Articles

"The P5+1 should set aside the effort to craft an all-at-once comprehensive bargain and instead adopt a strategy of negotiating incremental agreements. An incremental approach has a number of advantages. The negotiators could focus on one sticking point at a time, without having to coordinate agreement on all of them at once. Negotiators could defer currently intractable issues, like enrichment capacity, until greater trust is built or new opportunities arise. Most importantly, the compromises already achieved under the JPA could be maintained and consolidated, independently of the ups and downs of ongoing negotiations."

Weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are not suitable for the Iranian Army, given its non-mechanized nature; its defensive military posture; its current status as a non-nuclear weapon state; and its sufficient conventional preparation to meet its protective security interests. This paper proposes three interlinked policy approaches to resolve the current impasse.

Currently there seems to be an increasing interest in and demand for China's mediation in resolving conflict. To certain extent, such a phenomenon is associated with China's re-emerging power. But more importantly, it is probably the style and skills of China's mediation that matter, which represents the emerging of a unique mediation culture, with China being its messenger. The paper examines key elements of such a mediation culture, using examples of China's mediation in regional and international affairs. The shaping of such a culture offers good lessons for mediators around the world who strive for effective conflict resolution.

The current global nuclear order is extremely fragile, and the three most urgent challenges to it are North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. If North Korea and Iran become established nuclear weapons states over the next several years, the nonproliferation regime will have been hollowed out. If Pakistan were to lose control of even one nuclear weapon that was ultimately used by terrorists, that would change the world. It would transform life in cities, shrink what are now regarded as essential civil liberties, and alter conceptions of a viable nuclear order.

"The prevailing view in the United States is that Ahmadinejad's foreign policy and Iran's increasing presence in the region has been offensive, expansionist, opportunistic, and often ideological. Though Iran has occasionally taken advantage of new opportunities, these characterizations have been exaggerated in the United States. Instead, Iran's action should be perceived in a more pragmatic light. Though Ahmadinejad may himself be an ideological and divisive figure, Iran's foreign policy strategy predates him and ought to be viewed as a wider Iranian effort to secure its geostrategic interests and national security concerns. Despite Ahmadinejad's tendencies to indulge his eccentricities, the logic of Iran's foreign policy decisionmaking process always ensures this return to pragmatism."

"...[S]ituated in what it sees as a hostile neighborhood, it is hardly surprising that the Iranian government views an independent nuclear fuel cycle as interchangeable with deterrence, rather than as a bid for building a nuclear arsenal. While building a nuclear arsenal would be a costly endeavor, risking international isolation and assuring Iran's 'pariah status,' acquiring civilian nuclear capability would afford Iran the security and psychological edge it has long sought, and at a lower cost."

In mid-June, North Korea threatened to weaponize all of its newly separated plutonium.  Air samples and satellite imagery, however, don't show evidence that Pyongyang is actively reprocessing its spent nuclear fuel.  But this doesn't mean the North isn't reprocessing; there are numerous reasons why its activities wouldn't be detected by commercial satellites and off-site air sampling.  The United States and China, must act now to force North Korea to halt plutonium production, stop all weapons tests, and immediately return to the Six-Party Talks.