Nuclear Issues

128 Items

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Analysis & Opinions - Russia Matters

Expert Survey: Is Nuclear Arms Control Dead or Can New Principles Guide It?

| July 30, 2019

With the historic INF Treaty more than likely to terminate, and the future of New START in doubt, what guiding principles for interstate nuclear arms control can we hope for? Of eight U.S., Russian, European and Chinese experts surveyed by Russia Matters, most agree that bilateral agreements between the world’s two nuclear superpowers still have a role to play in any new arms control regime, but they differed considerably on the nature of that role.

How Saudi Arabia and China Could Partner on Solar Energy

AP/Andy Wong

Analysis & Opinions - Axios

How Saudi Arabia and China Could Partner on Solar Energy

| Jan. 24, 2019

Last May, Chinese solar panel manufacturer LONGi signed an agreement with Saudi trading company El Seif Group to establish large-scale solar manufacturing infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. The deal came several months after the Trump administration's imposition of global tariffs on imports of Chinese solar panels and cells.

Reagan and Gorbachev signing INF Treaty in 1987

(AP Photo/Bob Daugherty)

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

Center Experts Comment on Significance of Withdrawing from INF Treaty

Following the news that the Trump administration plans to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, ten Belfer Center nuclear and U.S.-Russia relations experts offered their thoughts on the significance and consequences of this action.
 

The gas and diesel prices of the Chevron filling station outside of MIA on April 16, 2011.

Daniel Christensen

Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

Trump Has Options If Oil Market Panics About Iran

| May 10, 2018

Oil markets have so far reacted to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal without either enthusiasm or panic — without even much apparent interest. There are many good reasons for this, but also many reasons to think oil markets’ complacency could change. Fortunately, the Obama-era sanctions that Trump has moved to reimpose have some lesser-known safety valves should oil markets later overheat as a result of the Iran decision.

President Donald Trump speaks about Iran from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 13, 2017. Trump says Iran is not living up to the "spirit" of the nuclear deal that it signed in 2015, and announced a new strategy in the speech. He says the administration will impose additional sanctions on the regime to block its financing of terrorism.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

Trump's Iran Plan Does Too Much and Too Little

| Oct. 13, 2017

President Donald Trump’s advisers are at pains to emphasize that Friday’s speech on Iran policy was an effort to lay out a comprehensive strategy to tackle the malign behavior of the Tehran regime, not just an announcement that the president had refused to certify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. Their frustration that the headlines missed the forest for the trees is understandable -- given the need for an Iran policy, not simply an Iran nuclear strategy, which was essentially the approach of the Barack Obama administration.

But Trump’s advisers only have the president -- and not the media -- to blame. The Iran nuclear deal has long been the focal point of the president’s rhetoric and was the centerpiece of the speech. And the decertification of the deal was one of the few tangible actions outlined by the president.

This image made from undated video of a news bulletin aired by North Korea's KRT on Sept. 3, 2017, North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un holds the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee.

KRT via AP Video

Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

Trump Can't Solve North Korea by Just Making a Deal

| Sep. 05, 2017

President Donald J. Trump’s tweet this weekend that the U.S. might terminate all trade with countries doing business with North Korea was widely derided on the grounds of realism. Given that 90 percent of North Korea’s trade is with China, the tweet was little more than a veiled threat to terminate all U.S. trade with Beijing, ending a bilateral trade relationship valued at $650 billion a year. It would, as many correctly pointed out, mean economic disaster for North Korea -- and also for the U.S.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

AP Photo/Sergei Karpukhin

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

What Would U.S. Withdrawal From the Iran Nuclear Deal Look Like?

| Aug. 31, 2017

Judging the Trump administration to be incapable of formulating a diplomatic campaign in support of one of its highest foreign policy priorities, John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, published an Iran deal exit strategy in the National Review on Monday. The document is less about why the United States should leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and more about how to do so.

From left, Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Defense Secretary James Mattis, shake hands

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Tokyo and Washington Have Another Nuclear Problem

| Aug. 17, 2017

This week, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera are meeting in Washington with their U.S. counterparts, Rex Tillerson and James Mattis, to discuss how the United States and Japan should respond to the latest North Korean provocations. 

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sits in the official endorsement ceremony of President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran, Iran,

AP/IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER OFFICE

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Tearing Up the Nuke Deal Now Would Hand Iran the Best of All Possible Worlds

| July 31, 2017

The Iran nuclear deal is deeply flawed. Its duration is too short, and it fails to require of Tehran the universally agreed-upon minimum for effective verification — a complete and correct declaration of all relevant activities. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake for President Donald Trump to renounce it now, as he is reportedly contemplating.

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Analysis & Opinions - U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, Belfer Center

Applying Lessons of U.S.-Russian Space Cooperation to Revive Nuclear Security Partnership Between Moscow and Washington

| 2017-03-14

Note: This is an expanded version of an article with a similar title published 3.7.17 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

The interdependence between the U.S. and Russian space programs persists despite the fact that the two countries are now living through what some pundits describe as a new Cold War. However, there was a time not so long ago when the two nations viewed space solely as an area of strategic competition. The steps that Washington and Moscow took to transform their space rivalry into cooperation can serve today as a model for working together to help prevent nuclear terrorism, no matter how strained relations may seem.