Nuclear Issues

North Korea is warning of a pre-emptive strike after Sec. of State Rex Tillerson said that the U.S. could pursue military action over North Korea’s growing nuclear program.

NEW YORK—Consider these two incidents that occurred in the past few days in the United States and you should start to grasp the basic elements of a slow, subtle but steady and important shift that is taking place in the United States. It is happening in that arena where pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian sentiments express themselves in public, and seek to influence American government policy, mass media language and depictions, and even the decisions of churches and other non-government organizations like student and professional groups.

We should be cheering the fact that the American and Iranian foreign ministers are now trading accusations in public about who is to blame for the lack of a full agreement in last week’s Geneva negotiations on the issues of Iran’s nuclear industry and the UN and American sanctions on Iran. It is so much healthier to have the foreign ministers exchanging ideas of how to reach a negotiated agreement than to have them threaten each other with more sanctions and faster development of nuclear capabilities.

The Summer 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features analysis and advice by Belfer Center scholars regarding the historic upheavals in the Middle East and the disastrous consequences of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Center’s new Geopolitics of Energy project is also highlighted, along with efforts by the Project on Managing the Atom to strengthen nuclear export rules.

The Summer 2010 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center's involvement with the Nuclear Security Summit, which was organized by Center alumni Gary Samore and Laura Holgate.