Articles

"For nearly a century, in short, offshore balancing prevented the emergence of dangerous regional hegemons and pre­served a global balance of power that enhanced American security. Tellingly, when U.S. policymakers deviated from that strategy—as they did in Vietnam, where the United States had no vital interests—the result was a costly failure."

Policymakers have long focused on preventing nuclear weapons proliferation by controlling technology. Even developing countries, however, may now possess the technical ability to create nuclear weapons. The history of gas centrifuge development in twenty countries supports this perspective. To reduce the demand for nuclear weapons, policymakers will have look toward the cultural, normative, and political organization of the world.

Probabilistic estimates of the cost and performance of future nuclear energy systems under different scenarios of government research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) spending were obtained from 30 U.S. and 30 European nuclear technology experts. The majority expected that such RD&D would have only a modest effect on cost, but would improve performance in other areas, such as safety, waste management, and uranium resource utilization. The U.S. and E.U. experts were in relative agreement regarding how government RD&D funds should be allocated, placing particular focus on very high temperature reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors, fuels and materials, and fuel cycle technologies.

In order to expand nuclear power energy in desalination and increase competitiveness in the global nuclear power market, many developed countries with strong nuclear technology have realized the importance of Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and initiated heavy research and development in SMR．The Advanced Small Pressurized Water Reactor (ASPWR) is characterized by great advantages, both in safety and economic mattters. It can be used in remote power grids and replace mid／small size fossil plants economically．This paper reviews the history and current status of SMR and ASPWR，and also discusses the design concepts, safety features and other advantages thereof.

"The conventional wisdom among those who looked at the Middle East used to be that you had a choice either of supporting the autocrat or being stuck with the religious extremists. The extraordinary diffusion of information created in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries reveals a strong middle that we weren't fully aware of. What is more, new technologies allow this new middle to coordinate in ways unseen before Twitter, Facebook, and so forth, and this could lead to a very different politics of the Middle East. This introduces a new complexity to our government's dealings with the region."

"...[A]ll this shows is that a special relationship need not be an antiseptically harmonious and boring one to still be special. On the contrary: What is special, and atypical, is that the relationship has grown rather than suffered from its conflicts. The "long wait" in the nuclear domain was punctuated by a generous British offer of bases for U.S. B-29 bombers and culminated in unprecedented and intensified cooperation in the nuclear arena. Suez precipitated the "golden days" of the Anglo-American relationship under Macmillan, Eisenhower and Kennedy. The twin crises over the Falklands and Grenada did not prevent George Shultz from concluding that the Reagan-Thatcher relationship was "as close as any imaginable between two major leaders." The disputes over Bosnia presaged a deep cooperation in the Kosovo War. One need not look at the "special relationship" through a Panglossian lens to conclude that it has been real and durable, and has made an enormous contribution to the successful conclusion of the Cold War and the effort at maintaining international order in a disorderly post–Cold War world."

Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall's article in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

"The strategy has four main objectives: homeland defense, defeating terrorism, preventing WMD proliferation, and developing cooperative agendas with other "centers of global power," primarily China, Russia, and India."

Despite this extensive activity in the energy sphere, it seems, however, that Ankara's energy policy has been undertaken without a strategic plan and with little integration of energy issues into Turkey's overall foreign and security policies.