Nuclear Issues

On April 28, the Project on Managing the Atom joined the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, The Netherlands government, and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) in convening nuclear nonproliferation experts from around the world at the United Nations to participate in a Symposium on the 2015 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

This report marks the culmination of a two-year research project that examined all aspects of the mandate and operations of the International Atomic Energy Agency, from major programs on safeguards, safety, security, and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy to governance, management, and finance.

"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."

Vipin Narang, a research fellow with International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom, discusses nuclear security and terrorism.

Article in The Nonproliferation Review

If terrorists detonated a nuclear weapon in Charleston, how many people would die? How many devastated survivors would need hospital beds? And in what ways is the country prepared or unprepared?

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

"CSIA's research on cooperative denuclearization began during the August 1991 putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev. To those of us familiar with nuclear weapons, their construction, and command and control, and with the looming revolution about to sweep the then–Soviet Union, it was plain that a new and unprecedented danger to international security was emerging. An appropriate policy response to this new form of nuclear threat could not be fashioned from traditional Cold War tools of deterrence, arms control, and military preparedness alone. Safety could only be sought through new policies emphasizing cooperative engagement with the new states, new leaders, and military and industrial heirs of the former Soviet Union...."

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