Nuclear Issues

16 Items

Blog Post - Nuclear Security Matters

India and the Nuclear Security Summit

    Author:
  • Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan
| Apr. 26, 2016

The fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit took place in Washington DC from March 31-April 01, 2016.  Despite the initial apprehension about the summits in certain parts of the world, it has been a useful process.  With more than 50 countries represented from across the world, the summits elevated the level of awareness of nuclear security. Leaders of established nuclear states began to think about nuclear security in a new way, reducing complacency about the risks of terrorism and sabotage.  This thinking took shape in national and multilateral commitments in areas including nuclear security regulation, physical protection of nuclear materials, nuclear forensics, protection against nuclear smuggling, and insider threats and nuclear terrorism.

Blog Post - Nuclear Security Matters

The Nuclear Security Summit and the IAEA: Advocating Much and Avoiding Specifics

| Apr. 08, 2016

The 2016 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in Washington D.C. on 1 April issued a seven-page Action Plan in Support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It contains steps that the summit participants commit themselves to taking and those they “advocate” the Agency “pursue”. In endorsing this plan, 2016 Summit participants focused more detailed attention on the IAEA than those who participated in the previous four nuclear security summits.

Blog Post - Nuclear Security Matters

Index Results Highlight Need for Path Forward After Summits End

Jan. 22, 2016

With the fourth and final nuclear security summit approaching in March, the 2016 edition of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Nuclear Security Index raises red flags about the international community’s implementation of the important measures needed to protect against catastrophic nuclear terrorism and to build an effective global nuclear security system. More importantly, it raises the question, how will leaders sustain momentum and high-level political attention on the need to secure dangerous nuclear materials once the summits come to an end?

Blog Post - Iran Matters

How to put some teeth into the nuclear deal with Iran

| Aug. 27, 2015

Dennis Ross, International Council Member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and David Petraeus, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center, write in The Washington Post that it is necessary for the United States to continue to project a strong deterrent to Iran in order to insure that it does not develop nuclear weapons after the expiration of the most stringent controls of the nuclear deal. Specifically, they argue that the United States should provide Israel with the Massive Ordinance Penetrator bomb, capable of destroying the most heavily defending Iranian nuclear sites, in order to strengthen the deterrent against trying to break out and built a nuclear weapon.

Blog Post - Nuclear Security Matters

Towards a New Phase in Nuclear Security Cooperation

    Author:
  • Ambassador Klaus Korhonen
| Mar. 06, 2015

The Fourth Nuclear Security Summit (NSS2016) takes place next year in the United States. The preparations by representatives of participating countries - so called Sherpas - have started. I am pleased to discuss the prospects of NSS2016 also with the readers of Nuclear Security Matters as a follow-up to a visit to Harvard University Belfer Center.

I cannot anticipate final recommendations of 53 national Sherpas, let alone the decisions of the Heads of States or Governments in the Summit. But let me offer a few initial thoughts from a Finnish perspective on what issues will be addressed and what could be some of the outcomes. Debate on these topics is going on and will continue.

Blog Post - Nuclear Security Matters

Implementing International Mechanisms to Ensure the Security of Military Materials

    Author:
  • Samantha Pitts-Kiefer
| Feb. 23, 2015

In the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit Communiqué, leaders from more than 50 countries “reaffirm[ed] the fundamental responsibility of States, in accordance with their respective obligations, to maintain at all times effective security of all nuclear and other radioactive materials, including nuclear materials used in nuclear weapons, and nuclear facilities under their control. This responsibility includes taking appropriate measures to prevent non-state actors from obtaining such materials – or related sensitive information or technology – which could be used for malicious purposes, and to prevent acts of terrorism and sabotage."