by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 15 June 2023 The British press has quoted the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) hundreds of times in the past two years without informing readers it is funded by the UK military, US government and arms corporations, and that it’s a bastion of establishment interests. RUSI has been cited in […]
Topic: Nuclear weapons
by Mark Curtis Declassified UK, 25 March 2020 Britain plans to spend hundreds of billions of pounds on extravagant military projects while the UK’s under-funded public health system struggles to address pandemics such as the coronavirus, new analysis shows. The British government will likely need to spend more than £200-billion over the next decade to […]
by Mark Curtis Published in Middle East Eye, 5 June 2018 Britain has a special relationship with Israel that is little recognised in the mainstream media but unmissable in light of the killings in Gaza. With more than 110 protesters dead, Britain is in effect defending Israeli actions. The British government has not, as […]
Documents Cabinet Minutes, 129/90, November 1957, National Archives (pages 47, 85 and 127) ‘US embassy cables: UK foreign office tries to smooth relations with US over Cyprus flights’ (US Embassy UK, 20 May 2008) Articles 1950s ‘British colonial forces “raped a teenager and tortured civilians during 1950s Cyprus uprising”‘ (Mail, 14 July 2018) ‘British Intelligence […]
“It has been agreed by the Chiefs of Staff that the role of the colonial territories in general terms should be: (a) to provide for their own internal security, first to release the forces of the strategic reserve during the present cold war from debilitating diversions and, secondly, to ensure the stability of the colonies […]
“The United Kingdom policy will therefore, in the era of nuclear sufficiency, be dictated by three main considerations: (a) to remain a nuclear power and by so doing to exercise a major independent influence in the councils of the world, in particular with the United States…[two others]”. National Archives: DEFE 4/104
“Now that competition between the two social systems has moved from the military to the economic sphere, it may be that the US believe that the advantage will lie with that system which is more successful in removing national obstacles to the growth of trade and other forms of economic cooperation. Or secondly, it could […]
The “estimated weight of attack [from the Soviet Union] is from some 330 weapons in the megaton range…The weight of [a Soviet attack] would clearly be smaller should the West strike first, in which case the Soviets would be reduced to a retaliatory strike from their remaining forces”. A previous attempt was made by the […]
These files highlight UK plans to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East, help given to Iran and Israel to acquire chemical weapons and the Prime Minister’s exclusion of Cabinet to procure Trident, among other policies. Documents ‘UK civil servants reassure US that Trident will be replaced, whatever Brown may say’ (US Embassy, UK, […]
by Mark Curtis “We will put conflict resolution and human rights at the heart of foreign policy, commit to working through the UN, end support for unilateral aggressive wars of intervention and back effective action to alleviate the refugee crisis”. Whitehall will hope these are the kinds of empty words spoken by most governments. But […]