Nuclear Issues

12 Items

Vietnamese sky raider pulls out of its bomb run after a phosphorous bomb explodes

AP/Nick Ut

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

Judging Henry Kissinger

| Nov. 30, 2023

Joseph S. Nye writes that evaluating ethics in international relations is difficult, and Kissinger's legacy is particularly complex. Over his long tenure in government, he had many great successes, including with China and the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Kissinger also had major failures, including in how the Vietnam War ended. But on net, his legacy is positive. In a world haunted by the specter of nuclear war, his decisions made the international order more stable and safer.

Joseph Nye

Martha Stewart

Audio - Harvard Magazine

How Do Past Presidents Rank in Foreign Policy?

| Mar. 02, 2020

How do presidents incorporate morality into decisions involving the national interest? Moral considerations explain why Truman, who authorized the use of nuclear weapons in Japan during World War II, later refused General MacArthur's request to use them in China during the Korean War. What is contextual intelligence, and how does it explain why Bush 41 is ranked first in foreign policy, but Bush 43 is found wanting? Is it possible for a president to lie in the service of the public interest? In this episode, Professor Joseph S. Nye considers these questions as he explores the role of morality in presidential decision-making from FDR to Trump.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Belfer Experts Work to Strengthen Nuclear Security

| Spring 2016

In the months and weeks before the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., Belfer experts promoted a series of ideas to strengthen measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons or the essential ingre­dients to make them.

Analysis & Opinions - The Boston Globe

Fidel Castro at Harvard: How History Might Have Changed

| April 25, 2015

FIFTY-SIX YEARS ago today, in 1959, a 32-year-old victorious revolutionary named Fidel Castro arrived at Back Bay Station to face a raucous crowd of 5,000 Bostonians.

Graham Allison writes in the Boston Globe that Castro was headed to Harvard, his last stop on a 12-day trip along the East Coast....Castro’s visit aroused so much excitement that Harvard had no auditorium large enough to host his speech. So the Harvard football stadium was converted into an amphitheater.

"The social sciences rarely allow for controlled experiments where we can test initiatives for cause and effect," Allison writes. "But occasionally the world around us offers its own clues. Is it accidental that the two states that have persisted the longest as bastions of Stalinist authoritarianism are the two that the US has most harshly isolated and sanctioned: North Korea and Cuba?"

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Belfer Center Newsletter Summer 2013

| Summer 2013

The Summer 2013 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s expanding work on complex cybersecurity issues and Middle East challenges, offers reflections on the role of the U.S. in Iraq, and spotlights work being done by the Center and its affiliates on environment and energy issues.

Book - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center and Nuclear Threat Initiative

Securing the Bomb 2010

| April 2010

Associate Professor of Public Policy and Project on Managing the Atom Co-Principal Investigator Matthew Bunn provides a comprehensive assessment of global efforts to secure and consolidate nuclear stockpiles, and a detailed action plan for securing all nuclear materials in four years.  Securing the Bomb 2010 was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The full report, with additional information on the threat of nuclear terrorism, is available for download on the NTI website.

Book - MIT Press Quarterly Journal: International Security

Going Nuclear: Nuclear Proliferation and International Security in the 21st Century

The spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most significant challenges to global security in the twenty-first century. Limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials may be the key to preventing a nuclear war or a catastrophic act of nuclear terrorism. Going Nuclear offers conceptual, historical, and analytical perspectives on current problems in controlling nuclear proliferation. It includes essays that examine why countries seek nuclear weapons as well as studies of the nuclear programs of India, Pakistan, and South Africa.

Book Chapter - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Preface to Going Nuclear

| January 2010

"Concern over nuclear proliferation is likely to increase in the coming years. Many observers believe that the spread of nuclear weapons to one or two more states will trigger a wave of new nuclear states. More states may turn to nuclear power to meet their energy needs as other sources of energy become more costly or undesirable because they emit carbon that contributes to global climate change. As more nuclear reactors are built, the world's stock of nuclear expertise and fissionable materials is likely to grow."

Book - Ecco

Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters

| May 2008

It's not just Bush and Cheney that are to blame. The system is broken. That's the message in this provocative sequel to Against All Enemies. When Richard Clarke apologized for 9-11, he never thought that there would be so many more government failures in so short a time, but climate change, Katrina, the struggle with al Qaeda, the insecurity in cyberspace, and the failure of homeland security all bespeak a larger problem, a systemic failure. Clarke documents the failures and suggests solutions for making government work better in its most important job, protecting us.