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.

The paper provides a detailed analysis of the contemporary Sino-Indian conventional ground and nuclear force balances and carefully reconstructs how mutual developments in these areas are perceived by both New Delhi and Beijing.

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

"...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."

Nuclear espionage is always a challenge. Governments conceal their nuclear activities from curious foreign eyes. And even the biggest intelligence budget and the latest spy gadgetry do not guarantee omniscience.

"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."