Nuclear Issues

Mohammad Tabaar analyzes Iran's strategy to weaken Israel and divide the Middle East.

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.

By looking beyond solely Iran’s security motivations, this paper by Sahar Nowrouzzadeh seeks to inform more holistic negotiation strategies that can potentially influence Iran’s nuclear decision-making in a manner more favorable to U.S. interests.

Mariana Budjeryn's Inheriting the Bomb tells the story of how Ukraine came into possession of the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal—larger than the combined stockpiles of China, France, and the United Kingdom at the time—and decided to disarm peacefully a few years later. Ukraine's denuclearization was far from a straightforward process. After initially renouncing nuclear weapons, Ukrainian officials sought recognition that their newly independent country was a rightful heir to part of the Soviet cache, deserving of equal treatment, financial compensation, and pledges that disarmament would not endanger Ukraine's security. 

Abolghasem Bayyenat argues that without the JCPOA restrictions in place, Iran's nuclear program will expand and continue to acquire irreversible technical knowledge and competencies.

The world has grown more dangerous but also less open to arms control measures that could limit some of the dangers. What can be done? Steven E. Miller offers a tour de force overview of both dismal and hopeful trends within arms control over the past decades, in this first paper of a new HCSS series on Arms Control.

The hard truth is that the United States now has few good options for containing Iran’s nuclear program. It can persist with the no-deal status quo, allowing Iran to continue inching closer to a bomb while suffering under sanctions. It can pursue a return to the 2015 agreement and then attempt to get Iran to agree to a “longer and stronger” pact, as the Biden team has suggested. It can try for various other deals, either more or less stringent than the 2015 agreement. Or it can attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure with a military strike, possibly setting Tehran’s progress toward a bomb back by a few years but almost certainly provoking retaliation and possibly a sprint toward the nuclear finish line.

Abolghasem Bayyenat argues that rather than insisting that the JCPOA be restored strictly in its original form and implemented per its letter, the parties should seek to redress the agreement's imbalance in regard to its enforcement mechanisms and delivery of its economic benefits.

The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control hosted two roundtables—in September 2019 and March 2021—to identify lessons that should be drawn from the archive of Iranian documents seized by Israel in 2018, related to the effectiveness of export controls, monitoring measures such as international inspections, and other efforts to prevent material and expertise from reaching programs to develop nuclear weapons. Informed by these lessons, the group sought to develop a set of findings and recommendations to support the policymaking and monitoring communities.

The Biden-Putin summit in Geneva did not disappoint the very low expectations set out for it. To move beyond symbolism and signaling, however, the Biden-Putin proclamation has to be translated into practical progress.