Nuclear Issues

Since 2003, India has been building its nuclear arsenal beyond what is necessary for a purely retaliatory or minimum deterrence capability. India’s actions could lead to a regional arms race or even the use of nuclear weapons in a war with Pakistan.

A interview conducted by The Fletcher School Forum with Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

All the world's nuclear-armed states (except for North Korea) have begun modernizing and upgrading their arsenals, leading many observers to predict that the world is entering a new nuclear arms race. While that outcome is not yet inevitable, it is likely, and if it happens, the new nuclear arms race will be different and more dangerous than the one we remember. More nuclear-armed countries in total, and three competing great powers rather than two, will make the competition more complex. Meanwhile, new non-nuclear weapon technologies — such as ballistic missile defense, anti-satellite weapons, and precision-strike missile technology — will make nuclear deterrence relationships that were once somewhat stable less so.

The risks of nuclear escalation are greater than ever given the possibility of misinterpreted cyber espionage and military strikes against early warning systems. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Washington last week, making his fourth trip to the United States since taking office just two years ago. India and South Asia Program Fellow, Ronak Desai examines the strategic approach to India's relations with the United States.

Many energy consumers, and even analysts and policymakers, confront and frame energy and climate risks in a moral vacuum, rarely incorporating broader social justice concerns. Here, to remedy this gap, we investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as pressing justice concerns.

Christopher Clary and Gaurav Kampani respond to Jaganath Sankaran's winter 2015/16 article, "Pakistan's Battlefield Nuclear Policy: A Risky Solution to an Exaggerated Threat."