Nuclear Issues

125 Items

Tractors on Westminster bridge

AP/Matt Dunham

Paper - Institut für Sicherheitspolitik

The Global Order After COVID-19

| 2020

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.

Russian President Vladimir Putin with U.S. President Donald Trump

Wikimedia CC/Kremlin.ru

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

How to Deal with a Declining Russia

| Nov. 05, 2019

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.

An unarmed Minuteman 3 ICBM launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California on Wednesday, August 2, 2107. (Senior Airman Ian Dudley/Vandenberg Air Force Base via AP)

Senior Airman Ian Dudley/Vandenberg Air Force Base via AP

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

Pentagon Suggests Countering Devastating Cyberattacks With Nuclear Arms

| Jan. 16, 2018

A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.

Lesson one for Rick Perry: The Energy Department doesn’t produce much energy

Gage Skidmore

Analysis & Opinions - The Conversation

Lesson one for Rick Perry: The Energy Department doesn’t produce much energy

| December 14, 2016

A former governor of Texas – the state that produces more crude oil, natural gas, lignite coal, wind power and refined petroleum products than any other – would seem to be a natural choice for secretary of energy. Yet, assuming he is confirmed by the Senate, Rick Perry will face a paradox.

Journal Article - Risk Analysis

Bridging the Gap between Social Acceptance and Ethical Acceptability

| 2016

New technology brings great benefits, but it can also create new and significant risks. When evaluating those risks in policymaking, there is a tendency to focus on social acceptance. By solely focusing on social acceptance, important ethical aspects of technological risk could be overlooked, particularly when evaluating technologies with transnational and intergenerational risks. The author examines the case of multinational nuclear waste repositories.

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

American Nuclear Diplomacy

| August 4, 2016

In this report, American Nuclear Diplomacy: Forging a New Consensus to Fight Climate Change and Weapons Proliferation, Former Deputy Secretary of Energy and Belfer Center Senior Fellow Daniel Poneman writes that we face two existential threats: nuclear annihilation and catastrophic climate change. Each, he says, stems from human origins. Both must be fought aggressively.

"Multiple studies confirm the grim truth that, even if all nations fulfill their Paris Climate Agreement emissions pledges, the world will still far overshoot the 2°C warming limit scientists say we must not exceed to prevent devastating climate impacts. Carbon-free nuclear energy can help close the gap. But can we expand its environmental benefits without increasing the risks of nuclear terror?"

Poneman outlines a diplomatic strategy and tough-minded, bipartisan policies to get us there.