Nuclear Issues

Chuck Freilich analyzes Russia's growing influence n the Middle East.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons challenge is as serious a crisis an American president has faced since the end of the Cold War. That is why President Trump should tread carefully and wisely before hurtling us toward conflict in Asia.

On April 28, the Project on Managing the Atom joined the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, The Netherlands government, and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) in convening nuclear nonproliferation experts from around the world at the United Nations to participate in a Symposium on the 2015 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

"This isolation has left Tehran no option but to turn to Moscow. And, as relations between the US and Russia have deteriorated, the Middle Eastern state has the scope to become an evermore decisive and divisive factor."

French Minister of War Andre Maginot became infamous among military strategists for his fixation on a single route of attack that led to a fatal neglect of alternatives. Seeking to block a German invasion along the primary East-West axis, Maginot constructed an impregnable line of fortifications in the 1930s. He succeeded in preventing the attack he most feared, but when German panzers outflanked that line and rolled through Belgium in 1940, their attack from the rear led to France’s surrender in just six weeks.

Speaking at West Point last month, President Obama warned that “if nuclear materials are not secure, that poses a danger to American citizens.” Contrarily, recently proposed budget cuts could hamper work being done to ensure nuclear material never falls into the wrong hands. In his National Interest op-ed, Matthew Bunn makes the case that preventing nuclear danger should remain a top priority for Congress.

None of the leaders of the countries involved in the Iran nuclear talks in Geneva has failed to claim credit for the successful outcome, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is no exception.