Nuclear Issues

Joseph Nye considers lessons from his own work on preventing the spread of nuclear technology in the 1970s.

David W. Kearn argues that deployment of nuclear weapons cannot rectify a perceived imbalance in conventional forces in the western Pacific.

As Israel begins its ground invasion in Gaza, Niall Ferguson and Jay Mens on the hard strategic decisions facing the West.

This year's G7 summit in Hiroshima sees nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation sitting high on the agenda, amid rising tensions between the nuclear states and an increasingly divided international order.  Six contributors offer their analyses, including the Belfer Center's Mayumi Fukushima.

Joseph Nye argues that prudence results from the fear of creating unintended consequences in unpredictable systems and can develop into a norm of nonuse or limited use of certain weapons or a norm of limiting targets. Something like this happened with nuclear weapons when the superpowers came close to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. The Limited Test Ban Treaty followed a year later.

Every president serving in the last two decades has said that nuclear terrorism is a significant national security threat. Analysis of this threat has been, for good reason, mostly focused on foreign extremist groups, but recent events raise questions of whether there should be greater focus in the United States on far-right, domestic extremist threats. These extremists represent a unique danger because of their prevalence in federal institutions such as the military and the potential that they might infiltrate nuclear facilities, where they could access sensitive information and nuclear materials.

Stephan Walt writes that Trump's foreign-policy instincts might be more sound—but he has forfeited the chance to lead.

Stephen M. Walt advises presidential candidate Joe Biden to embrace nationalism while reaffirming liberal values: They are an election-winning combination.

I do not think it’s likely that Kim Jong-un will conduct another test of ICBMs—since Trump had repeatedly drawn a bright red line there. Kim Jong-un and his experts would rightly be worried that were they to cross this line, especially in an election season, Trump would respond by attacking North Korean ICBM launch sites—as he’s signaled he would do. 

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has published a document from the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs concerning nuclear problems and tensions in the time of COVID-19. The document has been co-signed by a large number of Pugwash colleagues and personalities.