Nuclear Issues

74 Items

President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One after a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019, in Hanoi.

(AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

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

Reactions to Collapse of Trump-Kim Summit 2019

Feb. 28, 2019

Following the breakdown of  the Trump-Kim Summit in Hanoi, Belfer Center Korea experts Matthew Bunn, Nicholas Burns, Martin Malin, Joseph Nye, Gary Samore, Wendy Sherman, and Jon Wolfsthal react to the collapse of the talks and suggest steps the United States should take now.

A member of the Czech Army takes part in an anti-terrorism drill at the Temelin nuclear power plant near the town of Tyn nad Vltavou, Czech Republic, April 11, 2017 (REUTERS/David W Cerny).

REUTERS/David W Cerny

News

Project on Managing the Atom Releases New Report, "Revitalizing Nuclear Security in an Era of Uncertainty"

| Jan. 29, 2019

In their new report, “Revitalizing Nuclear Security in an Era of Uncertainty,” Matthew Bunn, Nickolas Roth, and William Tobey document the global community’s continuing steps to improve security for weapons-usable nuclear material in five areas that are key to nuclear security: broad protection against the full range of realistic threats; comprehensive programs to protect against insider threats; strong security cultures within nuclear organizations; realistic assessment and testing of security systems; and consolidation of weapons-usable nuclear materials. 

Reagan and Gorbachev signing INF Treaty in 1987

(AP Photo/Bob Daugherty)

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

Center Experts Comment on Significance of Withdrawing from INF Treaty

Following the news that the Trump administration plans to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, ten Belfer Center nuclear and U.S.-Russia relations experts offered their thoughts on the significance and consequences of this action.
 

Dr. Gary Samore, Ambassadors Danny Russel and Chris Hill, and Dr. John Park offer their insights on U.S.-North Korean relations. 

Benn Craig/Belfer Center

News - Harvard Kennedy School

Dealing With North Korea: Insights From U.S. Negotiators

    Author:
  • Nora Delaney
| June 21, 2018

The historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore this month (June 12) has drawn both skepticism and optimism from experts. A panel of senior American and South Korean diplomats with experience negotiating with North Korea weighed in at an event hosted by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs’ Korea Working Group on Tuesday (June 19).

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson listens as President Donald Trump announces that the United States will designate North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Monday, Nov. 20, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

News - The Economist

Donald Trump May Be Bluffing Over a Pre-Emptive Strike on North Korea

    Author:
  • David Rennie
| Jan. 25, 2018

The last time that America almost risked a pre-emptive strike on North Korea the gamble offered a spectacular pay-off. Ashton Carter, a leading architect of that plan, recalls that his scheme for bombing the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 1994 assumed that in one or two days the entirety of the regime’s nuclear programme could be levelled and entombed in rubble. Mr Carter, who went on to become defence secretary in the Obama administration, now thinks that an American first strike would only put “a significant dent” in North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear devices and bombmaking sites. “The difference today is that the North Koreans are very good at hiding, burying and moving around their nuclear infrastructure,” says Mr Carter, now at Harvard University.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall

U.S. Department of Energy

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

Former Deputy Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall Named Senior Fellow With Harvard's Belfer Center

| July 12, 2017

Former Deputy Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is joining Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as a Senior Fellow, the Center announced today. Sherwood-Randall, who has served in the White House and Departments of Energy and Defense, is returning to the Center where she worked in the 1990s to help establish two pioneering projects – the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project with Graham Allison, who this month stepped down as the Center’s director, and the Preventive Defense Project with Ash Carter, the former Secretary of Defense who is the new Belfer Center director.