U.S. Plan For Nuclear First Strike Attack On Russia And China

RT: US revives plans for a nuclear first strike on Russia. Coming up.

Announcer: “Soft assassinations” of anti-NATO leaders.

Star Wars tested for Eastern Europe.

And US space weapons quote an “unofficial declaration of war.”

RT: Secret clauses of NATO membership state, the US can and will depose Europe’s governments on the orders of the White House.

Giuseppe De Lutiis, NATO author: Even if the electorate were to show a different inclination, secret protocols guarantee alignment by any means.

RT: “By any means” means exactly that. Early NATO whistleblower Hans Otto exposed ‘”kill lists” of leading European politicians that defied investigators’ belief, but were subsequently confirmed by police.

Officers found 15 pages of members of the German Communist Party to be assassinated, and 80 pages on Germany’s Social Democrats, one of the two major parties in the country.

The documents state these assassinations would take place “in case of X”. X may refer, writes NATO scholar Dr. Daniele Ganser, to mass protests against a US-backed government, or an election victory of a genuinely left-wing party.

Instructions for such operations were kept at NATO military headquarters south of Brussels.

Der Spiegel reveals a quote “a strictly secured wing of the building. A grey, steel bank vault door prohibits trespassing to the unauthorized.” Papers on NATO operations in Europe are marked “American eyes only.”

When the EU Parliament officially demanded NATO stop these operations, which have become known by the codename Gladio, the US simply ignored it.

Richard Cottrell is a former Member of the European Parliament. NATO tried to ban his investigation Gladio, NATO’s Dagger at the Heart of Europe, which reports both so-called “soft assassinations” – smearing non-aligned EU politicians through mainstream media to make them unelectable – and real assassinations of politicians that still got elected.

Richard joins us, really great to see you, what’s going on?

Richard Cottrell, author of Gladio, NATO’s Dagger at the Heart of Europe: The United States is not prepared to tolerate governments which are unfavorable to the regime. Let’s give the example of Syriza in Greece at the moment, which has just won, come top of the list in the European elections. This is an example of a government which is not going to be tolerated by the United States of America.

RT: You write a prototype “soft assassination”, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, whose “blasphemy in American eyes” was to “flirt with nuclear disarmament”.

Cottrell: Yes, it’s become a little bit more difficult to, shall we say, use violent means, than it was in the past. So now you’re going to see more of the Harold Wilson tactics. And they will now increase and I will tell you why – because this weekend the European elections were held. And this has resulted in a very large bloc of anti-Europeans, led by the “Penista”, the National Front of France, which has come out on top in the European elections. Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party in the UK, who has come from virtually nowhere to become the leader of the third largest party. This will not be allowed to happen, so there will have to be Harold Wilson-type moves now to remove those leaderships, and those parties in those various countries.

RT: NATO is attempting to supersede and actually replace the United Nations, reveals former Assistant General Hans Sponeck.

Its revised doctrine refuses the UN monopoly on the use of force, reports Global Research News.NATO now promotes itself as the military wing of the UN itself.

The doctrine reserves the right to intervene anywhere in the world where there’s “movements of large numbers of persons.” Its newly formed Partners Across The Globe program’s already incorporated Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and leads the occupation of Afghanistan.

With the expected addition of states like Colombia and El Salvador, NATO will be on all six inhabited continents.

Obama’s foreign policy guru, Zbigniew Brzezinski, calls people in countries under US control “vassals,” a medieval term for slaves.

American armed forces are now in over 150 countries. The unofficial figure, including clandestine US forces, is thought to be much higher.

The Pentagon recently formed the United States Africa Command. Since then, NATO’s dispatched the continent’s most developed nation to a “Hobbesian anarchy”, overthrew the Ivory Coast, and chopped Sudan’s oil-rich southern half into a new state, leaving just two and a half countries still outside its military grid.

Leading military analyst, editor of the newslist Stop NATO Rick Rozoff joins us, great to see you. What’ll happen to people when the last countries fall to US control?

Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO newslist: Global enslavement is the answer to that, and we see it manifested for example in ways that may not be immediately obvious, but after certain amount of analysis we can see for example votes that’ve come up in the United Nations General Assembly in the last year and a half, two years, particularly I’m thinking on the question of Syria. We see that the US through a number of factors – economic bribery, diplomatic blackmail, subversion but also through bilateral, multilateral military programs, has been able to secure the overwhelming compliance or servility of other nations. And that’s one of the reasons why there’s no diplomatic and political independence in nations, because they are beholden to the United States and, frankly speaking, they’re fearful of US economic and ultimately military retaliation should they not go along with the US diktat.

Barack Obama: So today, I state clearly, and with conviction, America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. I’m not naive.

RT: Obama’s duplicity is perhaps historically unparalleled. As soon as he envisioned a planet without nuclear weapons, he mushroomed nuclear weapons spending to levels above the height of the Cold War.

He has expanded the infamous Bush Doctrine of a nuclear strike against any country, regardless of international law.

“Full spectrum dominance” is the official term used by his administration, meaning “control everything, everywhere on sea, land, air, space, and outer space.” US Space Command documents plan to even “deny other nations the use of space.”

The “one remaining power” with the capacity to stop what the Pentagon calls full spectrum dominance, writes intelligence analyst William Engdahl, is Russia.

By design or coincidence, crisis in Ukraine provided the perfect excuse for US military control of the region.

Ten days ago the administration tested its Star Wars system for Eastern Europe, which will now be rolled out starting in Romania. Obama brands his system the “stronger, smarter and swifter” version of Ronald Reagan’s initial Star Wars program.

Under the plan, the US attacks Russia with nuclear weapons, while NATO missile defense in Eastern Europe mops up any attempted response.

NSNBC News writes “it is most likely and understandable” Russia interprets NATO’s Star Wars deployment on its border as an “unofficial declaration of war.”

Aerospace analysts told Global Research that US Space Command is planning a nuclear first strike on Russia, as well as one on China in 2016.

Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons in Space joins us, thank you very much for coming on, what do we know about the first strike plans?

Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons in Space: This is in the planning process today. The US Space Command practicing engaging in a first strike attack and this is the key element here. These are first strike attack planning, these so-called missile defense systems are key elements in US first strike attack planning. The idea is to hit China or Russia first with a first strike, and then when they try to fire their nuclear retaliatory capability, it is then that the so-called missile “defense” systems would be used to pick off any retaliatory strike, so after a first strike sword is thrust into the heart of China or Russia, then the missile defense shield would be used to pick off any retaliation giving the US the a “successful” first strike attack.

It has nothing at all to do with defense, it has nothing to do with freedom or democracy, or any of those words that are used all the time to disguise the true intentions; it’s all about full spectrum dominance.

RT: Several decades ago the first Star Wars initiative faced intense public and industry debate.

Today the US is controlled by just six mainstream media, all totally suborned to the White House. The result is an Orwellian silence on perhaps the most dangerous issue today.

Europeans may decide they want their leaders chosen by NATO, or even that they support nuclear strikes on China and Russia.

Since the US-controlled mainstream’s never even informed the public these apocalyptic plans are on the agenda, the first people may hear of it, would be this. Seek truth from facts. This is The Truthseeker.

ALMOST EVERYTHING IN “DR. STRANGELOVE” WAS TRUE

POSTED BY ERIC SCHLOSSER

This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy about nuclear weapons, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Released on January 29, 1964, the film caused a good deal of controversy. Its plot suggested that a mentally deranged American general could order a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, without consulting the President. One reviewer described the film as “dangerous … an evil thing about an evil thing.” Another compared it to Soviet propaganda. Although “Strangelove” was clearly a farce, with the comedian Peter Sellers playing three roles, it was criticized for being implausible. An expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies called the events in the film “impossible on a dozen counts.” A former Deputy Secretary of Defense dismissed the idea that someone could authorize the use of a nuclear weapon without the President’s approval: “Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth.” (See a compendium of clips from the film.) When “Fail-Safe”—a Hollywood thriller with a similar plot, directed by Sidney Lumet—opened, later that year, it was criticized in much the same way. “The incidents in ‘Fail-Safe’ are deliberate lies!” General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief of staff, said. “Nothing like that could happen.”

 The first casualty of every war is the truth—and the Cold War was no exception to that dictum. Half a century after Kubrick’s mad general, Jack D. Ripper, launched a nuclear strike on the Soviets to defend the purity of “our precious bodily fluids” from Communist subversion, we now know that American officers did indeed have the ability to start a Third World War on their own. And despite the introduction of rigorous safeguards in the years since then, the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear detonation hasn’t been completely eliminated.

The command and control of nuclear weapons has long been plagued by an “always/never” dilemma. The administrative and technological systems that are necessary to insure that nuclear weapons are always available for use in wartime may be quite different from those necessary to guarantee that such weapons can never be used, without proper authorization, in peacetime. During the nineteen-fifties and sixties, the “always” in American war planning was given far greater precedence than the “never.” Through two terms in office, beginning in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower struggled with this dilemma. He wanted to retain Presidential control of nuclear weapons while defending America and its allies from attack. But, in a crisis, those two goals might prove contradictory, raising all sorts of difficult questions. What if Soviet bombers were en route to the United States but the President somehow couldn’t be reached? What if Soviet tanks were rolling into West Germany but a communications breakdown prevented NATOofficers from contacting the White House? What if the President were killed during a surprise attack on Washington, D.C., along with the rest of the nation’s civilian leadership? Who would order a nuclear retaliation then?

With great reluctance, Eisenhower agreed to let American officers use their nuclear weapons, in an emergency, if there were no time or no means to contact the President. Air Force pilots were allowed to fire their nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to shoot down Soviet bombers heading toward the United States. And about half a dozen high-level American commanders were allowed to use far more powerful nuclear weapons, without contacting the White House first, when their forces were under attack and “the urgency of time and circumstances clearly does not permit a specific decision by the President, or other person empowered to act in his stead.” Eisenhower worried that providing that sort of authorization in advance could make it possible for someone to do “something foolish down the chain of command” and start an all-out nuclear war. But the alternative—allowing an attack on the United States to go unanswered or NATO forces to be overrun—seemed a lot worse. Aware that his decision might create public unease about who really controlled America’s nuclear arsenal, Eisenhower insisted that his delegation of Presidential authority be kept secret. At a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he confessed to being “very fearful of having written papers on this matter.”

President John F. Kennedy was surprised to learn, just a few weeks after taking office, about this secret delegation of power. “A subordinate commander faced with a substantial military action,” Kennedy was told in a top-secret memo, “could start the thermonuclear holocaust on his own initiative if he could not reach you.” Kennedy and his national-security advisers were shocked not only by the wide latitude given to American officers but also by the loose custody of the roughly three thousand American nuclear weapons stored in Europe. Few of the weapons had locks on them. Anyone who got hold of them could detonate them. And there was little to prevent NATO officers from Turkey, Holland, Italy, Great Britain, and Germany from using them without the approval of the United States.

In December, 1960, fifteen members of Congress serving on the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy had toured NATO bases to investigate how American nuclear weapons were being deployed. They found that the weapons—some of them about a hundred times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima—were routinely guarded, transported, and handled by foreign military personnel. American control of the weapons was practically nonexistent. Harold Agnew, a Los Alamos physicist who accompanied the group, was especially concerned to see German pilots sitting in German planes that were decorated with Iron Crosses—and carrying American atomic bombs. Agnew, in his own words, “nearly wet his pants” when he realized that a lone American sentry with a rifle was all that prevented someone from taking off in one of those planes and bombing the Soviet Union.

* * *

The Kennedy Administration soon decided to put locking devices inside NATO’s nuclear weapons. The coded electromechanical switches, known as “permissive action links” (PALs), would be placed on the arming lines. The weapons would be inoperable without the proper code—and that code would be shared with NATO allies only when the White House was prepared to fight the Soviets. The American military didn’t like the idea of these coded switches, fearing that mechanical devices installed to improve weapon safety would diminish weapon reliability. A top-secret State Department memo summarized the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1961: “all is well with the atomic stockpile program and there is no need for any changes.”

After a crash program to develop the new control technology, during the mid-nineteen-sixties, permissive action links were finally placed inside most of the nuclear weapons deployed byNATO forces. But Kennedy’s directive applied only to the NATO arsenal. For years, the Air Force and the Navy blocked attempts to add coded switches to the weapons solely in their custody. During a national emergency, they argued, the consequences of not receiving the proper code from the White House might be disastrous. And locked weapons might play into the hands of Communist saboteurs. “The very existence of the lock capability,” a top Air Force general claimed, “would create a fail-disable potential for knowledgeable agents to ‘dud’ the entire Minuteman [missile] force.” The Joint Chiefs thought that strict military discipline was the best safeguard against an unauthorized nuclear strike. A two-man rule was instituted to make it more difficult for someone to use a nuclear weapon without permission. And a new screening program, the Human Reliability Program, was created to stop people with emotional, psychological, and substance-abuse problems from gaining access to nuclear weapons.

Despite public assurances that everything was fully under control, in the winter of 1964, while “Dr. Strangelove” was playing in theatres and being condemned as Soviet propaganda, there was nothing to prevent an American bomber crew or missile launch crew from using their weapons against the Soviets. Kubrick had researched the subject for years, consulted experts, and worked closely with a former R.A.F. pilot, Peter George, on the screenplay of the film. George’s novel about the risk of accidental nuclear war, “Red Alert,” was the source for most of “Strangelove” ’s plot. Unbeknownst to both Kubrick and George, a top official at the Department of Defense had already sent a copy of “Red Alert” to every member of the Pentagon’s Scientific Advisory Committee for Ballistic Missiles. At the Pentagon, the book was taken seriously as a cautionary tale about what might go wrong. Even Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara privately worried that an accident, a mistake, or a rogue American officer could start a nuclear war.

Coded switches to prevent the unauthorized use of nuclear weapons were finally added to the control systems of American missiles and bombers in the early nineteen-seventies. The Air Force was not pleased, and considered the new security measures to be an insult, a lack of confidence in its personnel. Although the Air Force now denies this claim, according to more than one source I contacted, the code necessary to launch a missile was set to be the same at every Minuteman site: 00000000.

* * *

The early permissive action links were rudimentary. Placed in NATO weapons during the nineteen-sixties and known as Category A PALs, the switches relied on a split four-digit code, with ten thousand possible combinations. If the United States went to war, two people would be necessary to unlock a nuclear weapon, each of them provided with half the code. Category APALs were useful mainly to delay unauthorized use, to buy time after a weapon had been taken or to thwart an individual psychotic hoping to cause a large explosion. A skilled technician could open a stolen weapon and unlock it within a few hours. Today’s Category D PALs, installed in the Air Force’s hydrogen bombs, are more sophisticated. They require a six-digit code, with a million possible combinations, and have a limited-try feature that disables a weapon when the wrong code is repeatedly entered.

The Air Force’s land-based Minuteman III missiles and the Navy’s submarine-based Trident II missiles now require an eight-digit code—which is no longer 00000000—in order to be launched. The Minuteman crews receive the code via underground cables or an aboveground radio antenna. Sending the launch code to submarines deep underwater presents a greater challenge. Trident submarines contain two safes. One holds the keys necessary to launch a missile; the other holds the combination to the safe with the keys; and the combination to the safe holding the combination must be transmitted to the sub by very-low-frequency or extremely-low-frequency radio. In a pinch, if Washington, D.C., has been destroyed and the launch code doesn’t arrive, the sub’s crew can open the safes with a blowtorch.

The security measures now used to control America’s nuclear weapons are a vast improvement over those of 1964. But, like all human endeavors, they are inherently flawed. The Department of Defense’s Personnel Reliability Program is supposed to keep people with serious emotional or psychological issues away from nuclear weapons—and yet two of the nation’s top nuclear commanders were recently removed from their posts. Neither appears to be the sort of calm, stable person you want with a finger on the button. In fact, their misbehavior seems straight out of “Strangelove.”

Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, the second-highest-ranking officer at the U.S. Strategic Command—the organization responsible for all of America’s nuclear forces—-was investigated last summer for allegedly using counterfeit gambling chips at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa. According to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, “a significant monetary amount” of counterfeit chips was involved. Giardina was relieved of his command on October 3, 2013. A few days later, Major General Michael Carey, the Air Force commander in charge of America’s intercontinental ballistic missiles, was fired for conduct “unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.”According to a report by the Inspector General of the Air Force, Carey had consumed too much alcohol during an official trip to Russia, behaved rudely toward Russian officers, spent time with “suspect” young foreign women in Moscow, loudly discussed sensitive information in a public hotel lounge there, and drunkenly pleaded to get onstage and sing with a Beatles cover band at La Cantina, a Mexican restaurant near Red Square. Despite his requests, the band wouldn’t let Carey onstage to sing or to play the guitar.

While drinking beer in the executive lounge at Moscow’s Marriott Aurora during that visit, General Carey made an admission with serious public-policy implications. He off-handedly told a delegation of U.S. national-security officials that his missile-launch officers have the “worst morale in the Air Force.” Recent events suggest that may be true. In the spring of 2013, nineteen launch officers at Minot Air Force base in North Dakota were decertified for violating safety rules and poor discipline. In August, 2013, the entire missile wing at Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana failed its safety inspection. Last week, the Air Force revealed that thirty-four launch officers at Malmstrom had been decertified for cheating on proficiency exams—and that at least three launch officers are being investigated for illegal drug use. The findings of a report by the RAND Corporation, leaked to the A.P., were equally disturbing. The study found that the rates of spousal abuse and court martials among Air Force personnel with nuclear responsibilities are much higher than those among people with other jobs in the Air Force. “We don’t care if things go properly,” a launch officer told RAND. “We just don’t want to get in trouble.”

The most unlikely and absurd plot element in “Strangelove” is the existence of a Soviet “Doomsday Machine.” The device would trigger itself, automatically, if the Soviet Union were attacked with nuclear weapons. It was meant to be the ultimate deterrent, a threat to destroy the world in order to prevent an American nuclear strike. But the failure of the Soviets to tell the United States about the contraption defeats its purpose and, at the end of the film, inadvertently causes a nuclear Armageddon. “The whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost,” Dr. Strangelove, the President’s science adviser, explains to the Soviet Ambassador, “if you keep it a secret!”

A decade after the release of “Strangelove,” the Soviet Union began work on the Perimeter system—-a network of sensors and computers that could allow junior military officials to launch missiles without oversight from the Soviet leadership. Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the film. Completed in 1985, the system was known as the Dead Hand. Once it was activated, Perimeter would order the launch of long-range missiles at the United States if it detected nuclear detonations on Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn’t be reached. Like the Doomsday Machine in “Strangelove,” Perimeter was kept secret from the United States; its existence was not revealed until years after the Cold War ended.

In retrospect, Kubrick’s black comedy provided a far more accurate description of the dangers inherent in nuclear command-and-control systems than the ones that the American people got from the White House, the Pentagon, and the mainstream media.

“This is absolute madness, Ambassador,” President Merkin Muffley says in the film, after being told about the Soviets’ automated retaliatory system. “Why should you build such a thing?” Fifty years later, that question remains unanswered, and “Strangelove” seems all the more brilliant, bleak, and terrifyingly on the mark.

Nuclear Disarmament and Demilitarization

By Jacqueline Cabasso
International Peace Bureau (Denmark)

Indigenous peoples often remind us that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

In that vein I’d like to especially honor and remember my beloved friend and mentor Janet Bloomfield, Chair of CND and a co-president of IPB, and Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki, recipient of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize, with Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba and Mayors for Peace in 2006. Both Janet and Mayor Itoh died tragically in April 2007.

I’d also like to honor and recognize the presence here of my personal and professional colleague – my life partner – John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy. I’d like to thank my parents, who are thinking of me today in California, for raising me with the values recognized by this award.

And, of course, I’d like to thank the International Peace Bureau for this amazing honor, which I proudly share with my colleagues at Western States Legal Foundation, the founding mothers and fathers of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, and many others.

Earlier this week I was in Ypres, Belgium – a city that was attacked with chemical weapons and destroyed during World War I, for a meeting of the Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign Association. On Tuesday, Nov. 11, I had the opportunity to join the mayors delegation at a solemn ceremony held at the Menin Gate marking the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I -- sadly not, “the war to end all wars.” I was slightly shocked to hear on CNN that there are only 12 living veterans of that war, and was reminded of the axiom that those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. To remedy this, the people of Ypres hold a memorial ceremony at the Menin Gate every single day. I also thought about the ever more urgent voices of the hibakusha – the remaining survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – who are growing increasingly concerned that nuclear weapons will be used again, and that no one will be left to warn about the impending hell on earth. The impassioned plea of the hibakusha, “Never Again!” should inform and inspire our commitment to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons sooner, rather than later.

I’d like to begin by quoting from Sean MacBride’s 1974 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, entitled The Imperatives of Survival.

“It is nearly with a feeling of despair that I come to your beautiful country and city to receive this hardly deserved honor. Despair partly because we are living in a world where war, violence, brutality and ever increasing armament dominate the thinking of humanity; but, more so, because humanity itself gives the appearance of having become numbed or terrified by its own impotence in the face of disaster.”

The often-quoted Gramsci line, “pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will” is one of our mottos at Western States Legal Foundation. This dichotomy pretty much sums up my longevity as a peace activist, along with my strongly held belief that nonviolence is hope; nonviolence is the belief that change is possible.

Shortly after the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Mahatma Gandhi said:

“It has been suggested by American friends that the atom bomb will bring in Ahimsa [Non-violence] as nothing else can. It will, if it is meant that its destructive power will so disgust the world that it will turn away from violence for the time being. This is very like a man glutting himself with dainties [sweets] to the point of nausea and turning away from them, only to return with redoubled zeal after the affect of the nausea is well over.

Precisely in the manner will the world return to violence with renewed zeal after the effect of the disgust is worn out.

So far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained mankind for ages…. The atom bomb brought an empty victory to the allied armies but it resulted for the time being in destroying the soul of Japan. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see....”

I think my generation has seen it very clearly. In his 1995 testimony before the International Court of Justice, Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka told the Court:

“History is written by the victors. Thus, the heinous massacre that was Hiroshima has been handed down to us as a perfectly justified act of war. As a result, for over 50 years we have never directly confronted the full implications of this terrifying act for the future of the human race.”

Looking around the world today, we see the military legacy of the way in which World War II ended. Here are a few examples from 2008.

On January 22, the Guardian (UK) reported on a “radical” manifesto for NATO reform, prepared by top-ranking retired military officers and strategists from the U.S., Germany, Britain, France and the Netherlands. Though not an official government document, authors of the 150-page “blueprint” for restructuring the transatlantic military partnership, “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World,” include General John Shalikashvili, former NATO commander in Europe.

The document, which reportedly was presented to the Pentagon and to NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, argues that, “The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.” And it calls for a shift from consensus decision-making in NATO to majority voting, thus ending national veto power in order to enable swifter action. We don’t know if this ominous document was discussed at the most recent NATO summit in Bucharest, but it may well appear on the agenda of NATO’s 60th anniversary meetings next year. This story did not appear in the U.S. press.

On May 9, 2008 Russia – with its new President, Dmitri Medvedev, and new Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin presiding – marked the 63rd anniversary of the Soviet defeat of the Nazis with a huge military parade in Red Square, the first such event since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The international CNN television coverage was very strange. On one hand, commentators played up the fact that this was the first such Russian military parade in 18 years. On the other hand, they derided the condition of Russia’s military hardware as “obsolete.” I wondered if the potential victims of those “outdated” weapons would agree. One commentator noted an exception for Russia’s nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, which he described as the “most terrifying” of all weapons of mass destruction. While the television pundits stressed that Russia does not pose a military threat, I wondered who the intended audience was for this massive display of military might.

The previous day, the International Herald Tribune had reported that the United States plan to install missile interceptors on Polish soil was in danger of falling apart because of Poland’s increasing reluctance to accept the deal. This sounded like good news. Perhaps the new Polish government did not want to cooperate with expanding U.S. militarism. Unfortunately, that was not the case. To the contrary, the Polish government was insisting that the United States contribute financially – as much as $10 billion – to upgrade Poland’s armed forces. Why? The Polish defense minister explained that the U.S. missile shield was designed to protect parts of Europe against missiles fired from Iran. But Poland, now part of NATO, apparently felt that it needed Patriot air-defense missiles to defend itself against its old Cold War ally, Russia, which itself feels threatened by the U.S. anti-missile shield.

In August, after a year and a half of stalled talks, the U.S. and Poland suddenly signed the deal against the backdrop of the sudden military conflict between Russia and Georgia. The BBC reported that Russia’s deputy chief of general staff, General Anatoly Nogovitsyn had responded angrily at a Moscow press conference, declaring that U.S. plans for a missile base in Poland “cannot go unpunished.” Russia is considering arming its Baltic Fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the end of the Cold War. On October 2, Russia announced plans to deploy a new nuclear missile next year designed to penetrate anti-missile defenses and will build eight submarines to carry it. According to Colonel-General Vladimir Popovkin, head of armaments for the Russian armed forces, “As long as we are a nuclear power, no hotheads will venture to attack our country.” On November 5, President Medvedev announced that Russia would deploy conventionally armed ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad, in order to “neutralize” the perceived threat from U.S. missile interceptors in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic.

Also this year we have experienced sharply rising oil and food prices and food shortages around the world amidst symptoms of an unprecedented global economic collapse, and an inability to cope with natural disasters like the cyclone in Myanmar/Burma and the earthquake in China – much less global climate change. Yet rather than redirecting resources badly-needed to meet human and ecological needs, trends seem to be going in the opposite direction.

The Encarta Encyclopedia describes militarism as “advocacy of an ever-stronger military as a primary goal of society, even at the cost of other social priorities and liberties.” As disquieting as it may be, this definition accurately describes the trajectory of United States national security policy that the next U.S. President will inherit. And it is reflected in the national security policies of a growing number of other countries.

The United States military dominates the globe through its operation of 10 Unified Combatant Commands, overseeing a network of well over 700 foreign bases in more than 60 countries.

Global operations are coordinated by United States Strategic Command (StratCom) in the state of Nebraska. The Pentagon’s December 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) –contemporaneous with the expansion of StratCom’s mission to integrate conventional with nuclear war planning - underlines the fundamental policy and technological underpinnings for the Bush administration’s aggressive “preventive war” doctrine. The NPR expanded the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy, including the possible use of nuclear weapons in “immediate, potential, or unexpected contingencies” and called for indefinite retention of a large, modern, and diverse nuclear force. The NPR has served as the primary justification for each subsequent annual nuclear weapons budget request as well as the current “Complex Transformation” plan to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and manufacturing plants.

The policy of the nuclear weapon states, in particular the U.S., U.K. and France can be characterized as “fewer but newer,” and is increasingly “capacity-based.” These states cling to the notion of “deterrence,” but the “threat” they seek to deter is an unknown and uncertain future.

They claim that reductions in numbers from the insane heights of the Cold War constitute meaningful disarmament, but disarmament is not just about the numbers. Led by the U.S., they are modernizing and qualitatively improving their “enduring” nuclear arsenals – both warheads and delivery systems. StratCom Commander, General Kevin Chilton, told reporters this spring:

“As we look to the future – and I believe we are going to need a nuclear deterrent for this country for the remainder of this century, the 21st century – I think what we need is a modernized nuclear weapon to go with our modernized delivery platforms.”

A September 2008 Department of Defense report on the Air Force’s nuclear mission describes “the importance of nuclear deterrence” this way:

“Though our consistent goal has been to avoid actual weapons use, the nuclear deterrence is ‘used’ every day by assuring friends and allies, dissuading opponents from seeking peer capability to the United States, deterring attacks on the United States and its allies from potential adversaries, and providing the potential to defeat adversaries if deterrence fails.”

A detailed Air Force “Roadmap,” issued on October 24, 2008, just two weeks before the Presidential election, presents a detailed plan for “reinvigorating the Air Force nuclear enterprise.” The report concludes:

“Because of their immense destructive power, nuclear weapons, as recognized in the 2006 National Security Strategy, deter in a way that simply cannot be duplicated by other weapons. Additionally, the special nature of nuclear weapons demands precise performance across the Air Force nuclear enterprise, with no tolerance for complacency or shortcuts. In short, we will continue to fortify current operations, develop our people, and sustain and modernize current capabilities.”

In his terrible speech of March 2008, presenting France’s aptly-named new nuclear submarine, “Le Terrible,” in Cherbourg, French President Nikolai Sarkozy proclaimed: “Our nuclear deterrence protects us from any aggression against our vital interests emanating from a state – wherever it may come from and whatever form it may take.” 

Reflecting U.S. policy and the “Grand Strategy’s” proposed expansion of NATO’s concept of deterrence, he added: “It cannot be ruled out that an adversary might miscalculate the delimitation of our vital interests or our determination to safeguard them. In the framework of nuclear deterrence, it would be possible, in that event, to send a nuclear warning that would underscore our resolve. That would be aimed at reestablishing deterrence.”

Sarkozy explained how France’s nuclear policy will be integrated with UK and NATO security policies.

“Together with the United Kingdom, we have taken a major decision: It is our assessment that there can be no situation in which the vital interests of either of our two nations could be threatened without the vital interests of the other also being threatened.

As for the Atlantic Alliance, its security is also based on nuclear deterrence. British and French nuclear forces contribute to it.”

Only near the end of his speech did Sarkozy get to the subject of disarmament, pledging to reduce the number of French nuclear warheads to fewer than 300, but providing no details or timeline.

France’s nuclear partner, the UK, while also announcing cuts to its arsenal, is proceeding with plans to replace its Trident nuclear weapons system, while pursuing massive development of its Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermasten. In addition, and without Parliament’s agreement, the British government has endorsed the use of its Menwith Hill radar station for the U.S. missile defense system.

China, the only NPT Nuclear Weapon States to maintain a no first use policy, nevertheless plans to replace its sea-launched ballistic missiles. And China is massively expanding its military budget, which nearly doubled, from $62.5 billion in 2004, to $121.9 billion in 2006. To put this in context, in 2006 the United States spent $54 billion on its nuclear forces alone. That year Russia spent $70 billion on its military; the United Kingdon spent $55.4 billion; and France spent $54 billion. In 2008, it is estimated that the United States will spend $711 billion on its military – 48 percent of the world total! All of this is in the name of “national security.”

The recently ratified U.S.-India deal would provide India, a non-NPT party, with nuclear technology and materials that might enable it to further develop its weapons programs. Other non-NPT nuclear weapons states, Israel and Pakistan, are reportedly pursuing similar deals.

What is to be done? The answer is clear to ordinary people. We need to fundamentally redefine security. We must put universal human security and ecological sustainability at the heart of conflict resolution and prevention. We must divest precious resources from militarism and invest them instead in this new security paradigm.

The pursuit of nuclear energy has become a leading cause of conflict around the world due to the inherently dual use nature of the nuclear fuel cycle. We simply must phase out and move beyond nuclear power, as well as fossil fuels, if we are to achieve a world of human and ecological security.

I would like to highlight one bright spot in this rather dismal picture. I want to commend Germany for demonstrating bold leadership by establishing an International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). At the invitation of the German government, representatives from countries met in Berlin this April to foster and promote the development of renewable energy worldwide, in response to the growing demand for energy and the necessity to address global warming. By promoting a cooperative approach to the development of clean renewable solar, tidal and wind power, IRENA provides a positive vision and a practical way forward for this energy “revolution.”

In her 1976 book, The Game of Disarmament, Alva Myrdal, a Swedish minister of disarmament and winner of the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize asked:

“How can we let the nationalistic security needs as defined and exaggerated by military and other vested interests misguide our societies? How can we allow secretiveness and falsifications of reality to motivate the continued arms race, with all the dangers and burdens thereof? The common man should demand honest accountability of the policymakers. He has the right to question their ethics.”
But at this moment in history, it seems that the common man and woman are largely unaware of the terrible price they have already paid for nuclear weapons and the nuclear dangers that are growing again. There is an urgent need for public education. Whether conducted formally, in schools and universities, or informally, in town halls and village squares, this education should promulgate a paradigm shift in the way security is commonly understood. Security must be no longer be defined in terms of “national” security based on military might. It should be redefined in terms of universal “human” security and sustainable environmental policies and practices.

This approach requires breaking the silences of history, emphasizing critical thinking, truth telling, good faith and reconciliation. In the field of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation it means facing the inextricable link between nuclear weapons and nuclear power; grappling with the relationship between nuclear and conventional military power; confronting the gross economic disparities between the wealthy elites and the vast majority of the human family, identifying and challenging those who benefit from nuclear weapons and militarism; and preparing for peace instead of war by teaching and reinforcing the importance of nonviolent conflict resolution at every level of society.

We need to find new and creative ways to:

• Promote the values, embodied in the United Nations Charter, of multilateralism, cooperation and diplomacy. It might be useful, in this context, to recall the Preamble to the United Nations Charter, which introduces the Charter as a collaboration between civil society and the governments of the world – almost as a “bottom up” initiative. It begins:

“We the Peoples of the United Nations, Determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war….”

• Stress the importance of good faith adherence to international law; keep your promises; work cooperatively with other nations to achieve objectives;

• Promote proactive conflict prevention, by anticipating sources of conflict, such as competition for energy resources, and working to address them though creative and practical means, such as IRENA;

• Promote a culture of peace, underscoring the values of nonviolence, tolerance, cooperation, democracy and critical thinking;

• Promote the redirection of resources to meet human needs and ensure ecological sustainability.

How will this paradigm shift come about? I don’t see it coming from the top. At best, elite initiatives like the Shultz-Kissinger editorials in the Wall Street Journal and British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett’s call for cuts in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, are appeals for “responsible” arms control in a world that seems to be spinning out of control. 

But they remain fundamentally rooted in the national security status quo.

One rather disquieting view of security without nuclear weapons was offered last year by Robert Einhorn, a Clinton administration nuclear policy expert and arms control advocate. “We should be putting far more effort into developing more effective conventional weapons,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine a president using nuclear weapons under almost any circumstance, but no one doubts our willingness to use conventional weapons.” This statement, unfortunately, is all too true. But an even more overpowering conventional military threat surely is not the desired outcome of the nuclear disarmament process. 

Moreover, how practical would that approach be?

How would countries with fewer economic resources - especially those on the “enemies” list -respond? Wouldn’t they have an incentive to maintain or acquire nuclear weapons to counter overwhelming conventional military superiority? And wouldn’t that, in turn, even further entrench U.S. determination to retain and modernize its own nuclear arsenal, thus pushing the “ultimate” elimination of nuclear weapons ever farther into the future? This conundrum is a challenge we cannot afford to ignore.

As Gandhi observed:

‘The moral to be legitimately drawn from the supreme tragedy of the bomb is that it will not be destroyed by counter-bombs even as violence cannot be by counter-violence. Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence. Hatred can be overcome only by love. Counter-hatred only increases the surface as well as the depth of hatred....”

And, he explained how social transformation will come from the bottom up.

“We have to make truth and non-violence not matters for mere individual practice, but for practice by groups and communities and nations…. [Before] general disarmament… commences… some nation will have to dare to disarm herself and take large risks. The level of non-violence in that nation, if that event happily comes to pass, will naturally have risen so high as to command universal respect. Her judgment will be unerring, her decisions firm, her capacity for heroic self-sacrifice will be great, and she will want to live as much for other nations as for herself.”

I’ve always thought that one of my strengths is a high tolerance for ambiguity. This requires an ability to hold contradictory truths at the same time. What’s called for is a straightforward, unambiguous demand for the global abolition of nuclear weapons. This suggests the need for immediate negotiations and a timebound framework. We need to expose and challenge the hypocrisy and contradictions inherent in the dominant narratives: while we’re committed to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, we must maintain the safety and reliability of our enduring stockpile; and, while we’re committed to a world without nuclear weapons (someday), as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will maintain a robust deterrent. (In other words, it’s regrettable, but as long as nuclear weapons exist…. nuclear weapons will exist!)

Non-governmental organizations are by definition not governments, and we should not confuse our role with that of governments. Our job is not to cut deals with governments or to ask for what we think we can get. Our job is to speak truth to power and to ask for what we really want.

Our demand, however, must be coupled with a clear-eyed recognition of the central role nuclear weapons continue to play in the National Security State, firmly in place since 1945, and a much deeper understanding of the powerful forces that have successfully perpetuated the nuclear weapons enterprise despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War nearly 20 years ago. And we must offer an alternative view of security, defined in universal human and environmentally sustainable terms, to replace the 20th century concept of “national” security, ensured through overwhelming military might.

In his famous 1963 speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. declared: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The election of Barack Obama as U.S. President indicates that a major step has been taken in achieving King’s dream – a major step that gives us great hope. Dr. King, however, did not stop at the dream. In his less well known, but perhaps even more important speech, “Beyond Vietnam; A Call to Conscience,” delivered April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his tragic assassination, King broke new ground, stating

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies… A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, ‘[t]his way of settling differences is not just’…. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.”

Hopefully, we are well on our way to achieving the dream. Now we must move “beyond Vietnam.”

With the global economy in collapse and the worldwide surge of hope in response to the election of Barak Obama as U.S. President, the time is ripe for another massive surge of public opinion – from the bottom up – calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. But this time, we must understand that demanding nuclear disarmament is not enough, and that we can’t achieve it alone. This time we must insist that nuclear disarmament serve as the leading edge of a global trend towards demilitarization and redirection of military expenditures to meet human needs and save the environment.

On November 12, the Mayor of Ghent, Belgium presided over a joyful tree-planting ceremony to inaugurate a new “peace forest” near a country road just outside the city. 

School children carrying brightly colored paper cranes filled Hiroshima-Nagasakistraat, following behind a funky marching band. Posters bearing the articles of the International Declaration of Human Rights were mounted on poles along the side of the road. At the end, a new article (Article XXXI) had been proposed by the City of Ghent. It says: “All people worldwide have the duty to strive together for a (nuclear) weapon free world.”

Thanks again to IPB for this great honor. I look forward to working with you for peace and justice in a nuclear free world.

Israel Deploys Nuclear Weapons On German-Built Submarines

A German shipyard has already built three submarines for Israel, and three more are planned. Now SPIEGEL has learned that Israel is arming the submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The German government has known about Israel's nuclear weapons program for decades, despite its official denials.

Germany is helping Israel to develop its military nuclear capabilities, SPIEGEL has learned. According to extensive research carried out by the magazine, Israel is equipping submarines that were built in the northern German city of Kiel and largely paid for by the German government with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The missiles can be launched using a previously secret hydraulic ejection system. 

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told SPIEGEL that Germans should be "proud" that they have secured the existence of the state of Israel "for many years."

In the past, the German government has always stuck to the position that it is unaware of nuclear weapons being deployed on the vessels. Now, however, former high-ranking officials from the German Defense Ministry, including former State Secretary Lothar Rühl and former chief of the planning staff Hans Rühle, have told SPIEGEL that they had always assumed that Israel would deploy nuclear weapons on the submarines. Rühl had even discussed the issue with the military in Tel Aviv.

Documents from the archives of the German Foreign Ministry make it clear, however, that the German government has known about the program since 1961. The last discussion for which there is evidence took place in 1977, when then-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt spoke to then-Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan about the issue.

The submarines are built by the German shipyard HDW in Kiel. Three submarines have already been delivered to Israel, and three more will be delivered by 2017. In addition, Israel is considering ordering its seventh, eighth and ninth submarines from Germany.

The German government recently signed the contract for the delivery of the sixth vessel. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, Chancellor Angela Merkel made substantial concessions to the Israelis. Not only is Berlin financing one-third of the cost of the submarine, around €135 million ($168 million), but it is also allowing Israel to defer its payment until 2015.

Merkel had tied the delivery of the sixth submarine to a number of conditions, including a demand that Israel stop its expansionist settlement policy and allow the completion of a sewage treatment plant in the Gaza Strip, which is partially financed with German money. So far, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met none of the terms.

Nuclear States Developing New Weapons In Defiance Of Treaty

All Five Legally Recognised Nuclear States 'Appear Determined To Retain Nuclear Arsenals Indefinitely', Says Stockholm Institute

All five legally recognised nuclear states as defined by the non-proliferation treaty – China, France, Russia, the UK and US – are either deploying new nuclear weapons and delivery systems or plan to do so, according to a leading international research organisation.

The countries "appear determined to retain their nuclear arsenals indefinitely", says the latest yearbook published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).

At the start of 2013, eight states – the US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel – possessed approximately 4,400 operational nuclear weapons. Nearly 2,000 of these are kept in a state of high operational alert. If all nuclear warheads are counted, these states together possess a total of approximately 17,265 nuclear weapons, says the Sipri report.

"Once again there was little to inspire hope that the nuclear-weapon-possessing states are genuinely willing to give up their nuclear arsenals. The long-term modernisation programmes under way in these states suggest that nuclear weapons are still a marker of international status and power," said the Sipri senior researcher Shannon Kile.

Of the five "official" nuclear states, China appears to be expanding its nuclear arsenal while India and Pakistan are expanding both their nuclear weapon stockpiles and their missile delivery capabilities, Sipri says. Pakistan is also expanding its main plutonium-production complex at Khushab, Punjab.

Sipri estimates that Israel has approximately 80 intact nuclear weapons, 50 for its Jericho II medium-range ballistic missiles and 30 for gravity bombs carried by aircraft. Israel may also have produced non-strategic nuclear weapons, including artillery shells and atomic demolition munitions, says the yearbook.

It estimates world military expenditure in 2012 to have been $1.756tn (£1.157tn), representing 2.5% of global gross domestic product (GDP) – or $249 for each person in the world. Though a little lower than the previous two years, the total is higher than in any year between the end of the second world war and 2010.

The distribution of global spending in 2012 shows a shift from the west to other parts of the world, including the Middle East and north Africa, eastern Europe and the developing world.

The international arms trade in major conventional weapons grew by 17% between 2003 and 2012. The five largest suppliers over the past five years – the US, Russia, Germany, France and China – accounted for 75% of all conventional arms exports.

China may represent "the vanguard of an increase in the significance of Asian suppliers in the international arms trade, as South Korea is an emerging arms supplier and Japan and Singapore have potential to become major suppliers", says Sipri.

Israel Has 80 Nuclear Warheads

Country Reportedly Stopped Producing Atomic Weapons In 2004 But Possesses Enough Fissile Material For Up To 190 Warheads

Israel possesses a stockpile of 80 nuclear warheads, all of which were produced by 2004, when Israel froze all production, according to a report published over the weekend. The report, in the September/October issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, cited US Defense Intelligence Agency figures.

Israel began to produce nuclear warheads in 1967 and gradually built up its arsenal, producing between two and three warheads each year until it amassed 80 warheads in 2004.The report did not say why Israel had ceased production, although it noted that the Jewish state is estimated to have produced enough fissile material for 115 to 190 warheads.

Previous estimates have put the number of warheads in Israel’s possession at up to 400. According to foreign reports, Israel’s military has the capacity to deliver a nuclear payload via a variety of methods, including ballistic missiles, aircraft, and submarine-launched cruise missiles.

The 80-warhead figure — fewer than once thought, and lower than the nuclear arsenal of countries that are officially in possession of atomic weapons — was cited in June in a 2013 yearbook put out by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a leading think tank on global security issues.

Of those warheads, 50 are for medium-range ballistic missiles and 30 are for bombs carried by aircraft, the report said. In addition, “Israel may also have produced non-strategic nuclear weapons, including artillery shells and atomic demolition munitions,” the Guardian reported.

In 1986, based on information supplied by ex-Dimona nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, later convicted of treason, the Sunday Times of London estimated that Israel had produced more than 100 nuclear warheads.

Iran: The Real Cost Of Sanctions

Courtesy Of Al-Jazeera

The United States has unveiled aggressive new sanctions targeting Iran's currency and car industry that are among the toughest yet. They are aimed at making Iranian money all but unusable outside the country.

The latest measures mark the first time Iran's currency, the rial, has been directly targeted by sanctions.

The sanctions apply to foreign financial institutions making what is described as significant transactions in the rial, and those holding significant amounts of the currency outside Iran. However, the meaning of 'significant' in this case, has not been made clear. The sanctions also ban the sale of goods and services to Iran's car industry, the second largest employer after the energy sector. Iran's currency has been in free fall for some time, losing two thirds of its value in the past two years.

The sharpest drop came at the end of September 2012. On September 24, it would have taken 24,600 rials to buy one US dollar. By October 2, the cost of a dollar had risen to 39,000 rials - a 59 percent drop in the value of the currency in just one week.

These latest sanctions are the ninth round of restrictions imposed by the US. Diplomatic ties were broken in 1980 following the storming of the US embassy in Tehran. Successive US measures have prohibited almost all trade with Iran.

The United Nations ratified four rounds of sanctions between 2006 and 2010, over Iran's uranium, enrichment programme.

The European Union has also imposed its own restrictions, most notably, bans on the import, purchase and transport of Iranian crude oil and natural gas in 2012.

The UN imposed a near-total financial and trade embargo against Iraq in 1990. But 13 years of sanctions resulted in malnutrition, disease and a lack of clean water and medical supplies.

So, what is the human cost of sanctions against Iran?

To discuss this, Inside Story with presenter Veronica Pedrosa is joined by guests: Bahman Farmanara, the owner of a family-run textile business in Tehran, Raymond Tanter, the founder of the Iran Policy Committee, and author of the book: Arab Rebels and Iranian dissidents; and Shashank Joshi, a research fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, who has also written the book: Permanent Crisis: Iran's Nuclear Trajectory.