Nuclear Issues

In the wake of US President Donald J. Trump’s June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, R. Nicholas Burns, an Atlantic Council board member who served as US undersecretary of state from 2005 to 2008, discussed the tough work that lies ahead and lessons from a not too distant past.

Burns spoke in a phone interview with the New Atlanticist’s Ashish Kumar Sen. Here are excerpts from our interview.

In the hyperpolarized state of American politics and policy debate, both critics and supporters of the Trump administration have become so predictable that they are now background noise. If required to summarize my assessment of the Trump-Kim summit in one line, it would be: oversold and undervalued. Despite their best efforts, his critics haven’t come close to matching Trump’s preposterous claim that “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”

Belfer Center experts offer insight and analysis of the Trump-Kim summit through statements and interviews.

Professor Nicholas Burns on CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett

President Trump has imagined himself at the center of high-stakes nuclear negotiations since at least the mid-1980s, when he tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Reagan administration that it needed a New York real estate deal maker to lead arms-control talks with the Soviet Union.

The vast scope of North Korea’s atomic program means ending it would be the most challenging case of nuclear disarmament in history. Here’s what has to be done to achieve — and verify — the removal of the nuclear arms, the dismantlement of the atomic complex and the elimination of the North’s other weapons of mass destruction.

On Monday night at 9 p.m. Eastern—9 a.m. Tuesday morning in Singapore—Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will finally meet face to face. The daily swirl of insults and compliments as these two adversaries circle each other before the summit is dizzying. If this were a heavyweight boxing match, we’d need a bettor’s guide before wagering on the outcome.

Observing the US' global role under President Donald Trump, one is inclined to describe being in this era as "present at the destruction."

This Policy Brief compares and contrasts the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review with past reviews and its Obama predecessor. It concludes that this review offers a much harsher assessment of the security environment; it posits a more expansive role for nuclear weapons; and proposes a substantial de-emphasis on arms control.