Nuclear Issues

Joseph Nye considers lessons from his own work on preventing the spread of nuclear technology in the 1970s.

To date, the U.S. government has not declared that it no longer reserves a purported right to target civilians by way of reprisal, in response to an unlawful attack against U.S. or allied civilians. As we have argued elsewhere, and as Adil Haque recently called on the Biden administration to do, it is time for the United States to acknowledge that customary international law today prohibits targeting civilians in reprisal for an adversary’s violations of the law of war.

Rebecca Davis Gibbons writes that having a full appreciation of the consequences of nuclear weapons and their place in society means learning from the stories of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—but also from the stories from other survivors of nuclear explosions: those who lived and worked adjacent to testing sites in Algeria, French Polynesia, Australia, the United States, France, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Western China, and Kazakhstan.

Rebecca Davis Gibbons and Stephen Herzog provide an update on current efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. 

Despite the continuing debate in Tehran, the principle of “no negotiation under pressure” with the United States remains a consensual principle among all members of the current regime. The Supreme Leader has expressed this position by stating that the negotiations with the Trump administration are “double poison”. While Iran’s regional enemies are pushing for confrontation, the international community remains supportive of Tehran’s political position, as long as it stays committed to the nuclear deal. Existing indicators do not point at any willingness for confrontation from either side – at least at the moment. And although some regional actors have attempted to pacify the tension, the prospects for a truce remain unlikely within the current context.