Nuclear Issues

India's nuclear profile, doctrine, and practices have evolved rapidly since the country's nuclear breakout in 1998. However, the outside world's understanding of India's doctrinal debates, forward-looking strategy, and technical developments are still two decades behind the present. India and Nuclear Asia will fill that gap in our knowledge by focusing on the post-1998 evolution of Indian nuclear thought, its arsenal, the triangular rivalry with Pakistan and China, and New Delhi's nonproliferation policy approaches. The authors show how India's nuclear trajectory has evolved in response to domestic, regional, and global drivers.

“A New Nuclear World Order: Safety, Security and Safeguards” in Die Zwischengesellschaft, written by Senior Fellow Olli Heinonen, reviews in detail measures to strengthen nuclear safety, security and safeguards to support states in developing and using nuclear energy in a safe, secure and peaceful manner.

Situated in a difficult neighborhood, New Delhi has laid strong emphasis on both nuclear safety and security for a couple of decades now. Almost three decades of state-sponsored terrorism and insurgencies of varying scale and proportion within India have meant that security of nuclear materials and installations has been a great worry to India’s security and atomic energy establishments. India’s concerns even predate the Western focus on WMD terrorism, which gained prominence only after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.  Unfortunately, India’s excessive caution and secrecy in the nuclear arena has led the world to assume that India does not pay much attention to this issue or that it has inadequate security, which is far from the truth.

This chapter assesses the Chinese position on the global nuclear disarmament and discusses the evolution of China's nuclear weapons strategy. Specifically focused on China's perspectives on the move toward nuclear disarmament and interim steps each side could take, and China's concerns that give rise to preconditions or conditions for deep cuts and/or abolition of nuclear weapons. Also examined is, why China's consistently maintained policies of no-first-use and minimum deterrence, the characteristics of China's nuclear strategy, and whether China would maintain its current nuclear strategy under a changing strategic dynamic in the future. Finally, it discusses the requirements of strategic stability between US and China, and the regional security dilemma.

Matthew Bunn, Will Tobey, Hui Zhang, and Nickolas Roth recently participated in a two-day roundtable discussion sponsored by the Stanley Foundation on U.S. nuclear security cooperation with Russia and China. The discussion, which involved experts from around the world, focused on overcoming challenges to nuclear security cooperation and ensuring that countries put in place effective and sustainable nuclear security measures with strong security culture.

Like dozens of other world leaders, Chinese President Xi Jinping is preparing to attend the third Nuclear Security Summit, which will take place in The Hague on March 24 and 25.  China actively participated in the first two summits, and since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, China has indeed made strides in strengthening its system for protecting nuclear facilities.  To make sure that nuclear security systems are actually implemented effectively, however, the development of a strong security culture—in which the relevant individuals hold a deeply rooted belief that insider and outsider threats are credible—is imperative.

Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age assembles a group of distinguished scholars to grapple with the matter of how the United States, its allies, and its friends must size up the strategies, doctrines, and force structures currently taking shape if they are to design responses that reinforce deterrence amid vastly more complex strategic circumstances.

Despite continuing efforts to convince North Korea to relinquish its nuclear capability, it appears increasingly unlikely that it will ever do so. Pyongyang might be willing to curtail or freeze certain parts of the program but the likelihood of North Korean denuclearization is quickly fading. With Pyongyang likely to retain some level of nuclear-weapons capability, analysis turns to an assessment of how these weapons might be integrated into its defense posture. Using deterrence theory as the analytical framework, this chapter examines possible avenues for North Korea's nuclear weapons strategy and doctrine.

This study assesses current U.S. policy options on the Iranian nuclear question. It suggests that U.S. goals can be met through patient and forward-looking policymaking. Specifically, the United States can begin to lay the groundwork for an effective containment policy while continuing efforts to forestall Iranian weaponization. A successful containment policy will promote long-term positive political change in Iran while avoiding counterproductive provocation.

This chapter examines the relationship between security assurances and North Korean nuclear decision-making by focusing on four key areas: key geopolitical shocks that had a major impact on the North Korean regime; main sources of security assurances for North Korea over its history; this volume's hypotheses on security assurances based on how North Korea reacted to geopolitical shocks; and conditions under which security assurances may be most effective in dealing with North Korea in the future.