Nuclear Issues

In this issue, we highlight five new books by Belfer Center members.

The Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) is pleased to welcome Francesca Giovannini as its new Executive Director.  With more than a decade-long career in international security, nuclear non-proliferation, and multilateral diplomacy, Ms. Giovannini brings to MTA an exceptional mix of professional skills, robust nuclear expertise, and an extensive network of diplomatic, political and technological partnerships.

Universal norms have power—US leaders know this. For proponents of nuclear deterrence like the US government, the norms of the NPT are strategically valuable because they allow the United States and four other states to maintain their nuclear weapons while keeping the rest of the world from possessing their own. In contrast, the norm promoted by the ban treaty is meant to apply to all states and so US leaders fear its long-term effects.

On October 9, 2020, the Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) brought together a panel of experts to discuss the often-overlooked issue of racial inequalities in the nuclear field.

The historian Fredrik Logevall has written a grand fresh take on the life of John F. Kennedy, as if to reignite an old flame. He's given us a chance to remember politics as the sport of great minds and hearts, high language, serious stuff.

Stephan Walt writes that Trump's foreign-policy instincts might be more sound—but he has forfeited the chance to lead.

A comparative analysis of the United States’ and the Soviet Union’s previously underexplored radiological weapons programs identifies the drivers behind their rise and demise. The findings of this analysis illuminate the factors likely to affect the pursuit of radiological weapons by other states in the future.

Carpenter and Montgomery replicate a key question from Sagan and Valentino’s landmark survey of U.S. attitudes toward the laws of war and introduce variations into Sagan and Valentino’s experiment. The findings reveal Americans’ strong belief that targeting civilians is wrong, and that a majority would likely oppose such action in real life.

Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino, and Charli Carpenter and Alexander Montgomery continue the debate on the power of noncombatant immunity norms, discuss how scholars should approach the study of these norms, and emphasize their shared objective to determine how security norms can be bolstered rather than undermined.

In the highly charged political atmosphere surrounding nuclear initiatives in the Middle East, legitimate concerns are sometimes blown out of proportion, with potentially problematic results. This has been the case with recent coverage and commentary on Saudi Arabia’s nuclear activities, which have been characterized by a degree of what can be described as “threat inflation.”