Ramesh Thakur (Continuación)

MundoOriente Próximo,

There are eight common elements in the two big breakthrough stories on Iran and Syria from New York on Sept. 26.

First, both crises are in the Middle East, a region racked by turmoil and upheaval since the outbreak of the Arab Spring two years ago. The regional fault lines, and the ways in which they connect to global major power fault lines, have been deeply unsettled and the contours of the new Middle East are anything but clear.

Second, both crises have been about weapons of mass destruction, nuclear (Iran) and chemical (Syria). Iran is party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but has long been suspected of using its technology-accessing benefits as a cover to acquire and develop components, material, facilities and skills to be just one screwdriver away from the bomb if and when it chooses to cross the threshold.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOceanía,

Three prime ministers — Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott — in three months: Has Australia caught the Japan political disease of playing musical chairs with the head of government?

For the Australian Labor Party, a crushing defeat on Saturday night was the finale of a tragedy in five acts. Because the result is more a repudiation of internecine Labor infighting than an enthusiastic endorsement of Coalition philosophy and policies, it does not mark an ideological shift to the right. For new Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the results were just rewards for leading a remarkably disciplined, stable and united team through three years of national political turmoil and global economic turbulence.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica

A week has proven to be a long time in international politics. On Aug. 26, arriving in Europe, NATO military strikes on Syria seemed both inevitable and imminent to punish it for alleged chemical weapons use on Aug. 21. On Thursday, the British Parliament rejected, by a 285-272 vote, the government motion that would have paved the way for British participation. Prime Minister David Cameron said he would respect the vote. By Friday, the United States was looking decidedly lonely and exposed in its hard-line stance that military attacks were still necessary and could be launched without U.N. sanction.

When Barack Obama succeeded George W.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

Nuclear weapons are uniquely destructive and hence uniquely threatening to all our security. There is a compelling need to challenge and overcome the reigning complacency on the nuclear risks and dangers, and to sensitize policy communities to the urgency and gravity of the nuclear threats and the availability of nonnuclear alternatives as anchors of national and international security orders.

The transformation of anti-nuclear movements into coalitions of change requires a shift from street protest to engagement with politics and policy.

A nuclear catastrophe could destroy us anytime. Because we have learned to live with nuclear weapons for 68 years, we have become desensitized to the gravity and immediacy of the threat.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo, ,

This time the Islamist revolution was peaceful and power was captured through the ballot box, but the anti-Islamists overturned the will of the people with the backing of the military.

The echoes of the violent counter-revolution will reverberate through much of the Arab and Islamic worlds. Egypt is a pivotal state and what happens inside its borders matters well outside it. It is not the Islamists who have warned that Islam is not compatible with democracy. Rather, their opponents have demonstrated that democracy cannot be reconciled with political Islam even when it is peaceful.

In December 1991, Islamists won the first round of elections in Algeria and were poised to win the second round in early 1992, but were prevented from taking office and exercising power by the military which stepped in.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOceanía,

Even by the standards of a sports-mad country in which politics is a blood-sport, the events have been extraordinary and the bloodletting continues. At last count, the prime minister, deputy prime minister-cum-treasurer, and six other Cabinet ministers had moved to the backbench.

There is a sense of schadenfreude in that Kevin Rudd has done to Julia Gillard what she had done to him three years ago. Much of the instant online comment ran along the lines of: “Gillard got what Gillard gave — karma at its finest.” There is also a sense of voters having been cheated of the opportunity to boot out Gillard with grim vengeance.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

This is the second of a two-part series on dealing with North Korea’s nuclear provocations. (See first part)

Condemnations by the United Nations Security Council of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic programs have become so ritualized that they corrode the U.N.’s credibility as its demands are continually and serially defied.

Unilateral punitive measures are impractical because of China’s fault tolerance for Pyongyang. The path of still more punitive sanctions and isolation seems to lead nowhere.

The possible solutions would seem to be either a return of North Korea to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a nonnuclear-weapons state under full International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and inspections; or an acceptance of its nuclear weapons status subject to binding commitments to observe the same disciplines on export, transfer and disciplines as the other nuclear powers.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

This is the first of a two-part series on dealing with North Korea’s nuclear provocations. (See second part)

There are almost 18,000 nuclear warheads distributed among nine nuclear-armed states in the world today. Over 90 percent of these are in Russian and U.S. arsenals. But concerns about the growth in nuclear weapons stockpiles are focused on China, India, North Korea and Pakistan.

North Korea is estimated to have four to 10 nuclear warheads — the smallest arsenal of all — and remains the subject of intense diplomatic efforts aimed at reversing its nuclear status. Its nuclear and missile programs are a source of instability and tension in a region vital to global security and economic prosperity.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaMundoOceanía,

For reasons of geography and demography, Indonesia is no less important to Australia in Asia than China, India and Japan.

With almost 2 million square kilometers of area, Indonesia is the largest and most populous country in Australia’s neighborhood, occupying a strategic position astride its northern approaches through which much of Australia’s trade passes. It is also the world’s 15th biggest economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars with a GDP of $1.2 trillion. Indonesia’s GDP has overtaken Australia’s and its population (237 million) is now more than 10 times bigger.

Little wonder then that, in March, Australia’s first ever national security strategy paper noted that a “positive relationship with Indonesia contributes profoundly to Australia’s overall security”; therefore, maintaining “the positive trajectory of that relationship is a priority.”…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

On April 5, 2009, when U.S. President Barack Obama spoke in Prague’s historic Hradcany Square, he was addressing a crowd of Czechs, but his audience was global. There was palpable excitement as the young new president outlined a vision of a world freed, at last, of the threat of nuclear weapons.

Hopes were raised for a serious movement toward nuclear disarmament, which in turn would drive a reinvigorated commitment to nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear security.

There were additional grounds for optimism over the following months: Russia and the U.S. resumed negotiations on cutting their nuclear stockpiles; the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) — cosponsored by the Australian and Japanese governments — outlined a comprehensive but sharply practical agenda for further progress on the full nuclear weapons agenda in 2009; Washington hosted a successful nuclear security summit in April 2010; and in May the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference came to some critical agreements that had eluded its failed predecessor five years earlier.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesDemocracia

The invasion of Iraq by the United States, Britain and Australia began 10 years ago on March 20. In Britain, The Guardian has reported that Foreign Secretary William Hague has written to senior members of government to ask that they not discuss the legality of the war.

The Liberal Democrats, in coalition with the Conservatives, have been consistent in their arguments then and since that the case for war was contrived and that the war was waged in violation of international law. They are expected to ignore the advice.

“Ours not to reason why, ours but to kill or die” may serve as the motto for the defense forces, but it is not acceptable for a modern accountable democracy.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

A new report by my organization, “Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play,” shows that pockets of progress on nuclear security, nonproliferation and disarmament are overshadowed by the drag of historical inertia on nuclear weapons programs, arsenals, doctrines and deployments.

In their fifth joint article in the Wall Street Journal (March 6), Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry and George Shultz focus on four issues: nuclear security, followup actions after the new Russia-U.S. START accord, a new verification and transparency initiative, and taking nuclear warheads off high alert levels.

The security environment of the 21st century is starkly different, but U.S. and Russian nuclear force postures are still trapped in the old Cold War paradigm.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaMundoOceanía,

Based on common colonial links and political systems, Australia’s relations with India should be close and comfortable and those with China contentious. For example, Indian contingents fought alongside the ANZACs at Gallipoli that is so central to the founding myth of Australian (and New Zealand) identity.

In fact, compared to the substantial and mutually beneficial relations with China, Australia has had sparse and troubled relations with India.

With India’s history of opposition to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the nuclear irritant to the bilateral relationship assumed a symbolic importance out of proportion to the objective dimensions of the problem.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaMundoOceanía, , ,

There is increasing discussion in the international press of uneasy parallels — with some pointing to similarities and others highlighting major differences — between the developing situation in East Asia today and the Balkans tinderbox 100 years ago. Even former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has joined the debate (“A maritime Balkans of the 21st century?” Foreign Policy, Jan. 30). At the heart of the conversation is China’s parallel with a rising Germany a century ago.

Australia today is experiencing tensions between its historical origins, cultural roots and political antecedents in Europe, and its geographical location and trading interests in Asia.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

The shock waves from the pack-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi continue to reverberate in India and around the world. The pathology of rape is not rooted in local culture. A nation does not rise in collective revulsion at normal but rather at unacceptable behavior.

The explanation for the rape epidemic lies in accumulating failures of governance. Successive governments have responded to crises with patchwork solutions, postponing structural reforms to tomorrow. That tomorrow has arrived with a vengeance and the government is at a loss on what to do.

There are four reasons for the extraordinary outpouring of anger: This attack was particularly horrific and savage.…  Seguir leyendo »