Nuclear Issues

Mariana Budjeryn's Inheriting the Bomb tells the story of how Ukraine came into possession of the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal—larger than the combined stockpiles of China, France, and the United Kingdom at the time—and decided to disarm peacefully a few years later. Ukraine's denuclearization was far from a straightforward process. After initially renouncing nuclear weapons, Ukrainian officials sought recognition that their newly independent country was a rightful heir to part of the Soviet cache, deserving of equal treatment, financial compensation, and pledges that disarmament would not endanger Ukraine's security. 

Steven E. Miller provides an analysis of what the Russian invasion of Ukraine means for the security dynamics of the Arctic and Northern Europe.

Stephen Walt explains why Putin understood that Ukraine's fate was more important to Russia than it was to the West.

Should a nuclear war “never be unleashed?” Can nuclear weapons be used to “ensure the safety of the Russian people?” Both, according to President Vladimir Putin, who has become fond of alternating assertive and conciliatory tones in his messaging on the conditions for the use of nuclear arms. Such discourse comes as he tries to coerce Ukraine into accepting his land grabs and prevent the West from escalating assistance to Kyiv, all while keeping China content.

David M. Allison argues that in ascending order of predictive power, warnings of an imminent nuclear strike would come from Russian whistleblowers, the U.S. intelligence community, and Putin himself.

Abolghasem Bayyenat argues that without the JCPOA restrictions in place, Iran's nuclear program will expand and continue to acquire irreversible technical knowledge and competencies.

For months, evidence has accumulated that North Korea may be preparing its seventh nuclear explosive test. Continuous warnings by analysts and the media about this possibility are a sobering reminder that Pyongyang's continued pursuit of a larger nuclear arsenal remains a challenge for the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the nonproliferation regime. This continues to be the case even as the public and leaders around the world have largely shifted their attention to the nuclear dimensions of the war in Ukraine.

In October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union squared off in what game theorist and Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling described as a nuclear game of “chicken” that threatened humanity’s survival. The Cuban Missile Crisis spurred six decades of efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and inspired a generation of scientists to think critically about reducing atomic risks. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent nuclear threats during the war in Ukraine are an unambiguous reminder that such dangers have outlived the Cold War. A new wave of scientific research is urgently needed to understand conditions for making global nuclear disarmament desirable and feasible.

Joseph Nye writes that Russian aggression and nuclear saber rattling have reminded us that the likelihood of nuclear war is a matter of both independent and interdependent probabilities. Paradoxically, reducing the probability of an all-out catastrophe requires that we learn to accept a certain degree of risk and uncertainty.

Joseph Nye posits that the real lesson from Russia's war in Ukraine is that the international community must reinforce the existing NPT and refrain from actions that erode it.