Nuclear Issues

3 Items

Presentation

The Evolution of the IAEA: Using Nuclear Crises as Windows of Opportunity (or Not)

| March 13, 2013

This seminar considered how the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reacted to nuclear crises. The IAEA often appears not just to have weathered such crises, but to have successfully leaped through windows of opportunity presented by them. This has resulted in periodic expansions of its mandate, capabilities, and resources. The 2011 Fukushima disaster appears to be a puzzling exception, raising the question of what concatenation of factors needs to be present for the IAEA to take advantage of nuclear crises.

Professor Tom Nichols (far left) presenting his paper.

Photo by James Wilson

Presentation

Nuclear Attack and Conventional Retaliation: Small States, Proliferation, and Nuclear War

| June 19, 2010

How can large states deter small nuclear powers—and how should they respond if successfully attacked by a smaller aggressor with WMD, especially nuclear weapons? This paper considers conventional alternatives to in-kind nuclear retaliation, which may be impossible in the modern era.