Nuclear Issues

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.

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.

Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall's article in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

"How has a state whose founding fathers were secular people who believed in rule of law and democracy drifted toward religious extremism and authoritarianism? Three primary factors—variations on the Triple A theory of influence (Allah, the Army, and America)—have led Pakistan down this path: a powerful independent military, the mushrooming of religious militant groups, and the hydra-headed monster that is the intelligence services."

"...how can the United States maximize the benefits that primacy brings and minimize the resistance that its power sometimes provokes?"

The author assesses the factors leading to Moscow’s decision in December 1994 to use military force to crush Chechnya’s resistance to the authority of the Russian leadership.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a human tragedy that has defied political settlement for more than 50 years. Official negotiations have neither ended Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories nor fostered the development of a viable Palestinian state, both prerequisites for a secure peace.

The failure of Israeli–Palestinian negotiations to achieve a viable political settlement can be explained, in large part, by the lack of oversight mechanisms to ensure compliance with past UN resolutions and peace plans. The 2003 ‘road map’ calling for a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by 2005, like its predecessors, will be a rhetorical flourish unless it is accompanied by an institutionalized oversight mechanism. This article investigates the potential for deployment of an international peacekeeping mission to the Occupied Palestinian Territories that would consist of three parts: a basic security component led by NATO, a civilian peace building mission led by the UN, and a special monitoring presence around the holy sites in Jerusalem. This tri-partite peacekeeping mission might be deployed with the consent of the parties and given a Chapter VII mandate to be able to respond to special contingencies. The UN-authorized peacekeeping mission could be within the overall framework for ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and establishing an independent Palestinian state.