Science, Technology, and Public Policy

The authors analyze the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the recent back-to-back crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets and make policy recommendations for the regulation of increasingly complex technologies.

The arc of innovation has reached an inflection point: technological change now threatens to overwhelm us. Discovery is unstoppable, but it must be shaped for good. We ourselves—not just market forces—must manage it.

For true political and strategic stability in Southern Asia, China must be involved as a committed party to India-Pakistan confidence building measures, argues Frank O'Donnell in South Asian Voices' series, "Twenty Years Into Nuclear South Asia."

Strategic thought in Europe is underdeveloped. Hard power and military force remain beyond the scope of many Europeans. That is a problem because the extent to which Europeans can understand the world determines the extent to which they can exert influence. The United States are in a relative decline and there is no guarantee that Washington will protect Europe against the rise of China, the threat from Russia, and/or the instability from the Middle East. Europe will have to stand upon its own feet and take responsibility for its own fate. Doing so not only requires significant investment in military resources, but also a renaissance of European realist thought.

"In a complete volte-face the nuclear supplier states that created the NSG (then the London Group) in 1975 due to proliferation concerns raised by India's perfidy are contemplating its inclusion. Paradoxically, that sounds like a death knell of the NSG and the non-proliferation regime."

"From Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis, from arms races to arms control, from the Cold War and its proxy wars to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2015 deal with Iran, few subjects have so consistently, and so controversially, concerned the American presidency as nuclear weapons have. A dozen men have been responsible for the decision to use the US nuclear arsenal since 1945, and whoever wins the election in November will inherit the responsibility for approximately 4,670 warheads at a time when relations with Russia (holder of 4,500 warheads) have reached a perilous low, a time when support for arms control is perhaps faltering, and a time when nuclear threats abound from the Middle East to the Korean Peninsula..."

"The middle powers' congruence between New Delhi and Paris expanded with French quest for nuclear technology partners outside Europe, especially for technology that had not already been proved to be economically viable. For much of the Cold War, French nonchalance toward nuclear safeguards, frequent foreign policy differences with Washington, and close ties between key Indian and French physicists helped further. From India's point of view, the CEA offered technological assistance, including active encouragement as in 1974, when no other atomic energy commission was willing to offer much."

"Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is forging closer ties with Washington, he is not budging from New Delhi's core positions on a climate change agreement or the Nuclear Liability Bill. Even when as an insurance pool of $250 million is being offered to nuclear suppliers, there seems to be very little possibility of scrapping the Liability Bill entirely for U.S. suppliers."