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U.S. nuclear weapons were born nearly 65 years ago with the purpose of winning a worldwide war against Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. They grew up to deter a massive Soviet army that threatened to invade and dominate all of Europe. With the disappearance of that threat almost 20 years ago, nuclear weapons entered middle age in search of a new mission—a search that continues to this day. Some suggest nuclear weapons are necessary to deter, or even preempt, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Others believe they are needed to destroy deeply buried, hardened targets in hostile states. But the reality is that only one real purpose remains for U.S. nuclear weapons: to prevent the use of nuclear weapons by others.

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Au début des années 70, l’Iran et l’Irak sont les deux puissances proéminentes du Moyen-Orient . Elles sont soutenues respectivement par les Etats-Unis et l’Union Soviétique mais malgré certains différents territoriaux. il n’est pas envisageable pour l’Irak d’attaquer l’Iran qui dispose d’une armée massivement supérieure en hommes et en équipement. Désireux de régler leurs différents ...

Militairement la guerre des Malouines fut remarquable par certains aspects : Ce fut l’une des rares batailles navales après 1945. Elle montra aussi l’importance de l’aéronavale. La guerre des Malouines souligna le rôle des forces spéciales qui détruisirent de nombreux avions et contribuèrent au recueil de renseignements. L’utilité des hélicoptères fut démontrée, aussi bien au ...

Les accrochages vont principalement se dérouler dans les airs. Les Britanniques attaquent l’aéroport de Stanley à plusieurs reprises et détruisent de nombreuses cibles au sol. Le 21 mai à 2h00, les commandos de marines britanniques 40 et 45 débarquent à San Carlos. Quelques heures plus tard, les parachutistes occupent Port San Carlos. Les Argentins n’opposent ...

Les Britanniques et plus précisément Margaret Thatcher organisèrent rapidement une pression diplomatique à l’encontre de l’Argentine tandis qu’ils constituaient une armada autour des porte-aéronefs HMS Invincible et HMS Hermes. À cause de l’éloignement entre les Malouines et le Royaume-Uni, les Britanniques devaient utiliser une force aéronavale autonome commandée par le contre-amiral John Woodward. Une seconde ...

Le plan d’invasion fut conçu par l’amiral Jorge Anaya, le chef passionnément anti-britannique de la marine argentine. Après l’échec des négociations en janvier 1982, les plans furent finalisés et l’invasion programmée pour avril. L’attaque fut précédée par l’occupation de l’île de Géorgie du Sud à 1 390 km des Malouines, le 19 mars 1982, par ...

Tout d’abord il faut noter que la situation est difficile en Argentine à l’époque avec une dictature militaire depuis 1976, des problemes eco grave : inflation annuelle de 140 % et la guerilla des Monteneros qui dure. Dans ce contexte, le general Galtieri qui arrive au pouvoir en 1981 décide de détourner l’attention portée par ...

The European Defence Agency welcomes the efforts of the European Commission to further support the development of a true European Defence Equipment Market (EDEM). The Defence Package published today is complementary to the Agency’s own agenda for creating a more effective EDEM and a stronger European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB).

The outcome of the North Korean nuclear saga has been held up as an example of the Bush administration defying its bellicose reputation and using multilateralism and diplomacy to defuse a crisis. But in fact, the story is one of extremely poor policymaking and a persistent failure to devise a coherent strategy -- with the result that North Korea has managed to dramatically expand its nuclear capability.

European Union Defence Ministers today welcomed a Long-Term Vision report from the European Defence Agency, designed to serve as a compass for defence planners as they develop the military capabilities the European Security and Defence Policy will require over the next twenty years in an increasingly challenging environment

Despite widespread fears about China's growing economic clout and political stature, Beijing remains committed to a "peaceful rise": bringing its people out of poverty by embracing economic globalization and improving relations with the rest of the world. As it emerges as a great power, China knows that its continued development depends on world peace -- a peace that its development will in turn reinforce.

ONE WORLD, ONE HEALTH

In recent years, outbreaks of diseases such as avian flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the Ebola virus, and mad cow disease have frightened the public, disrupted global commerce, caused massive economic losses, and jeopardized diplomatic relations. These diseases have also shared a worrisome key characteristic: the ability to cross the Darwinian divide between animals and people. None of these illnesses depends on human hosts for its survival; as a result, they all persist today, far beyond the reach of medical intervention.

Meanwhile, humanity has become vulnerable to cross-species illnesses, thanks to modern advances such as the rapid transportation of both goods and people, increasing population density around the globe, and a growing dependence on intensified livestock production for food. The global transport of animals and animal products, which includes hundreds of species of wildlife, also provides safe passage for the harmful bacteria, viruses, and fungi they carry, not to mention the prion proteins that cause insidious illnesses such as mad cow disease and chronic wasting disease in deer and elk.

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FEAR ITSELF

Dating back to antiquity, influenza pandemics have posed the greatest threat of a worldwide calamity caused by infectious disease. Over the past 300 years, ten influenza pandemics have occurred among humans. The most recent came in 1957-58 and 1968-69, and although several tens of thousands of Americans died in each one, these were considered mild compared to others. The 1918-19 pandemic was not. According to recent analysis, it killed 50 to 100 million people globally. Today, with a population of 6.5 billion, more than three times that of 1918, even a "mild" pandemic could kill many millions of people.

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Dealing with today's threats requires broad, deep, and sustained global cooperation. Thus the states of the world must create a collective security system to prevent terrorism, strengthen nonproliferation, and bring peace to war-torn areas, while also promoting human rights, democracy, and development. And the UN must go through its most radical overhaul yet.

DISARMING ROGUES

The Bush administration has proclaimed a doctrine of unilateral preemption as a core part of its National Security Strategy. The limits of this approach are demonstrated daily in Iraq, where the United States is bearing the burden for security, reconstruction, and reform essentially on its own. Yet the world cannot afford to look the other way when faced with the prospect, as in Iraq, of a brutal ruler acquiring nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Addressing this danger requires a different strategy, one that maximizes the chances of early and effective collective action. In this regard, and in comparison to the changes that are taking place in the area of intervention for the purposes of humanitarian protection, the biggest problem with the Bush preemption strategy may be that it does not go far enough.

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THE THREE NO'S

President George W. Bush has singled out terrorist nuclear attacks on the United States as the defining threat the nation will face in the foreseeable future. In addressing this specter, he has asserted that Americans' "highest priority is to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction." So far, however, his words have not been matched by deeds. The Bush administration has yet to develop a coherent strategy for combating the threat of nuclear terror. Although it has made progress on some fronts, Washington has failed to take scores of specific actions that would measurably reduce the risk to the country. Unless it changes course—and fast—a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States will be more likely than not in the decade ahead.

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The Bush administration's new "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)," announced in December, is wise in some places, in need of small fixes in other places, and dangerously radical in still others. Most important, the strategy's approach to nuclear issues seems destined to reduce international cooperation in enforcing nonproliferation commitments rather than enhance it. America's willingness to use force against emergent WMD threats, as in Iraq, can stir the limbs of the international body politic to action. But a truly effective strategy to reduce nuclear dangers over the long term must bring along hearts and minds as well.

The WMD proliferation problem involves biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, but the third raises the most telling issues. Chemical and biological weapons are legally prohibited by treaty, and so the challenge they pose is basically one of enforcement. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, are temporarily legal in five countries, not illegal in three others, and forbidden essentially everywhere else—a complex and inconsistent arrangement that presents a unique set of dilemmas.

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