The New Start treaty between the US and Russia will expire on Thursday, removing the last remaining mutual limits on the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals. The milestone will be a death knell for more than five decades of arms control at a time of surging global instability, contributing to a general collapse of the rules-based international order established after the second world war. “This is a new moment, a new reality – we are ready for it,” Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, told Russian news agencies during a…
Tag: Non-proliferation treaty (NPT)
China is leading the charge to nuclear Armageddon – and Starmer barely noticed | Simon Tisdall
Keir Starmer’s tentative pivot to the Dragon Throne has played well in Beijing, though not in Trumpland. That’s partly because, like other needy western leaders, Britain’s prime minister did not dwell on awkward subjects such as human rights abuses, the Jimmy Lai travesty, spying and Taiwan. But in talks with President Xi Jinping, one vital issue was avoided altogether and should not have been: China’s dangerous, unexplained, secretive and rapid buildup of nuclear weapons. More than the climate crisis, global hunger, Kaiser Trump’s Prussian militarism and the ever prevalent threat…
Nuclear nightmare: reckless leaders push the world back to the brink | Simon Tisdall
Leaders of unstable nuclear-armed states do dangerous and foolish things when under stress. They miscalculate, provoke, overreach. Given the febrile state of bilateral relations, last week’s aerial military clash between Russia and the US over the Black Sea inevitably intensified fears of nuclear escalation. The incident dramatised how dangerous Vladimir Putin, cornered by his existential Ukraine blunder, truly is – and the risks he is increasingly prepared to run. But he’s not the only one. As often the case over the past year, Putin relied on American restraint. US forces…
What is the Aukus submarine deal and what does it mean? – the key facts
In a tripartite deal with the US and the UK, Australia has unveiled a plan to acquire a fleet of up to eight nuclear-powered submarines, forecast to cost up to $368bn between now and the mid-2050s. Australia will spend $9bn over the next four years. From this year Australian military and civilian personnel will embed with US and UK navies, including within both countries’ submarine industrial bases. From 2027 the UK and the US plan to rotate their nuclear-powered submarines through HMAS Stirling near Perth as part of a push…