Nuclear Issues

29 Items

President Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un in the Demilitarized Zone

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Analysis & Opinions - Fox News

Trump Takes Risky Gamble Meeting with Kim and Walking Into North Korea

| June 30, 2019

President Trump’s trip Sunday to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea and his historic decision to cross briefly into North Korea was a made-for-TV diplomatic spectacular. But it was also a test of whether personal diplomacy can trump (so to speak) longstanding definitions of a country’s national interests by persuading North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to end his nuclear weapons program.

The head of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, speaks in a conference called "A World Without Terror," in Tehran, Iran on Oct. 31, 2017. Jafari said that the country's supreme leader has limited the range of ballistic missiles it makes (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi).

AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

How to Stop Iran's Missile Program

| Dec. 10, 2017

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.

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.

Analysis & Opinions - Russia Matters

25 Years of Nuclear Security Cooperation by the US, Russia and Other Newly Independent States: A Timeline

The timeline below was compiled by Simon Saradzhyan and Mariana Budjeryn and the foreword was written by William Tobey (author bios below). As an accompaniment, Ms. Budjeryn has also interviewed Sam Nunn, the former senator whose efforts were key to securing U.S. funding to help a disintegrating Soviet Union dismantle and safeguard its nuclear weapons. The timeline authors would like to thank former RM student associate Andre Gellerman for his research support and Susan Koch for her insightful comments. This is an evolving draft, produced in cooperation with the U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and with support from the center's Managing the Atom Project. A bibliography can be found at the bottom of the page.

Wearing traditional Kazakh costumes on the shoulders, from left, U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins and Russia's cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky attend a press conference in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, Tuesday, March 11, 2014, shortly after their landing aboard Soyuz TMA-10M capsule. Hopkins together with the two Russia's cosmonauts landed safely in the Kazakh steppe aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule after a stay of over five months aboard the International Space Station. (AP Photo/Vasily Maximov, pool)

AP Photo/Vasily Maximov, pool

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

US-Russian space cooperation: a model for nuclear security

| Mar. 07, 2017

This interdependence between the US and Russian space programs persists even though the two countries are now living through what some pundits describe as a new Cold War. There was a time not so long ago, however, 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.

A sign warns against trespassing onto the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, August, 17, 2012.

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Defense One

The All-Too-Human Reason Nuclear Material Isn’t Secure Enough

| March 23, 2016

The security failures revealed by Sister Megan Rice at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tennessee were legion, rooted in complacency and poor training. We must have a culture committed to continuous improvement. If people are to create an excellent security culture, they must be trained and certified as competent.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attend a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, June 28, 2015.

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Task Force on Iran

The Hollow Core of the Iran Nuclear Deal

| June 2015

A good nuclear agreement with Iran requires that we know first, what work has Iran conducted toward nuclear weapons, and second, can we guarantee that Iran has stopped and will not resume this work. If these questions are not answered correctly and completely before the negotiations conclude, the resulting agreement will be illusory.