Global militarisation
The current priority of the dominant security actors is maintaining international security through the vigorous use of military force combined with the development of both nuclear and conventional weapons systems. Post-Cold War nuclear developments involve the modernisation and proliferation of nuclear systems, with an increasing risk of limited nuclear-weapons use in warfare – breaking a threshold that has held for sixty years and seriously undermining multilateral attempts at disarmament. These dangerous trends will be exacerbated by developments in national missile defence, chemical and biological weapons and a race towards the weaponisation of space.
The stakes are high and the outcome too close to call as the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty opens for four weeks of intense debate in New York.
NUCLEAR ABOLITION: Dramatic Arab Appeal for a Nuclear-Free World
Reported on the website of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians For Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non Proliferation, 41 senior European statesmen and women recently signed an unprecedented European statement highlighting the world’s growing nuclear dangers and calling for greater international efforts to address them. Representing a range of political persuasions, this is a non-partisan scaling up of the European political presence in the international nuclear debate. It also signals the formation of a new European Leadership Network for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, designed to allow ongoing and coordinated European interventions on crucial nuclear issues.![](http://sustainablesecurity.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/teaser_image/Paul Rogers_0_0_0.jpg "Beyond "liddism": towards real global security")
