Nuclear Issues

Calder Walton says both seek to topple the United States from atop world stage, with China's blend of money, influence, all-hands-on-deck approach posing the greater threat.

Scott Sagan asked Joseph S. Nye to revisit Nuclear Ethics, a book he published in 1986, in light of current developments in world affairs. In doing so, he found that much had changed but the basic usability paradox of nuclear deterrence remains the same. 

Joseph Nye writes that even at this early stage, there are at least eight lessons— some old, some new— that the world is learning (or relearning) from the war in Ukraine.

Joseph Nye argues that prudence results from the fear of creating unintended consequences in unpredictable systems and can develop into a norm of nonuse or limited use of certain weapons or a norm of limiting targets. Something like this happened with nuclear weapons when the superpowers came close to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. The Limited Test Ban Treaty followed a year later.

It seems unlikely that Russia will again possess the resources to balance U.S. power in the same way that the Soviet Union did during the four decades after World War II. But declining powers merit as much diplomatic attention as rising ones do. Joseph S. Nye worries that the United States lacks a strategy to prevent Russia from becoming an international spoiler.

On June 3, 2010, current and former members of Harvard University's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, gathered at Harvard's Eliot House to celebrate PAUL DOTY's 90th birthday. This event, which followed Harvard's 2010 Paul Doty Lecture, included numerous stories and praise for Doty, who founded what is now the Belfer Center and the Molecular and Cellular Biology department. (This is a transcript of the comments at the shevent.)

We celebrate Paul Doty, founder and director emeritus of the Belfer Center and member of our board of directors, as well as emeritus professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry, emeritus, at Harvard. We share a snapshot of Paul's life and his contributions to science and international security. At 90, he continues his outstanding contributions to the Belfer Center and global community through his ongoing research, insights, and guidance.