. missile defense plans are an obstacle to negotiating lower levels of offensive nuclear forces. Security experts have been providing more reminders lately that in attempting to treat the effects of ballistic missile proliferation, missile defense programs are also having a counterproductive effect on the causes of ballistic missile proliferation. One of the shibboleths characteristic of most missile defense advocates is their faith-based assertion that missile defenses discourage proliferators…

The CTBTO is inviting people the world over to submit their video messages and photos explaining why they support a world without nuclear testing. Make your voice heard! Add your "Close the Door on Nuclear Testing" message to the campaign! Watch the campaign video and submit your own (< 15 seconds) video clip here. Alternatively, send in a picture of yourself closing a door or holding a "Close the Door on Nuclear Testing" sign. Submit to [email protected] The best entries will be included in a compilation and broadcast worldwide.

A number of leading nuclear arms control proponents said last week that the international community should act promptly to make key features of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty permanent, despite a widespread view that the pact itself will not be formally implemented for many years to come. Because it has not yet entered into force, the organizations created to promote the agreement and build its verification regime were labeled temporary from the outset. "We propose to eliminate [the] words 'provisional' and 'preparatory' from the letterheads" of CTBT-related institutions and from…

Fifteen years after the CTBT was opened for signature, more than 160 senior government representatives gathered and 53 spoke at UN Headquarters to highlight the value of the Treaty and call upon the remaining 9 CTBT "hold out" states to sign and/or ratify to facilitate formal entry into force. The gathering is the seventh such Article XIV Conference on Facilitating Entry Into Force, which has been held every other year since 1999. The final conference declaration “urge[s] all remaining States … to sign and ratify the Treaty without delay” and endorses bilateral, regional, and multilateral…

By Daryl G. Kimball Today, fifteen years after the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was opened for signature, more than 100 senior government officials will gather at the United Nations in New York for the seventh conference on "Facilitating Entry Into Force of the CTBT." To date, the United States and 181 other nations have signed the Treaty; 155 nations have ratified. While the CTBT has near universal support, the Treaty must still be ratified by nine hold-out states, including the United States and China, before it can formally enter into force. CTBT states will gather at the UN for…

(Image Source: CNN)By Greg Thielmann Washington pundits spend too much time warning about the immediate danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon, instead of focusing on the ways we can dissuade Iran from building one in the first place. But alarmist estimates provided earlier this month require a response regarding timelines, for we have every reason to believe that an Iranian bomb is neither imminent nor inevitable. A Washington Post editorial on September 6 predicted, on the basis of a Bipartisan Policy Center study, that Iran could produce sufficient highly enriched uranium for a weapon in as…

By Xiaodon Liang U.S. HMMWV fording a river in Afghanistan As the Libyan summer gives way to an autumn of uncertainty in the Middle East, memories of the policy inconsistencies brought to light by the Arab Spring have apparently faded entirely from the minds of U.S. arms exports policy makers. The fear of Iranian aggression has again trumped evidence of severe human rights violations in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, at least in the calculus that informed the administration's decision to sell 44 Armored High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs, or Humvees) to the Bahraini government.…