Nuclear Issues

As George Orwell once observed, some ideas are so absurd that only the intelligentsia could hold them; ordinary people would not be so foolish. A case in point is a reported proposal to allow the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium and reprocess spent reactor fuel—two activities that could bring it within weeks of acquiring nuclear weapons—under a developing civil nuclear cooperation agreement.

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.

A new study from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) examines the challenges to strategic stability between the United States and Russia and proposes a series of recommendations for navigating the dangers ahead.

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of nuclear miscalculation against the backdrop of today’s rapidly evolving global security threats, the need to rethink outdated nuclear deterrence postures, and the imperative to prevent nuclear proliferations and develop new fuel-cycle policy solutions.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.

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un trading threats with words like “fire and fury”; Pakistan deploying tactical nuclear weapons to counter Indian conventional threats; Russia enunciating an Orwellian doctrine of “escalate-to-de-escalate” that calls for early use of battlefield nuclear weapons; and major nuclear-weapons states modernizing their arsenals — nukes are back. The cruel irony: This is happening after eight years of a president who won the Nobel Peace Prize largely for his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

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.

When I began my career in elementary particle physics, the great figures who taught and inspired me had been part of the Manhattan Project generation that developed the atomic bomb. They were proud to have created a “disruptive” technology that ended World War II and deterred a third world war through more than 50 years of tense East-West standoff. They were also proud to have made nuclear power possible. But their understanding of the underlying technology also gave them a deep regard for the awesome, unavoidable risks that came with those technologies.

Ash Carter discusses public service, opening the military to transgender troops, and North Korea's latest missile launch with actor Jim Parsons on his SiriusXM radio show "Jim Parsons Is Too Stupid For Politics."

Muammar al-Qadhafi’s induced renunciation of Libya’s nuclear, chemical, and longer-range ballistic weapons programs was a signal accomplishment for US and British nonproliferation policy. Thus, the case holds particular interest for those studying how the intelligence and policy communities work together to prevent nuclear proliferation. Yet, Libya’s decision evolved fitfully and during a dark period for efforts to curb the spread of atomic weapons. In early 2003, Washington was still traumatized by the September 11th terrorist attacks, and anguished that al Qaeda was plotting even more gruesome assaults. The Iraq War was unleashed, in part, out of dread that nuclear weapons could be fused with terrorism. As then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice explained, “given what we have experienced on September 11, I don’t think anyone wants to wait for the 100-percent surety that he has a weapon of mass destruction that can reach the United States, because the only time we may be 100-percent sure is when something lands on our territory. We can’t afford to wait.”2 Worse still, from the US perspective, a nuclear proliferation tsunami appeared to be cresting, not only from Iraq, but also in Iran, North Korea, Libya, and elsewhere. These broad perceptions and fears by nonproliferation policymakers and intelligence officers informed their approach to the Libya case.