Nuclear Issues

A sampling of articles in the Fall 2017 of the Belfer Center's journal International Security.

International Security is America’s leading journal of security affairs. The International Security journal is edited at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and published quarterly by the MIT Press. Questions may be directed to IS@harvard.edu.

A sampling of articles in the Spring 2016 issue of the Belfer Center's journal International Security.

International Security is America’s leading journal of security affairs. 
IS was ranked first in impact factor for 2014 among 85 journals of international relations in the annual “Journal Citation Reports”® released by Thomson Reuters. International Security’s 2014 Impact Factor is the highest of any international relations journals.

A sampling of articles in the Spring 2016 issue of the Belfer Center's journal International Security.

International Securityis America’s leading journal of security affairs. It provides sophisticated analyses of contemporary security issues and discusses their conceptual and historical foundations. The journal is edited at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and published quarterly by the MIT Press. Questions may be directed to IS@Harvard.edu.

The Spring 2011 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 continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

The Winter 2010/11 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 a major Belfer Center conference on technology and governance, the Center's involvement in the nuclear threat documentary Countdown to Zero, and a celebration of Belfer Center founder Paul Doty.

Russia, the United States, and other countries must cooperate to enable large-scale growth of nuclear energy around the world while achieving even higher standards of safety, security, and nonproliferation than are in place today. This will require building a new global framework for nuclear energy, including new or strengthened global institutions. The Belfer Center's Managing the Atom (MTA) Project and the Russian Research Center's Kurchatov Institute developed these and additional recommendations in a new collaborative report, published in October.

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.

Iran has quickly risen to the top of the United States' foreign policy agenda. The reason is simple, according to Belfer Center director Graham Allison: "Two words: Nuclear weapons." On top of that, the Bush administration accuses Iran of undermining U.S. attempts to bring peace to Iraq.

The abortive coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow in August 1991 raised in a stark and alarming way the question of who was controlling the Soviet arsenal at a moment of extraordinary political instability. The subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union raised the equally consequential question of who would inherit the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The ensuing and ongoing political instability and economic travails in Russia raised the question of the safety and security of the Russian nuclear arsenal and nuclear empire. In view of the fact that these weapons and associated nuclear materials constitute the largest potential threat to the United States and its allies, and given the potential of Russian nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials to fuel terrorism and nuclear proliferation, this is one of the most significant security issues of the post-Cold War era. Work on the safety and security of Russian nuclear holdings soon led to concern about the adequacy of custodial arrangements for nuclear weapons and nuclear materials on a global scale. Meanwhile, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 highlighted the danger that a terrorist group might obtain nuclear weapons and inflict an even more terrible attack.