Science, Technology, and Public Policy

The July 16 summit in Helsinki between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin presents a unique opportunity to reverse the dangerous nuclear competition between the United States and Russia and should be welcomed, despite its inherent risks. The opportunity to stabilize U.S.-Russian nuclear relations by extending New START, a key nuclear treaty that is set to expire in 2021, is paramount and worth the issues that come with any meeting between Trump and Putin.

With the world focused on the United States and North Korea, it’s easy to forget that every president for a quarter-century has said preventing nuclear terrorism was a national security priority. This includes the Trump administration, which identified in its Nuclear Posture Review that nuclear terrorism is one of “the most significant threats to the security of the United States.” It appears, however, despite this strong rhetoric, the administration may not be putting its money where its mouth is.

President Trump surprised almost everyone—probably not the least Kim Jong-un—when he agreed to meet the North Korean leader at the end of May (now maybe early June). By accepting Kim’s invitation, President Trump overturned decades of conventional wisdom on how to separate North Korea from its nuclear and other WMD programs. If Trump and Kim meet—as of now this is still a big “if,” although North Korea has now confirmed its willingness to meet directly—the summit could be an important ice breaker and open up a chance to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis and bring peace to the Korean peninsula. But success, however remote it may seem, will require new thinking and entail major risks. It will also require a plan.

This edited volume provides a fresh analysis for researcher and practitioners regarding United Nations Security Council resolution 1540, the status of its implementation, and its future by providing an original evaluation of progress in implementation and challenges faced during the resolution’s first decade. In doing so, the book will consider the resolution’s utility as a non-proliferation tool with a view to identifying what further actions are required for the objectives and goals embodied by UNSCR 1540 to be achieved and sustained.  The book progresses by exploring the history of the resolution, implementation trends, implementation from a regional perspective, challenges, and future ways forward. The book appeals to a wide readership of scholars, policymakers, and other stakeholders of the 1540 process.

The major global nuclear powers are building up their arsenals once again, sparking fears of a new nuclear arms race. How serious is the danger? We ask Matthew Bunn, former White House adviser on Science and Technology Policy and co-principal investigator from the Belfer Centre on Managing the Atom.

The attached document contains March 2018 updates to our database on U.S. government investments in energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment (ERD3) through the Department of Energy.

Many Americans were aghast at President Trump’s announcement this month that he would meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

But in moving toward diplomacy, Trump is following in the steps of previous presidents. If he continues down their path, the end result would be a deal that allows Pyongyang to keep its nuclear weapons — not because Trump gets taken in by Kim, but because such a deal boosts American interests. Since World War II, the United States has labored to prevent nuclear weapons from spreading. But once a country has them, Washington ultimately accommodates it, opting to develop some kind of diplomatic influence, if not control, over other nuclear powers, instead of going to war.

Some western scholars have expressed growing concern about China’s expansion of its nuclear arsenal and what they see as a “sprint to parity” with the United States. One scholar even claimed that China could have built as many as 3,000 nuclear weapons, far above the estimate of Western intelligence agencies, which assume that China has between 200 and 300. As a comparison, the United States and Russia each keep roughly 7,000 nuclear weapons. If China had any interest in parity, that would leave it with an awfully long way to go.