Military bases

This is a clickable map of past, present, and planned nuclear power stations in Britain, plus important sites of Britain's nuclear weapons programme.

This map is based on OpenStreetMap, and uses OpenLayers for placing of the icons. You can click on an icon to see more information. You can also zoom in and out (see zoombar on the left), or move around on the map.

From 1-5 July 2010 the IV European Social Forum will take place in Istanbul.

War Resisters' International is part of several seminars and workshops during the ESF:

Thursday, 1 July, 9.30-12.30

The struggle against nuclear weapons in Europe and the Middle-East
Hans Lammerant (Vredesactie), Dominic Moran (Greenpeace), Ufuk Uras
Room D102-200, İtü Maçka Kampüsü

"No to Nato, Against militarisation and nuclearisation of the EU, build EU for peace"

The Western Quest for Supremacy in the Era of Persistent Conflict

by Jürgen Wagner

We are indeed living in an era of change.
The latest financial and economic crises not only underscored the
bankruptcy of the exploitative neoliberal system but also accelerated
the profound ongoing shift of power away from the Western countries.
Russia and especially China are questioning their continued supremacy
which had been taken for granted for centuries. As a result, we can
currently observe rapidly growing geopolitical tensions that could
well spiral out into some sort of a New Cold War. Furthermore, there
are more and more military interventions – euphemistically called
"Stability Operations" – which are a desperate Western
attempt to protect the crumbling neoliberal order (and therefore the
profits of their corporations).

During the women's blockade at AWE Aldermaston on 15 February 2010. Photo: Cynthia Cockburn

On Monday 15 February, at the Big Blockade of the Atomic Weapons Esta­blish­ment in Aldermaston, Berkshire, one of the seven gates was blockaded unique­ly by women. A planning group of around ten women had got together to organise the ‘women’s gate’.

Despite the bad weather thousands of Bombspotters have gathered in Kleine Brogel today to denounce the illegal nuclear policy of the Belgian government. They responded to the appeal of Vredesactie and were not intimidated by the massive presence of police and military personnel, kilometres of barbwire, several helicopters and guard dogs that were being deployed in order to try to keep the illegal nuclear policy in place.

Actions for nuclear disarmament at nuclear weapon bases all over Europe

Overview on http://www.bombspotting.org

During the Easter weekend peace organisations all over Europe are staging actions at nuclear weapon bases and command centres, as part of a European Day of Action against nuclear weapons. One month prior to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference, peace movements in all the European countries with nuclear weapons on their territory (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey and the UK) are sending one message: it is time for nuclear disarmament. The continuing deployment of nuclear weapons does not provide more security, but rather encourages the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

On 15 February 2010, more than 800 activists from Britain and all over Europe blockaded the nuclear weapon factory AWE Aldermaston in Berkshire, England.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KYyodq0x5w]
Video of the Aldermaston blockade on 15 February 2010.

A. deployments

To research deployments you need:

information on military units getting deployed information on the structure of the military, in order to make a good interpretation of the information information on how troops deploy and their logistics 1. A good starting point is the website of the ministry of defense and of the military

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm - an overview of links to the MoD of the NATO countries

On these website you often find:

Overview of nuclear weapons in Europe:

http://www.abolition2000europe.org/map/ (nice map but a little bit outdated) http://mcmilitary.org/en/nuclear_weapons_and_missile_defense (updated for nuclear weapons, missile defense will follow later)

Background report from 2005: http://nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm
This report does not contain the latest withdrawals from Lakenheath and Ramstein, but the author follows the subject very closely through his blog at FAS: http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/

Flash presentation

Presentation by Sian Jones, AWPC, at the seminar "Europe for Peace" in Milton Keynes, 12 February 2010

Click to start or advance to the next slide

For a full screen version of the presentation, click here (opens in a new window/tab).

On Monday 15 February, at the Big Blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire, one of the seven gates was blockaded by uniquely by women. A planning group of around ten women had got together to organize the ‘women’s gate’. They were members of the Aldermaston Women’s Peace Campaign, the London group of Women in Black against War, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the electronic network Women against NATO, the London Feminist Network, and other groups.

From 12 to 13 February 2010, War Resisters' International organised an international seminar titled "Europe for Peace" at the Buddhist Temple in Milton Keynes. The main theme of the seminar was opposition to military bases, and the mapping of military infrastructure.

The seminar began with a talk by feminist antimilitarist researcher Cynthia Cockburn on the need for feminist resistance to military bases. Cynthia stressed the long history of women's resistance, and pointed out three main reasons for women only organising: