Firstly, we invite all members and supporters to an SCND Pre-AGM Agenda Setting meeting taking place online on Monday 14th September from 7pm.
The objective is to discuss the agenda for the upcoming Annual General Meeting (Saturday 14th November) and review the Framing Statement drafted by our Chairperson Lynn Jamieson.
This is a great opportunity for members and supporters to discuss our campaign and help craft the issue-set for the discussion segments of the AGM!
In other news…
Nuclear-armed states continually justify their possession of omnicide weapons with the theory of “nuclear deterrence”. But what if “nuclear deterrence” was more a reckless gamble than a security logic?
Across the world, the traditional premises supporting “deterrence” policies look increasingly unsound.
The widely-propagated myth that nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantor of security has been historically disproven. The USSR, once the world’s largest nuclear power, could not prevent its internal collapse for all its bombs. Ironically, military overspend was likely a factor in the stagnation of its economy and its eventual implosion.
The USA, for all its nuclear bombs, was unable to “deter” the largest attack on its country since Pearl Harbour on 11th September 2001. And it is entirely unclear how its enormous nuclear arsenal advanced the country’s interests during its disastrous failed wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Clearly the early hopes that nuclear weapons would enforce international peace were fantastical – the world has been almost perpetually at war since 1945, with the main culprits being nuclear-armed states themselves.
The claim that nuclear weapons deter “great-power conflict” is also doubtful.
Statements by UK security elites increasingly suggest they consider war against nuclear-armed Russia inevitable. Only this week, Russia threatened “consequences” against Britain for supplying long-range drones used by Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia.
Such developments surpass many of the boundaries and red lines supposedly established by “nuclear deterrence” doctrine. This indicates nuclear weapons are by no means considered by each party to preclude attacks at multiple levels of the conflict spectrum.
The South Asian geopolitical arena is particularly instructive in this respect. Sadia Tasleem, a lecturer in the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies at Quaid-i-Azam University, has addressed the doubtfulness of “nuclear deterrence” in Pakistan’s security context.
According to Tasleem, the May 2025 three-day war with nuclear-armed India has shifted opinion within the country’s strategic elite about the supposed “security” guarantee provided by its nuclear arsenal.
In fact, Tasleem writes, Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons became a serious strategic liability once the “deterrence” threshold was crossed and hot war ensued. That was because of the massive risk of India misinterpreting conventional attacks as potential nuclear strikes – risking uncontrolled and disproportionate retaliation.
None of this is to say that disarmament is becoming more appealing amongst Pakistani or worldwide security elites. Instead, the remarkable thing to note is that whilst the major limitations and risks of the widespread “deterrence” ideology are being increasingly exposed, we are seeing these same elites double down on the dangerous gamble of nuclear weapons.
Support Scottish CND to help us change the conversation on nuclear weapons away from the delusions of “deterrence,” towards the pragmatism of peace and disarmament.