Is a country ever mature enough to possess a nuclear-weapons program?
Emphasis Added: The Foreign Policy Week in Pieces (3/19)
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North America
NAFTA at 20: The New Spin
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into effect on January 1, 1994, was touted as the cure for Mexico’s economic “backwardness.” Promoters argued that the trilateral trade agreement would dig Mexico out of its economic rut and modernize it along the lines of its mighty neighbor, the United States. Fat chance.
Intrigue Surrounds U.S. Arrest of Iran-based Bin Laden Son-in-Law
While U.S. politicians Friday debated whether Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and former Al-Qaeda spokesman, should be tried in New York City, foreign policy analysts were speculating about the circumstances under which he was apprehended by U.S. authorities.
Emphasis Added: The Foreign Policy Week in Pieces (3/8/13)
Retaliate against hackers with nukes!
Ability of Nuclear Deterrence to Defuse Crises Exaggerated
Nuclear deterrence’s inflated reputation is beginning to come back down to earth.
GM Seeds and the Militarization of Food (And Everything Else)
Jon Letman of Truthout interviews Dr. Vandana Shiva—a globally respected Indian physicist, philosopher, and activist—on Hawaii’s role as a testing site for both GMO crops and the military, Hawaii’s relationship with Asia, and on the largely unspoken connection between GE crops, climate change, militarism, and what Shiva calls “a war against the earth.”
Nuclear Weapons Have Outlived Their Usefulness — if They Ever Had Any
Are the beliefs that nuclear weapons forced the Japanese to surrender and that deterrence keeps the peace little more than received wisdom?
Climate Change as History’s Deal-Breaker
Even in its relatively early but visibly intensifying stages, climate change threatens to be the singular event in human history, because unlike every other disaster we can imagine (except a full-scale nuclear war or, as has happened in the planet’s past, a large meteorite or asteroid impact), it alone will alter the basis for life on this planet.
Ahead of March Iran Talks, U.S. Urged to Back Possible Israeli Strike
Senators Lindsey Graham and Robert Menendez introduced a joint resolution declaring U.S. support for Israel in the event of an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear programme. “If the Senate moves forward with this [non-binding resolution,] they risk sending the signal to the Iranians that, no matter what was said at Almaty, the U.S. does not have its own house in order to make a deal and is not serious about resolving the nuclear dispute peacefully,” says Jamal Abdi, policy director of the National Iranian American Council.
Emphasis Added: The Foreign Policy Week in Pieces
As always, emphasis added.