Nuclear Issues

20 Items

US and Ukrainian soldiers stand guard during opening ceremony of the 'Fiarles Guardian - 2015', Ukrainian-US Peacekeeping and Security command and staff training, in western Ukraine, in Lviv region, Monday, April 20, 2015.

(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Magazine Article - The National Interest

Russia and America: Stumbling to War

| May-June 2015

In the United States and Europe, many believe that the best way to prevent Russia’s resumption of its historic imperial mission is to assure the independence of Ukraine. They insist that the West must do whatever is required to stop the Kremlin from establishing direct or indirect control over that country. Otherwise, they foresee Russia reassembling the former Soviet empire and threatening all of Europe. Conversely, in Russia, many claim that while Russia is willing to recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (with the exception of Crimea), Moscow will demand no less than any other great power would on its border. Security on its western frontier requires a special relationship with Ukraine and a degree of deference expected in major powers’ spheres of influence. More specifically, Russia’s establishment sentiment holds that the country can never be secure if Ukraine joins NATO or becomes a part of a hostile Euro-Atlantic community. From their perspective, this makes Ukraine’s nonadversarial status a nonnegotiable demand for any Russia powerful enough to defend its national-security interests.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, centre, hosts the Budapest Memorandum Ministerial meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Deshchytsia, right, and British Foreign Secretary William Hague, left, in Paris, Wednesday, March 5, 2014.

(AP Photo/Kevin Lamarque, Pool)

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Back in the USSR: Past Russian Policies Provide Mr. Putin’s Playbook in Ukraine

| March 18, 2014

Since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and Crimea, much attention has been focused on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which provided Ukraine with security assurances in return for Kyiv signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and giving up the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the collapse of the USSR. Twenty years ago––before that memorandum was signed by the Russian Federation, the United States and the United Kingdom––Ukraine and Crimea were also plunged into a state of turmoil. The Russian government of President Boris Yeltsin put economic, security and territorial pressure on Kyiv to press Moscow’s advantage in a series of disputes about Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal and the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol and other Crimean peninsula ports.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Belfer Center Spring 2014 Newsletter

| Spring 2014

The Spring 2014 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s deepening engagement with China and increasing collaboration with Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance around critical issues related to China. We announce former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a new Belfer Center senior fellow who will lead efforts to explore possibilities and impacts of a new strategic China-U.S. relationship. Read about this and much more.

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Analysis & Opinions - The Irish Times

The Possibility of Armageddon

| August 3, 2005

The legacy of Hiroshima: The bombing of Hiroshima 60 years ago accelerated the end of the second World War. But it also ushered in a new era in world history. Tom Wright explores how the nuclear bomb transformed military thinking with the advent of the terrifying strategic concept of Mutually Assured Destruction.