Nuclear Issues

20 Items

A transporter erector launcher (TEL), carrying four Babur cruise missiles, on display at the IDEAS 2008 defence exhibition, Karachi, Pakistan.

Skybolt101 Photo CC

Journal Article - Conflict, Security & Development

Do Nuclear Weapons Affect the Guns-butter Trade-off? Evidence on Nuclear Substitution from Pakistan and Beyond

| 2015

Scholars have argued that acquiring nuclear weapons should allow states the luxury of exiting conventional arms races. In turn, a decreased budgetary focus on conventional arms should make possible greater spending on social welfare. The author contests this logic of nuclear substitution by examining its most likely exponent, Pakistan. As a poor, underdeveloped state, a nuclear Pakistan should have welcomed the opportunity to cease its arms race with India, and spend greater sums on its population's welfare. Instead, the article shows that Pakistan has doubled down on its pre-nuclear conventional posture, mainly because of its revisionism over Kashmir.

Announcement

Secretary Albright on Negotiation: Photo Gallery

Apr. 15, 2015

The Future of Diplomacy Project proudly hosted former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright at the Spangler Center in April through the American Secretaries of State Project, jointly directed by Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School's Program On Negotiation. Led by Faculty Directors, Professor Nicholas Burns of the Harvard Kennedy School, Professor James Sebenius of the Harvard Business School, and Professor Robert Mnookin from Harvard Law School, the program seeks to interview former Secretaries of State to gain their insights into how modern diplomacy and negotiation can be used effectively in response to "intractable" conflicts.

 

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Terrorist Threat Demands Creative Intelligence

    Author:
  • Dominic Contreras
| Winter 2011-2012

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former director of intelligence and counterintelligence at the Department of Energy, argues that despite not falling victim to a major terrorist event in the last 10 years, the United States must not be complacent in its counter-terrorism efforts. Mowatt-Larssen said in a Belfer Center seminar in September that he believes the possibility of a major attack is higher in the next 10 years than in the preceding decade.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security

Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2011

| Spring 2011

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.

In a Sep. 28, 2010 photo released by Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service, delegates clap in unison during the ruling Workers' Party representatives meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - United States Institute of Peace

North Korea's Leadership Succession: The China Factor

| September 28, 2010

On September 28, North Korean state media announced that Kim Jong-il's third son, Kim Jong-eun, was promoted to the rank of four-star general just prior to the opening of the Workers' Party of Korea conference. Kim Jong-eun was later named vice chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission at the conference. These important developments follow the late August meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Changchun, near the Sino-DPRK border, which appears to have cleared the way for this Party conference. After the meeting, both countries' state media reported the leaders' support for the rising generation of the Party — a clear reference to Kim Jong-eun.

Book - MIT Press Quarterly Journal: International Security

Going Nuclear: Nuclear Proliferation and International Security in the 21st Century

The spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most significant challenges to global security in the twenty-first century. Limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials may be the key to preventing a nuclear war or a catastrophic act of nuclear terrorism. Going Nuclear offers conceptual, historical, and analytical perspectives on current problems in controlling nuclear proliferation. It includes essays that examine why countries seek nuclear weapons as well as studies of the nuclear programs of India, Pakistan, and South Africa.