The recent walkout by Egyptian negotiators at UN talks have demonstrated that, like a building with rotten foundations, the nuclear non-proliferation regime is far less stable than many believe it to be. Egypt’s actions make clear that anything less than a regime specifically geared towards addressing the reasons why some states seek nuclear weapons is a regime existing on borrowed time.
The defeat of the UK government’s parliamentary motion on support in principle for military action against the Syrian regime means that Britain will play no part in any direct attack on Syria. What then are its options for resolving the Syrian conflict, protecting civilians and punishing those responsible for war crimes there? This article assesses what the UK can do in terms of pushing for a negotiated peace settlement and to hold accountable those responsible for using chemical weapons and any other war crimes committed during this century’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Regular sustainablesecurity.org contributor and former Director of the Sustainable Security programme at Oxford Research Group, Dr Ben Zala, provides a brief overview of some of the main security implications of climate change. In this video, he stresses that policymakers must be careful not to militarise the issue.