Nuclear Issues

All the world's nuclear-armed states (except for North Korea) have begun modernizing and upgrading their arsenals, leading many observers to predict that the world is entering a new nuclear arms race. While that outcome is not yet inevitable, it is likely, and if it happens, the new nuclear arms race will be different and more dangerous than the one we remember. More nuclear-armed countries in total, and three competing great powers rather than two, will make the competition more complex. Meanwhile, new non-nuclear weapon technologies — such as ballistic missile defense, anti-satellite weapons, and precision-strike missile technology — will make nuclear deterrence relationships that were once somewhat stable less so.

"Ukraine's denuclearization had been a controversial issue even as it was negotiated, leaving bitter traces in the country's political and public discourse. As a student of political science in Kyiv in the mid-1990s, I remember being outraged by the sense of injustice: how could the states that rely on their own nuclear deterrents demand the nuclear disarmament of others? More so that one of these states, Russia, has never fully come to terms with Ukraine's independence. Since then, I came to research a doctoral dissertation on the denuclearization of post-Soviet successor states and, in the process, learned a great deal about Ukraine's nuclear disarmament that dispelled many of my preconceptions."

This spring, the United States hosted the fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC. Senior representatives of more than 50 nations convened to mark the end of an unprecedented international initiative over the last six years to strengthen security measures aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism. During that time, many states made significant progress, but more work is needed.

The 2016 nuclear security summit was a pivotal moment for the decades-long effort to secure nuclear material around the globe. More than 50 national leaders gathered in Washington for the last of four biennial meetings that have led to significant progress in strengthening measures to reduce the risk of nuclear theft.

"Although the cancellation of the planned deployment of the SM-3 IIB interceptors has removed the possibility that interceptors deployed under the phased adaptive approach would pose a threat to Russian missiles, it has not diminished the missile defense system's primary mission of intercepting an array of current and potential future Iranian missiles. The restructured missile defense system would still theoretically be able to handle these Iranian missile threats, even if one factors in a comfortable amount of time for detecting and tracking them."

Through structured interviews and a literature review, we assess which approaches to protection against insider thefts in the casino and pharmaceutical industries could be usefully applied to strengthen protections against insider theft in the nuclear industry, where insider thefts could have very high consequences.

In the Doomsday Clock issue of the Bulletin, the author takes a look at five events that unfolded in 2011 and that seem certain to cast a powerful shadow in months and years to come. No new breakthroughs occurred, the author writes, adding that 2012 could be a much more difficult year.

The US relised on atomic bombs as the essential counter to conventional Soviet forces. The USSR constructed its own bombs in turn, and for decades the analysis of nuclear deterrence was almost exclusively concerned with the two superpowers. In the twenty-first century, the nuclear world no longer displays that mirror-image symmetry and can now be viewed as unipolar, regional, multipolar or stateless. Nuclear deterrence that seemed such an established technical reality during the Cold War should be recognized as a psychological construct that depends on threat perception and cultural attitudes, as well as the values, rationality and strength of political leaders who themselves have to mediate between groups with vested economic or military interests. Brown and Arnold argue that nuclear deterrence is meaningless against extremist terrorists. Our survey of its quirks leads us to believe that nuclear deterrence is a far less foolproof and reliable global security mechanism than many assume.

Hui Zhang argues that China's pledge of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, while constraining its nuclear force at a minimum level, maintaining its deeply de-alerted status, and upholding its long-standing position to support complete nuclear disarmament, has set a good example for other nuclear nations, in particular the two nuclear superpowers.  Zhang suggests that Beijing believes that all nuclear states should adopt a no-first-use policy and redefine the role of nuclear weapons in their national security doctrines. Although China stands ready to support the nuclear-free agenda, it is up to the two countries with the overwhelming number of the world's warheads to take the lead.