NATO Watch

Lambs led by nuclear donkeys. Protest and Survive. US planning to station nuclear weapons in UK amid threat from Russia – report theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/j…

NATO has drafted a methodology for counting military emissions, which it does not apply to its members, and it explicitly excludes emissions from NATO-led operations and missions, training and exercises. Read: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Contrary to the hype: the US spends two to three times what China spends on its military. And has more nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, advanced combat aircraft, nuclear-powered submarines, and transport aircraft. responsiblestatecraft.org/china-arms-rac…

NATO has no need to augment its already superior conventional forces by increasing reliance on weapons of mass destruction. More investment in nuclear deterrence will not make Europe safer sipri.org/commentary/ess…

Sweden has signed a defence cooperation deal allowing US access to all of its military bases in the event of a war or crisis in Europe. The text is secret, but I bet it doesn't allow Sweden access to US bases in the event of a crisis in the Americas? apnews.com/article/sweden…

Contrary to NATO's attitude to the nuclear ban treaty, some grounds for optimism. The state of the norm against nuclear use is strong and the very existence of the nuclear ban treaty is a tool that can be used to make it stronger. worldpoliticsreview.com/treaty-nuclear…

UK foreign policy legacies: (1) refusing to adequately recognise the lasting impacts & suffering caused by nuclear testing on Kiribati spoileralerts.substack.com/p/breaking-uk-… (2) failing to provide asylum for female soldier who worked with UK forces in Afghanistan independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

A new report by the Univ. of Essex Human Rights Centre & All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Conflict calls for the strengthening of scrutiny of UK Special Forces through parliamentary oversight and accountability mechanisms. Timely and needed. essex.ac.uk/-/media/docume…

In 2002-03, the US State Dept counted a total of 9 terrorist attacks in Africa. In 2023 to date, 6,756 terrorist attacks have been carried out. Since ramping up US counterterrorism operations in Africa, terrorism has spiked 75,000%. tomdispatch.com/the-pentagon-p…

The UN adopted a resolution to address the legacy of nuclear weapons testing and to provide victim assistance & environmental remediation. 171 countries voted to support it; four states voted against: the UK, France, Russia & North Korea. thebulletin.org/2023/11/a-smal…

Reaching a negotiated end state in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is possible, but it will require moving beyond the NATO membership option for Ukraine in favour of bilateral security support, argues this AFPI report. americafirstpolicy.com/latest/issue-b…

NATO’s goal of 2% spending of GDP on the military will accelerate climate breakdown. This year alone, NATO members spent $1.26 trillion on their militaries, which could have paid for 12 years of promised climate finance to impoverished countries tni.org/en/publication… #Hashtag

26 of 32 of recently retired US four-star generals and admirals went on to work in the arms sector. This revolving door between the US Gov and the weapons industry introduces bias into the process of determining the size and shape of the Pentagon budget. responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-revol…

George Beebe makes the case for complementing military aid to Ukraine with urgent diplomacy to find a compromise to end the war. responsiblestatecraft.org/if-us-ended-ai…

This reconstruction of the 2008 Bucharest summit shows why greater transparency is needed in NATO. It is absurd that no minutes were available from the meetings and the events had to be reconstructed “through the memories of attendees”. spiegel.de/international/… via @derspiegel

The United States never seriously invested in a peace process to end the war in Afghanistan until it was too late. Are the same mistakes being made in respect of the war in Ukraine? lawfaremedia.org/article/learni…

Dare to dream 2: An AI programme (codenamed game changer) is helping the US military make sense of its own bureaucracy. But a real game changer would be a 10% cut in the bloated Pentagon budget theintercept.com/2023/09/20/pen… by @kenklippenstein

Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Astore dares to dream of ways a progressive Pentagon could both exist and act far differently from today's version. tomdispatch.com/what-would-rea…

Behind closed doors NATO generals continue to fine tune the ‘executability’ of regional war-fighting plans natowatch.org/default/2023/b…

Canada spent $347 million (in 2011 dollars) to participate in NATO's destruction of Libya. Canada is spending a paltry $5 million (in 2023 dollars) to aid Libyans in their moment of dire need. That, in a nutshell, is the "rules-based international order". #cdnpoli #Libya