International Security

"Working women like me have long laughed off or even forgotten those slights and inappropriate behavior—until last Friday's video reminded me of all those times when forging a career in a predominantly male field, and having three kids, wasn't without its abuses."

"Nothing even remotely like the Chilcot Report was produced here in the United States. Nobody in power wanted an official inquiry into the ways that the Iraq war was conceived and sold to the American people, and the blunders that were made along the way."

"While the U.S. government critiques the tenures of foreign officials, it should consider whether the principles it espouses are reflected in our country's own procedures. Where inconsistent, the United States should either reconcile what it practices and preaches or refrain from hypocrisy."

Faced with the twin pressures of a still-quickly growing economy and unprecedented smog from coal-fired plants, China is racing to expand its fleet of nuclear power plants. As it does so, Beijing is considering making large capital investments in facilities to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and recycle the resulting plutonium in fast neutron reactors that breed more plutonium. This report outlines the enormous costs China would likely face if it decides to build large-scale plants for reprocessing plutonium from spent nuclear fuel and recycling the plutonium in fast neutron reactors.

"Is this any way for the senior officials of a mature great power to behave? Loose lips sink ships, and loose talk derails effective diplomacy. If there was a purpose behind this statement, then it was lame-brained. And if it was just a petulant bit of verbal payback by a frustrated official, then it's a sign of professional incompetence."

"March 11, 2011, was three distinct disasters. The earthquake and tsunami fell into the category of tragedies that are often unavoidable. But the nuclear accident requires a different analytical frame, and proponents of nuclear energy shouldn't be allowed to write off the Fukushima crisis as a natural disaster. Since the industrial revolution, there have always been industrial harms. As societies require more of technology, engineering, and transportation, there will be blips in the systems. What isn't inevitable, however, is that they happen again."

"India's woes should strike a warning for modern nations to invest in themselves and in the networks and infrastructure that unite their citizens. It's important to be a competent nation....It means that the lights go on, trains run on time, and a capital city — whether it is New Delhi or Washington, which suffered its own debilitating blackout last month — continues to function."

This timely book examines comprehensively the drivers of and constraints on a prospective nuclear revival and its likely nature and scope. Of special interest are developing countries which aspire to have nuclear energy and which currently lack the infrastructure, experience, and regulatory structures to successfully manage such a major industrial enterprise. The Fukushima disaster has made such considerations even more pertinent: if a technologically sophisticated country like Japan has difficulties dealing with nuclear safety and security how much harder would it be for a newcomer to the technology.