Disarming Conflict

DisarmingConflict is Moving

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:13:00 +0000

After four years of weekly posts here, the Disarming Conflict blog is taking a break and will go offline until early fall when it will re-emerge on another site. Stay connected.

Finishing the job by starting to talk in Afghanistan

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:55:52 +0000

The coming months will no doubt bring some extravagant pleas from certain Afghan and NATO politicians that Canada not follow through on the commitment to withdraw its combat forces from Afghanistan in 2011, but an effective antidote to such pressures is available in beefed-up diplomacy.

“You have to finish the job,” says Ahmad Wali Karzai – head of the Kandahar provincial council, half brother to President Hamid Karzai, controversial politician, entrepreneur with rumored links to the drug trade, and survivor of at least one assassination attempt.

The Canada-India civilian nuclear cooperation deal

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:22:27 +0000

The wisdom and benefits of strongly improved Canadian trade and political relations with India are obvious. But if civilian nuclear cooperation[i] is to be a primary fixture and symbol of the cordialization of Indo-Canadian relations, it should be built on the most robust of nonproliferation conditions.

The G8 and the Prime Minister on Iran: Getting the charges right

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 20:22:51 +0000

In his press conference statement at the conclusion of the Muskoka G8 meeting, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated mater-of-factly, but wrongly, that Iran has “chosen to acquire [nuclear] weapons to threaten its neighbours.[i]

The NPT Review Conference IV: Reaffirming the basic disarmament agenda

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:05:22 +0000

A basic disarmament agenda has been in place for the past decade. The priorities set in the 1990s and even earlier were essentially confirmed at the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

The NPT Review Conference III: Reporting and Transparency

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:00:14 +0000

The centrality of transparency in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament was acknowledged and even advanced at the 2010 Review Conerence.

When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995, the agreement included a collective commitment by States Parties to strengthen the Treaty’s review process. States called in particular for a heightened acknowledgement of mutual accountability for actions taken, or not taken, in support of the implementation of the Treaty and the furtherance of it aims and objectives.

The NPT Review Conference II: The Institutional Deficit

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:42:04 +0000

Canada has for some time led efforts to expand and reshape the institutional infrastructure of the NPT, and thus to also improve its review and decision-making processes. The proposals this time were modest, though eminently worthwhile, and the results even more modest.

The NPT Review Conference I: More than empty promises

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:31:42 +0000

The story line adopted by many NGOs in the immediate wake of the 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was one of “empty promises.”[i] But now, with broad expressions of disappointment out of the way, observers increasingly point to the achievements.

Exploring post-2011 military deployments in peace support operations

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:56:27 +0000

A combination of the national interest, prosperity and stability at home, and decades of peacekeeping experience means that Canada will continue to offer and be called upon to support multilateral missions to advance international peace and security after 2011 and the withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan.

No heaven, farther from nuclear hell

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:46:22 +0000

The following commentary by Douglas Roche and Ernie Regehr appeared in today’s Embassy, available at: http://www.embassymag.ca.

There are two ways of looking at the outcome of the month-long Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which wrapped up last Friday at the United Nations in New York with a standing ovation for its president, Ambassador Libran Cabactulan of the Philippines.