Nuclear Issues

When do states acquire nuclear weapons? History shows that only two types of states decide that the bomb is essential to their security: 1) very powerful states; and 2) weak states that lack ironclad security guarantees.

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.

"...[A] primary goal in the next decades must be to remove this risk of near global self-destruction by drastically reducing nuclear forces to a level where this outcome is not possible, but where a deterrent value is preserved — in other words, to a level of minimum deterrence. This conception was widely discussed in the early years of the nuclear era, but it drowned in the Cold War flood of weaponry. No matter how remote the risk of civilization collapse may seem now — despite its being so vivid only a few decades ago — the elimination of this risk, for this century and centuries to come, must be a primary driver for radical reductions in nuclear weapons."

How might Iran retaliate in the aftermath of a limited Israeli or U.S. strike? The most economically devastating of Iran's potential responses would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz. According to open-source order of battle data, as well as relevant analogies from military history and GIS maps, Iran does possess significant littoral warfare capabilities, including mines, antiship cruise missiles, and land-based air defense. If Iran were able to properly link these capabilities, it could halt or impede traffic in the Strait of Hormuz for a month or more. U.S. attempts to reopen the waterway likely would escalate rapidly into sustained, large-scale air and naval operations during which Iran could impose significant economic and military costs on the United States — even if Iranian operations were not successful in truly closing the strait. The aftermath of limited strikes on Iran would be complicated and costly, suggesting needed changes in U.S. force posture and energy policy.

"How has a state whose founding fathers were secular people who believed in rule of law and democracy drifted toward religious extremism and authoritarianism? Three primary factors—variations on the Triple A theory of influence (Allah, the Army, and America)—have led Pakistan down this path: a powerful independent military, the mushrooming of religious militant groups, and the hydra-headed monster that is the intelligence services."

A universal Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), which would ban the production of fissile material (separated plutonium, highly enriched uranium (HEU), and uranium-233) for nuclear weapons, has long been seen as a key building block in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Dr. Ashton B. Carter explains the counterproliferation policies needed to successfully wage a war on Weapons of Mass Destruction.