Nuclear Issues

Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian recounts his 544 days in an Iranian prison during a talk with R. Nicholas Burns of the Harvard Kennedy School.

Policymakers have long focused on preventing nuclear weapons proliferation by controlling technology. Even developing countries, however, may now possess the technical ability to create nuclear weapons. The history of gas centrifuge development in twenty countries supports this perspective. To reduce the demand for nuclear weapons, policymakers will have look toward the cultural, normative, and political organization of the world.

Matthew Fuhrmann's article "Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements," was published by in the Summer 2009 issue of International Security. In his article, Dr. Fuhrmann argues "Peaceful nuclear cooperation—the transfer of nuclear technology, materials, or know-how from one state to another for peaceful purposes—leads to the spread of nuclear weapons. With a renaissance in nuclear power on the horizon, major suppliers, including the United States, should reconsider their willingness to assist other countries in developing peaceful nuclear programs."

Failure to develop a comprehensive contingency plan, such as the one proposed here, and inform the American public, where appropriate, about its particulars will only serve to amplify the devastating impact of any nuclear attack on a U.S. city

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

"...[T]here are plenty of laws that require or authorize sanctions against governments that knowingly provide direct support to proliferators. But these laws offer little protection against those governments that—through neglect, corruption, or incompetence—fail to keep the materials and technology needed to make nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons from slipping out of their control and across their borders."

Despite extensive diplomatic efforts to facilitate the six-party talks, domestic policy constraints, differing priorities, and conflicting historical analogies among each of the countries have brought vastly differing perspectives to the multilateral negotiating table.

Article by Dr. Ashton B. Carter and L. Celeste Johnson in National Security Studies Quarterly

Carter, Deutch, and Zelikow addresses the threat of Catastrophic Terrorism in Foreign Affairs.