Nuclear Issues

The authors write that Vietnam will play host to a critical meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, and it will benefit from their peace efforts regardless of the outcome.

Mahsa Rouhi compares and contrasts the situations with Iran and North Korea and warns of the consequences.

Britain, France, and Germany's outreach to Trump has increasingly put them in a position where they will likely be blamed by all sides in case the nuclear deal collapses.

The authors offer three insights from Ukraine's path to denuclearization that may help deal with today’s proliferation challenges.

"...Iran's turn toward China and Russia leave the United States with less leverage for future negotiations on any issue, making it less and less likely for Iran to agree to cooperate with the United States or its allies. Thus, it is crucial to rethink these policies and come up with a more feasible plan."

Trump's strategy appears to be one of brinkmanship—rocking the boat in hopes that the other party is less risk-tolerant and will give in before the boat capsizes.

"Ukraine's denuclearization had been a controversial issue even as it was negotiated, leaving bitter traces in the country's political and public discourse. As a student of political science in Kyiv in the mid-1990s, I remember being outraged by the sense of injustice: how could the states that rely on their own nuclear deterrents demand the nuclear disarmament of others? More so that one of these states, Russia, has never fully come to terms with Ukraine's independence. Since then, I came to research a doctoral dissertation on the denuclearization of post-Soviet successor states and, in the process, learned a great deal about Ukraine's nuclear disarmament that dispelled many of my preconceptions."

In a new report from the Project on Managing the Atom, Senior Research Associate Hui Zhang finds that China has made important nuclear security improvements in areas ranging from its legal framework, to its approaches to physical protection and material accounting, to bolstering nuclear security culture. But China also faces ongoing threats. The possibility of insider theft of nuclear materials in China cannot be ruled out, espe­cially as China increasingly grows into a market-oriented society contending with corruption. Zhang also notes that Beijing faces a growing terrorism threat from separatists in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region.