Nuclear Issues

"...Russia seems doomed to continue its decline ― an outcome that should be no cause for celebration in the West. States in decline ― think of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 ― tend to become less risk-averse and thus much more dangerous. In any case, a thriving Russia has more to offer the international community in the long run."

"Many Russian futures are possible. At one extreme, some view Russia as an industrialized banana republic whose corrupt institutions and insurmountable demographic and health problems make decline inevitable. Others argue that reform and modernization will enable Russia to surmount its problems, and that its leadership is headed in this direction."

>Consider the evidence on five related fronts: bin Laden, Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Russia.

Some in the intelligence community now refer to the leader of the al-Qaida movement as "Osama bin Missing." While he lost his sanctuary and terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, bin Laden, his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and 86 percent of the individuals identified by the U.S. government as al-Qaida leaders remain at large.

Could NATO's current bombing campaign against Serbia lead to deadly conflict between the United States and Russian military forces? Until last week, my answer was a categorical no. But then I went to Moscow

Carter, Deutch, and Zelikow addresses the threat of Catastrophic Terrorism in Foreign Affairs.

The greatest single threat to the security of America today, and indeed the world, is the threat from loose nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material from Russia. "Loose nukes' - the loss, theft or sale of weapons-usable nuclear materials or nuclear weapons themselves from the former Soviet arsenal - is not a hypothetical threat; it is a brute fact. Since the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the number of reported, suspected and documented cases of diversion of weapons-usable nuclear material has been increasing steadily.

ON 18 APRIL 1995, American terrorists demolished Oklahoma City's federal office building, killing 162 people. Two and a half years earlier, international terrorists attacked New York City's 110-storey World Trade Center. Had that explosion succeeded in undermining the structural foundation, 30,000 people would have died.

From Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center to the first act of nuclear terrorism is but one small step. Suppose that instead of mini-vans filled with hundreds of pounds of the crude explosives used in Oklahoma City and New York, terrorists had acquired a suitcase carrying a, grapefruit sized 100 pounds of highly-enriched uranium (HEV).

Dr. Ashton B. Carter's article in Arms Control Today.

Innovative book by Carter, Steinbruner, and Perry