Nuclear Issues

At a moment when arms control is deeply troubled and may be dying, two eminent scholars, Marc Trachtenberg and the late Robert Jervis, have taken a fresh look at the beginnings of strategic arms control fifty years after the signing in Moscow of the SALT I agreements in May of 1972. They do so from different vantage points, writes Steven E. Miller.

As diplomats, activists, and researchers converged on Vienna in June for the first meeting of states-parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), recent tragic world events highlighted how critical it was to convene this multilateral forum on nuclear disarmament.

Since February, Russia’s war against Ukraine has epitomized the grave dangers of a world where nine states possess approximately 12,700 nuclear weapons.¹ That Russia could invade a sovereign state and indiscriminately target its civilian population, while using nuclear threats to deter NATO from intervening, has stunned the world. It offers a stark reminder that possessing nuclear arms can enable abhorrent violations of international law

In this episode of International History Declassified, Kian and Pieter speak with Dr. Mariana Budjeryn of Harvard University's Belfer Center. Dr. Budjeryn explains the significance of the Budapest Memorandum, which was signed 25 years ago on the heels of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and which made Ukraine one of the few countries to give up its nuclear arsenal. Dr. Budjeryn also provides fascinating insight into her experiences researching in Ukrainian archives and interviewing Soviet generals.

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, launching the nuclear age. On the 75th anniversary of that somber event, Belfer Center experts reflect on the event and its aftermath. 

Rebecca Davis Gibbons writes that having a full appreciation of the consequences of nuclear weapons and their place in society means learning from the stories of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—but also from the stories from other survivors of nuclear explosions: those who lived and worked adjacent to testing sites in Algeria, French Polynesia, Australia, the United States, France, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Western China, and Kazakhstan.

Rebecca Davis Gibbons and Stephen Herzog provide an update on current efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. 

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has published a document from the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs concerning nuclear problems and tensions in the time of COVID-19. The document has been co-signed by a large number of Pugwash colleagues and personalities.

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), a bedrock of international security, had the 50-year anniversary of its signing in 2018. While the existence of the treaty has not been able to prevent a handful of states from seeking nuclear weapons, for half a century the NPT has promoted norms of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. Only nine states possess nuclear weapons today, far below the number predicted early in the nuclear age. Nonetheless, a second nuclear treaty, adopted in 2017, represents a significant and growing crack in the foundation of the NPT and suggests that relations among its members need to change if the treaty is going to survive another 50 years.