Nuclear Issues

On 9 March, India accidentally fired a BrahMos supersonic cruise missile into Pakistan. On 11 March, an official Indian statement on the incident acknowledged that “in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile.” Pakistan, in a press conference on 10 March, had already declared that a “high-speed flying object” from India had entered Pakistani territory. General commentary has criticized India’s sluggish communications in the immediate aftermath of the accident. This article puts Indian messaging around the misfiring to three tests of communication: language, timeliness, and narrative control.

Under the guidance of its self-defence nuclear strategy, China will continue to modernise its nuclear force in order to maintain a reliable second-strike retaliatory capability. China’s nuclear weapon modernisation has been responsive to the advances of military capabilities of other countries, particularly the US. As Hu Side emphasised, “The sole purpose for China to maintain a limited nuclear counterattack force is to deter a potential nuclear strike. However, the development of US missile defense and the long-rang strike capability with high accuracy to target mobile missiles is in practice to decrease the effectiveness of Chinese nuclear deterrence. Thus, it surely leads to Chinese attention."

A presentation by Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom, to the Online International Symposium "Growing Plutonium Stockpiles and the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant—Reality of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Security in East Asia."

On December 6, 2021, Managing the Atom Senior Research Associate Hui Zhang presented to a virtual meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Merits and Viability of Different Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Technology Options and the Waste Aspects of Advanced Nuclear Reactors.