Nuclear Issues

Just four weeks ago, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s commander, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, told the Associated Press that Tehran was imposing a 1,242-mile range limit on its surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. Although lax (all of Israel’s bases, and most of America’s in the Gulf and Middle East, fall within this range), this limit should be seen as a start. The question now is how much further might the United States and other like-minded countries be able to push Iran to impose tighter controls.

Air Vice Marshall (Ret.) of the Indian Air Force and Fellow at Harvard's Asia Institute, Dr. Arjun Subramaniam spoke at the Future of Diplomacy Project with its Faculty Director, Nicholas Burns about the intricacies of the India-China relationship.

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.

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.

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.

Two specks of uranium might determine whether or not the Iran nuclear deal succeeds or fails. The U.S. government and the IAEA must not let the issue of the Parchin particles drop. In matters atomic, even minutiae can be critical.

The attacks in Brussels last month were a stark reminder of the terrorists’ resolve, and of our continued vulnerabilities, including in an area of paramount concern: nuclear security.

The attackers struck an airport and the subway, but some Belgian investigators believe they seemed to have fallen back on those targets because they felt the authorities closing in on them, and that their original plan may have been to strike a nuclear plant. A few months ago, during a raid in the apartment of a suspect linked to the November attacks in Paris, investigators found surveillance footage of a senior Belgian nuclear official. Belgian police are said to have connected two of the Brussels terrorists to that footage.

Obama’s sparring with Putin is hampering the push to prevent nuclear terrorism — and even raising the risk of an accidental nuclear confrontation.

Through several programmatic evolutions, U.S. efforts to convert HEU research reactors and to repatriate fresh and spent fuel, have significantly advanced efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and terrorism.  Unavoidable technical and political factors have slowed this progress.  To maintain the program’s momentum, fresh thinking will be necessary and deserves support from the executive and legislative branches of government.