7pm (GMT), Thursday 17 March 2022
Register here: https://tinyurl.com/nuclearthreats
Russia's nuclear threats during its latest invasion of Ukraine have been disturbing, frightening and criminal. They amount to nuclear terrorism. Unfortunately, they are not the first such threats that the world has seen. Nuclear threats have been made before, including by the US and by Britain.
Peace News editor Milan Rai sets out Putin's nuclear threats today and compares them to examples of Western nuclear bullying in the past. For example, both the US and Britain made nuclear threats during the 1991 and 2003 wars against Iraq (a non-nuclear-weapon state). Britain tried nuclear intimidation during its war with (non-nuclear-weapon state) Indonesia in the mid-1960s, moving part of its strategic nuclear 'deterrent' force to Singapore. The US has made nuclear threats against China – several of those times were when China was still a non-nuclear-weapon state.
Milan Rai is the author of several books including 'Tactical Trident: The Rifkind Doctrine and the Third World' (1995) and 'Chomsky's Politics' (1995). His most recent publication is a chapter: 'Thinking the Unthinkable about the Unthinkable - The Use of Nuclear Weapons and the Propaganda Model' (2018) His article, 'How the West Paved the Way for Putin's Nuclear Threats Over Ukraine' is online at:
www.tinyurl.com/westernnuclearthreats
This talk is organised and hosted by Peace News.