Nuclear Issues

Fmr. Amb. Nicholas Burns joins Morning Joe to discuss the naming of John Bolton as the new national security adviser. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also joins the conversation.

The world has crossed over to a new nuclear era, where a fateful error -- rather than intentional aggression -- is the most likely catalyst to nuclear catastrophe.

CSIS hosted Ernest J. Moniz, the co-chair and CEO of NTI and former U.S. Secretary of Energy, for a discussion in which he addressed the increased risk of nuclear miscalculation against the backdrop of today’s rapidly evolving global security threats, the need to rethink outdated nuclear deterrence postures, and the imperative to prevent nuclear proliferations and develop new fuel-cycle policy solutions. Moniz also discussed the future of the Iran nuclear agreement and the current crisis with North Korea. His remarks were followed by a discussion with John Hamre, president and CEO of CSIS.

Air Vice Marshall (Ret.) of the Indian Air Force and Fellow at Harvard's Asia Institute, Dr. Arjun Subramaniam spoke at the Future of Diplomacy Project with its Faculty Director, Nicholas Burns about the intricacies of the India-China relationship.

Although Russia has evolved in many ways since 1991, it’s worth taking a second look at the drivers behind the Soviet collapse and assessing which of them may be relevant for today’s Russia or could become relevant in the near to medium-term future.

This week the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that 546 kilograms of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) shipped from Japan arrived in the United States.

In mid-July, as an attempted coup was taking place in Turkey, many in the United States wondered whether U.S. tactical nuclear weapons stored at the Turkish airbase, Incirlik, were adequately protected against theft. Congressional Research Service Nuclear Weapons Policy Specialist, Amy Woolf, recently published a short article describing some of the security systems surrounding those weapons.

On May 8, after more than a decade, the 2005 amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) entered into force.The amendment summarizes nuclear security principles and obligates states to develop rules and regulations for physical protection.

Matthew Bunn and Gary Samore just published an op-ed arguing that the program to build a factory that converts excess plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons into plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel for nuclear reactors has become too expensive. Although the two helped to launch the program in the mid-90s, they argue "It is time to stop throwing good money after bad and pursue cheaper alternatives that will serve our national security better" and "whatever we do with this plutonium in the long term, we should move to put it under international monitoring, and commit never again to use it in weapons..." You can read their complete argument here.