Nuclear Issues

177 Items

The USS Vesole, foreground, a radar picket ship, steams alongside the Soviet freighter Polzunov, outbound from Cuba, for an inspection of her cargo in the Atlantic Ocean, Nov. 11, 1962

AP Photo/Pool

Analysis & Opinions - Arms Control Today

The Cuban Missile Crisis at 60: Six Timeless Lessons for Arms Control

| October 2022

As the best documented major crisis in history, in substantial part because Kennedy secretly taped the deliberations in which he and his closest advisers were weighing choices they knew could lead to a catastrophic war, the Cuban missile crisis has become the canonical case study in nuclear statecraft. Over the decades since, key lessons from the crisis have been adapted and applied by the successors of Kennedy and Khrushchev to inform fateful choices.

Book - Public Affairs

The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters

| March 2022

In The Devil Never Sleeps,  Juliette Kayyem lays the groundwork for a new “fail safely” approach to dealing with disasters. The book shares lessons on how to better prepare for that moment. Kayyem examines notable crises, like the Challenger explosion, California wildfires, and the power outage at Super Bowl XLVII, detailing the choices people made along the way and how they impacted outcomes.

Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong, China, in 2019.

EDF Energy via Wikimedia Commons

Book Chapter - Cambridge University Press

Enabling a Significant Nuclear Role in China’s Decarbonization

| Dec. 02, 2021

While China is building nuclear reactors faster than any other country in the world, major constraints may limit nuclear energy’s ability to grow to the scale of hundreds of gigawatts that would be required for it to play a major part in decarbonizing China’s energy system. This chapter explores the major constraints on, and risks of, large-scale nuclear energy growth in China, and how both new policies and new technologies might address them. It focuses particularly on the two biggest constraints – economics and siting. Substantial government policies to support nuclear power and advanced reactor systems designed to address some of the key constraints are both likely to be needed for nuclear to have a chance of playing a major role in decarbonizing China’s energy system; nuclear energy’s role may be bigger in the second half of this century than in the first half.

President Joe Biden delivers a speech on voting rights

AP/Evan Vucci

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Could the United States Still Lead the World if It Wanted to?

| July 15, 2021

Stephen Walt asks whether the United States is a good model for other liberal states and whether its policy judgments are ones that others should trust and follow, especially with respect to foreign policy.  He argues that—on balance—the answer to both questions is "no."

Americans watch President Kennedy speak on television during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

James Vaughan/Flickr

Journal Article - Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament

Nuclear Hotlines: Origins, Evolution, Applications

| 2021

Soviet and American leaders learned during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 that inadequate communication raised perilous risks and dangers in the nuclear age. The US–Soviet Hotline was created soon thereafter, in 1963, and has operated continuously ever since. It was intended to provide a quick, reliable, confidential, ever-ready communications between heads of state in the event of crisis or war.  Hotlines remain a prudent, low-cost preparation that could prove essential in the event of a crisis that seems to be slipping out of control.

Julius Weitzdörfer speaks at a seminar on managing the impact of nuclear disasters.

Benn Craig/Belfer Center

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

Julius Weitzdörfer: Managing the Impact of Nuclear Disasters

| Fall/Winter 2019-2020

Julius Weitzdörfer’s earliest childhood memories are the major global events of 1986—the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion and the Chernobyl disaster. Looking back, he realizes that these events must have contributed to shaping his later research interests in managing technological risks. 

Cathryn Cluver Ashbrook on NDR

NDR

Analysis & Opinions - Norddeutscher Rundfunk

Cathryn Cluver Ashbrook discusses importance of wording of the G-20 communique on NDR Aktuell Extra (in German)

| July 07, 2017

Cathryn Cluver Ashbrook, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project, discusses the importance of the final wording of the G-20 communique, particularly with respect to the climate change and energy policy dossiers, noting different approaches to achieve transatlantic compromise. She underlines the importance of high-level meetings such as the G-20 to address critical global challenges, including multilateral responses to North Korea’s provocations and the ongoing conflict in Syria.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi, left, meet at an hotel in Vienna, July 9, 2015

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Scientific American

How International Cooperation in Research Advances Both Science and Diplomacy

| Apr. 27, 2017

"The partial budget blueprint released by the White House recently will put U.S. leadership in science and technology at serious risk if Congress goes along. In addition to the obvious damage that would result from the proposed $5.8 billion cut at NIH, the $2 billion cut in applied energy R&D, the $900 million cut in DOE’s Office of Science, the abolition of ARPA-E, and the research cuts at NOAA and EPA, a less immediately obvious potential casualty would be U.S. scientific cooperation with a wide variety of other countries on a wide variety of topics."

President Barack Obama meets with members of this national security team and cybersecurity advisers.

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Stat

Why President Trump Needs to Finally Name a Science Advisor

| Apr. 05, 2017

"Every president stocks the White House with people who can advise him on the economy, national defense, and foreign relations. And nearly all presidents in modern times have understood that science and technology are so central to all of those top-tier issues — and practically every other issue on the nation’s agenda — that science and technology advice in the White House is no less essential."