Nuclear Issues

60 Items

FBI agents leave a raid in Trenton, N.J. on July 19, 2012

Julio Cortez/AP

Discussion Paper - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

The Long Arm

| February 2019

The networks of middlemen and intermediaries involved in the illicit procurement of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related goods and technologies often operate outside of the United States, which presents several legal and political challenges regarding U.S. trade control enforcement activities. This report considers the extraterritorial efforts of U.S. law enforcement in counterproliferation-related activities and their implications. In other words, how does the United States contend with violations of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related trade controls in overseas jurisdictions, and what are the implications for broader U.S. and international nonproliferation efforts, as well as wider international security and economic concerns? 

Wearing traditional Kazakh costumes on the shoulders, from left, U.S. astronaut Michael Hopkins and Russia's cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky attend a press conference in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, Tuesday, March 11, 2014, shortly after their landing aboard Soyuz TMA-10M capsule. Hopkins together with the two Russia's cosmonauts landed safely in the Kazakh steppe aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule after a stay of over five months aboard the International Space Station. (AP Photo/Vasily Maximov, pool)

AP Photo/Vasily Maximov, pool

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

US-Russian space cooperation: a model for nuclear security

| Mar. 07, 2017

This interdependence between the US and Russian space programs persists even though the two countries are now living through what some pundits describe as a new Cold War. There was a time not so long ago, however, when the two nations viewed space solely as an area of strategic competition. The steps that Washington and Moscow took to transform their space rivalry into cooperation can serve today as a model for working together to help prevent nuclear terrorism, no matter how strained relations may seem.

Announcement - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

2016-2017 Harvard Nuclear Policy Fellowships

| December 15, 2015

The Project on Managing the Atom offers fellowships for pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and mid-career researchers for one year, with a possibility for renewal, in the stimulating environment of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The online application for 2016-2017 fellowships opened December 15, 2015, and the application deadline is January 15, 2016. Recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2016.

Presentation - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

The China-India Space Race: Rhetoric or Reality?

| March 3, 2014

The space exploration agendas of China and India have progressed rapidly in the last decade, spanning from human spaceflight to missions to the Moon and Mars.  Their growing economies have made it possible to fund these programs at a level unconceivable before now. This has therefore stimulated the scientific communities in both states to be more ambitious. In this presentation to the Harvard University South Asia Institute, MTA/ISP Fellow Jaganath Sankaran explores the intracacies of this delicate relationship.

Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei, Nov. 9, 2012. China's astronauts remain banned from the International Space Station.

Wikimedia Commons

Analysis & Opinions - ISN Blog

Can Trust-Building Be Risk Free?

| November 29, 2013

"if both the top-down and bottom-up methods of trust building are never going to be risk free, is there a more plausible third option? For example, what if Washington and Beijing forget about trust-building and instead opt for a relationship based on mutual deterrence? Unfortunately, the risks of this option — arms racing, a return to a Cold War-like MAD doctrine, and forever teetering on the brink of conventional conflict — might not just upend US-China relations, they might sabotage regional and global security as well."

Presentation

Cyber Disorders: Rivalry and Conflict in a Global Information Age

| May 3, 2012

The risks posed by the proliferation of cyber weapons are gaining wide recognition among security planners. Yet the general reaction of scholars of international relations has been to neglect the cyber peril owing to its technical novelties and intricacies. This attitude amounts to either one or both of two claims: the problem is not of sufficient scale to warrant close inspection, or it is not comprehensible to a non-technical observer. This seminar challenged both assertions.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security

Paul Doty's Legacy Lives on Through Influential Journal

| Spring 2012

As soon as Paul Doty launched what is now Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 1974, he began planning a scholarly journal on international security. He shrugged off colleagues’ concerns that there would be little market for such a journal.Thirty-six years after the first issue appeared in the summer of 1976, the Belfer Center’s quarterly International Security consistently ranks No. 1 or No. 2 out of over 70 international affairs journals surveyed by Thomson Reuters each year.

June 5, 2008: Gotthard Lerch, right, watches the judges entering the courtroom in Stuttgart, Germany. He admitted to helping procure centrifuge parts for Libya, was convicted in 2008 on minor charges, and sentenced to time served in pretrial detention.

AP Photo

Magazine Article - TIME / time.com

Nuclear Proliferation: The Crime with No Punishment?

| September 16, 2011

"Nuclear proliferation is a crime that pays well. Those involved in the Khan network were made very wealthy for their efforts, and the inability of the international community to effectively punish them has resulted in a missed opportunity to provide a deterrent against future black-market salesmen."

U.S. Navy Captain James W. Kilby in the control room of the Guided Missile Carrier USS Monterey, docked in Antwerp, Belgium, on Mar. 31, 2011. It is the first ship to become a part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach of the missile defense mission.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - World Politics Review

Academic Stovepipes Undermine U.S. Security

| April 14, 2011

"Missile defense represents the most severe collision of space, nuclear weapons and politics. Accustomed to technological miracles, Americans assume that technical problems can always be fixed with enough money. Engineers are not asked if missile defense is a viable solution to the horrific threat of nuclear warheads carried on missiles, and political analysts do not care about the difficulties involved in developing hardware. In the end, this disconnect could produce a situation where a U.S. president is asked to rely on a system that technical experts cannot assure him will work but that political advisers insist must be brandished."

This image provided by the U.S. Department of Defense shows an infrared image of the Missile Defense Agency’s Airborne Laser Testbed, right point, destroying a target missile, left point, on Feb. 11, 2010.

AP Photo

Journal Article - China Security

Space, Stability and Nuclear Strategy: Rethinking Missile Defense

| Forthcoming Summer 2010

"...[T]he United States has spent several tens of billions of dollars on missile defense research-and yet China, Iran, North Korea and possibly others have continued to pursue increasingly effective long-range ballistic capabilities. If missile defenses are a deterrent, why do US competitors-to say nothing of outright enemies-seem undeterred?"