Nuclear Issues

Characterizing the future performance of energy technologies can improve the development of energy policies that have net benefits under a broad set of future conditions. In particular, decisions about public investments in research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) that promote technological change can benefit from (1) an explicit consideration of the uncertainty inherent in the innovation process and (2) a systematic evaluation of the tradeoffs in investment allocations across different technologies. To shed light on these questions, over the past five years several groups in the United States and Europe have conducted expert elicitations and modeled the resulting societal benefits. In this paper, the authors discuss the lessons learned from the design and implementation of these initiatives.

Notable quotes from opeds and testimonies.

Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall's article in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

Through the capture of and subsequent announcement that it would release 15 British sailors and marines, the Islamic Republic of Iran sent its adversaries a pointed message: just as Iran will meet confrontation with confrontation, it will respond to what it perceives as flexibility with pragmatism. This message is worth heeding as the United States and Iran seem to be moving inexorably toward conflict.

"International history has witnessed trends toward and away from the amalgamation of disparate political units—in Europe and elsewhere...."

Council on Foreign Relations publication on the U.S.-Turkey relationship

"...how can the United States maximize the benefits that primacy brings and minimize the resistance that its power sometimes provokes?"

At the current rate, the global partnership will not secure Russia's loose nukes until 2017.

A paper by the National Security Advisory Group