Nuclear Issues

Joseph S. Nye advises a new administration to take a new approach with North Korea and try a negotiated package, although the prospects are not good. if it fails, however, the United States and South Korea should not panic.

Despite the far-reaching effects of the current pandemic,  the essential nature of world politics will not be transformed. The territorial state will remain the basic building-block of international affairs, nationalism will remain a powerful political force, and the major powers will continue to compete for influence in myriad ways. Global institutions, transnational networks, and assorted non-state actors will still play important roles, of course, but the present crisis will not produce a dramatic and enduring increase in global governance or significantly higher levels of international cooperation. In short, the post-COVID-19 world will be less open, less free, less prosperous, and more competitive than the world many people expected to emerge only a few years ago.

Joseph Nye's new book rates the efforts of presidents from FDR to Trump.

Joseph Nye writes that some decoupling of interdependence is likely, particularly in areas related to technology that directly affect national security. But will Washington and Beijing go too far?

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.

Mariana Budjeryn recounts Ukraine's surrender of its inherited nuclear arsenal and the signing of the Budapest Memorandum by the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia. While the memorandum did not specify the assistance Ukraine was to receive if it became a victim of aggression, Ukrainians were led to believe that the United States would uphold its commitments to their security in the time of need, as Ukraine upheld its commitment to nuclear nonproliferation norms.

Stephen Walt writes that getting a new nuclear deal with Iran won't be easy—but the U.S. president's utter lack of principle could help guide the way.

The competition between the United States and China will decide the continent's fate—and one of them has a head start.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has asked top experts from a variety of countries and with a variety of points of view to offer their best and most realistic advice on how the U.S.-Iran impasse might be broken, so a war that neither the United States nor Iran seems eager to begin can be averted. Chuck Freilich writes that the objective is a better deal, and a combination of coercive diplomacy, applied patiently over time, along with a willingness to compromise may make this possible. A "better deal" can only be achieved, however, if it is better for both sides. 

Stephen Walt writes an open letter to Donald Trump on how to deal with the Islamic Republic—and his own administration.