Articles

Recent quantitative scholarship uses warhead counts to examine whether nuclear superiority offers political or military benefits beyond having a secure second-strike capability. These analyses overlook other elements of a state’s nuclear capability such as state perceptions and beliefs.

This article examines the trilateral relations between Russia, China, and Iran through their engagement in various issues from domestic, regional, and international levels. It explores the practices and coordination between Russia, China, and Iran in the international order, the Iranian Nuclear Program, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, domestic regime security, and economic connectivity. The article concludes that although Russia, China, and Iran have had overlapping interests and approaches in terms of contesting the Western created and dominated international "liberal" order, strengthening domestic regime security, defending authoritarian governance, and supporting de-dollarization, all of which have brought the three sides closer, a Russia–China-Iran axis has not thus far materialized. Rather, due to the lack of regularized and institutionalized mechanisms, the tripartite relationship remains an illusory entente, which is essentially driven by the bilateral ties followed by modest trilateral coordination in ad-hoc situations.

Joseph Nye argues that prudence results from the fear of creating unintended consequences in unpredictable systems and can develop into a norm of nonuse or limited use of certain weapons or a norm of limiting targets. Something like this happened with nuclear weapons when the superpowers came close to the brink of nuclear war in 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis. The Limited Test Ban Treaty followed a year later.

This article examines both the premise and prescription of the argument to integrate renewable electricity in developing countries through elements of the standard model (such as a wholesale spot market, or an independent system operator for dispatch). This is done by highlighting the differences between power sector reform experiences in the developing and developed worlds, and the causal mechanisms underlying these differences.

Trump tied American jobs to endless wars in the Middle East. Biden should link them to renewed diplomacy.

Technological innovation and widespread deployment of clean-energy technologies in emerging economies are critical for a global clean energy transition. Success or failure in this endeavour will have long-term energy and carbon consequences. A fundamental question exists about whether, and how, emerging economies can accelerate clean-energy transitions, given the unprecedented scales of their impending socio-economic and infrastructure transitions, and often-underdeveloped technological innovation capabilities and supporting finances. 

The administration of President Donald J. Trump has consistently used fear of China to undermine nearly five decades of bipartisan consensus on US–Russian nuclear arms control. The negative consequences of these actions may last far beyond the Trump presidency. If generations of agreement between Democrats and Republicans on bilateral nuclear treaties with Russia erode, it will pose a significant setback to US national security and global stability. Future leaders may ultimately need to consider new approaches to nuclear risk reduction that preserve the benefits of the arms control regime.

Horizontal nuclear proliferation presents what is sometimes referred to as the "Nth country problem," or identifying which state could be next to acquire nuclear weapons. Nuclear fuel cycle technologies can contribute to both nuclear power generation and weapons development. Consequently, observers often view civilian nuclear programs with suspicion even as research on nuclear latency and the technological inputs of proliferation has added nuance to these discussions. To contribute to this debate, the author puts forth a simple theoretical proposition: En route to developing a civilian nuclear infrastructure and mastering the fuel cycle, states pass through a proliferation "danger zone."

In this paper, a quantitative Waste to Energy Recovery Assessment (WERA) framework is used to stochastically analyze the feasibility of waste-to-energy systems in selected cities in Asia.

Damir Kovačević, Afrimadona, and Martin Claar's (KAC) statistical adjudication between the potential role of norms versus strategic deterrence in preventing interstate chemical-weapons use is a welcome contribution (Vol. 26, Nos. 3–4, pp. 251–66). The authors conclude that a powerful non-use norm is the most convincing explanation for downtrending chemical warfare. However, closer examination by  David M. Allison and Stephen Herzog in this response to the original article reveals several analytical issues, including inaccurate presentation of data and alternative explanations, that may undermine their results.