Nuclear Issues

121 Items

People practice combat skills in urban areas during a training course for national resistance of the Municipal Guard near Kyiv, Ukraine, on Jan. 19, 2024.

AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

Journal Article - International Security

A “Nuclear Umbrella” for Ukraine? Precedents and Possibilities for Postwar European Security

| Winter 2023/24

Europe after the Russo-Ukrainian War must develop a new security structure to defend against any Russian aggression. The safest option is a non-offensive, confidence-building defense. This option includes proposals such as the “spider in the web” strategy and the “porcupine” strategy to provide for European security in a region threatened by Russian expansion—without relying on the threat of nuclear war. 

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Analysis & Opinions - Russia Matters

Mutiny in Russia: What Happened, What’s Next and What To Be Thankful For

| June 29, 2023

What drove Yevgeny Prigozhin to lead his PMC Wagner troops on a “march for justice” across southern Russia, toward Moscow? Was it a mutiny meant to overthrow Vladimir Putin and install the ex-convict in the Kremlin? Or was the owner and political leader of Russia’s most powerful private army actually — as he assured his followers — trying to convince Putin to meet his demands, which included the firing of his arch-enemies and Russia’s top generals, Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, over their poor conduct in the Ukraine war? And what made Prigozhin agree to abort the march toward Moscow, with Wagner’s reconnaissance teams reportedly spotted some 55miles south of the Russian capital, even though his demands had been left unmet? More importantly, has the rebellion weakened Putin, or has it made him stronger? And what’s next for Russia, Ukraine, and other countries whose national interests have been affected by this crisis? Finally, should we be thankful that the “march for justice” turned out the way it went? Despite having combed through hundreds of primary sources over the past several days, I still don’t have definitive answers to all of these key questions, but here’s how I would go about answering some of them if asked to do so, based on what was known as of June 29.

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Presentation

Dynamics of Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism Threats to Post-Soviet Russia

    Editor:
  • Angelina Flood
| June 21, 2022

Simon Saradzhyan was invited to publicly brief the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee addressing the adequacy of strategies to prevent, counter, and respond to nuclear terrorism, and identify technical, policy, and resource gaps. The consensus study is a congressionally mandated analysis included in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 1299I) sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy).  Nearly 60 stakeholders concerned about this topic from the Department of Defense, US Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, State Department, National Security Council, US Congress, the National Labs, and many non-governmental organizations were in attendance. The briefings are available at the NAS event website. Video of the presentation can be found here.

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Analysis & Opinions - The Guardian

Fears mount for safety of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors amid Russian invasion

| Feb. 25, 2022

Concerns are mounting about the safety of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors and the possibility of an ecological disaster in the midst of the Russian invasion.

“There are contingencies but I doubt that these power plants have prepared for a full-scale invasion,” said Mariana Budjeryn, a Ukrainian research associate with Harvard University’s project on managing the atom. “In the middle of a large scale conflict, there’s a myriad of things that could happen, for which normal, even very robust, safety procedures at a nuclear power plant [would be insufficient].”

Recovery work is performed on Unit 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in April 2013.

IAEA Imagebank/Wikimedia Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Nuclear Safety and Security Lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima

| Mar. 11, 2021
  1. We must learn from and remember the lessons of the past—while recognizing that Fukushima is not going to “happen again” as future accidents will have their own characteristics; while remembering the past, we must also avail ourselves of advances in seismology, climatology, engineering, etc.

Steam billowing from cooling tower of nuclear power plant

AP Photo/David Veis/CTK

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market

| Spring 2019

What explains the scale and speed of nuclear proliferation? One key factor is the level of competition among suppliers in the market for nuclear materials and technologies. When suppliers form a cartel, fewer countries can acquire what they need for a nuclear weapons program. If great power competition intensifies, suppliers will find it harder to cooperate and nuclear proliferation could accelerate.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual news conference in Moscow

AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Journal Article - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

How the Next Nuclear Arms Race Will Be Different from the Last One

| 2019

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.