Articles

22 Items

A huge mushroom cloud rises above Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands following an atomic test blast.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Nuclear Balance Is What States Make of It

    Author:
  • David C. Logan
| Spring 2022

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.

In this Monday, Sept. 4, 2017 file photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, South Korea's Hyunmoo II ballistic missile is fired during an exercise at an undisclosed location in South Korea. South Korean warships have conducted live-fire exercises at sea. The drills Tuesday, Sept. 5, mark the second-straight day of military swagger from a nation still rattled by the North's biggest-ever nuclear test.

South Korea Defense Ministry via AP

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Conventional Counterforce Dilemmas: South Korea's Deterrence Strategy and Stability on the Korean Peninsula

    Authors:
  • Ian Bowers
  • Henrik Stålhane Hiim
| Winter 2020/21

South Korea’s conventional counterforce and countervalue strategy is a manifestation of its uncertainties over the reliability of the U.S. alliance. This strategy has significant implications for strategic stability and the potential for denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.    

In this Oct. 16, 2016, file photo, a man in Seoul, South Korea watches a TV news program showing an image of a missile launch conducted by North Korea. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File

Newspaper Article - The New York Times

Is Nuclear War Inevitable?

| Dec. 28, 2017

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un trading threats with words like “fire and fury”; Pakistan deploying tactical nuclear weapons to counter Indian conventional threats; Russia enunciating an Orwellian doctrine of “escalate-to-de-escalate” that calls for early use of battlefield nuclear weapons; and major nuclear-weapons states modernizing their arsenals — nukes are back. The cruel irony: This is happening after eight years of a president who won the Nobel Peace Prize largely for his vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Q&A: Lawrence Summers and Why It’s Too Early to Raise Rates

commons.wikimedia.org

Newspaper Article - The Wall Street Journal

Q&A: Lawrence Summers and Why It’s Too Early to Raise Rates

| Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Lawrence Summers, the Harvard University professor and former Obama administration economic adviser, hasn’t been shy of late urging the Federal Reserve to refrain from raising short-term interest rates at its policy meeting this week. In a series of opinion columns and blog posts, Mr. Summers has argued that the time isn’t ripe for a move and that markets aren’t prepared.

Journal Article - Institute of Nuclear Materials Management Journal of Nuclear Materials Management

Securing China’s Nuclear Power Plants

| Winter, 2014.

Since September 11, 2001, China has substantially advanced its physical protection system, with a switch in focus from the traditional "guns, gates, guards" approach to an effective mixed approach, combining personnel with modern techniques. Then-Chinese President Hu Jintao emphasized at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit that, "In the future, China will further take nuclear security measures, make sure the security of its own nuclear materials and facilities, improve the overall nuclear security." This paper examines the specific and detailed physical protection approaches that are currently applied to China's nuclear power plants, and recommends further steps to improve China's existing nuclear security system.

Journal Article

U.S. Economic Prospects: Secular Stagnation, Hysteresis, and the Zero Lower Bound

| February, 2014

In his February 24, 2014  remarks to the National Association of Business Economics, Summers said, “I want to take up these issues -secular stagnation, the idea that the economy re-equilibrates; hysteresis, the shadow cast forward on economic activity by adverse cyclical developments; and the significance of the zero lower bound for the relative efficacy of monetary and fiscal policies.”

Journal Article - Science & Global Security

Securing China’s Weapon-Usable Nuclear Materials

| Feb 18, 2014

This article describes the status of China’s military and civilian nuclear programs, fissile material production and associated nuclear facilities, and the Chinese nuclear experts and officials’ perspectives on the nuclear terrorism threat. It gives details of China’s nuclear security practices, attitudes, and regulations, as well as identifying areas of concern. The article recommends ways to strengthen China’s nuclear material protection, control, and accounting systems and suggests opportunities for increased international cooperation.

Security detail overseeing the secure transportation of highly enriched uranium to Russia in Poland, October 2010

USA.gov

Journal Article - Journal of Nuclear Materials Management

Preventing Insider Theft: Lessons from the Casino and Pharmaceutical Industries

| June 17, 2013

Through structured interviews and a literature review, we assess which approaches to protection against insider thefts in the casino and pharmaceutical industries could be usefully applied to strengthen protections against insider theft in the nuclear industry, where insider thefts could have very high consequences.

A man is reflected in the Bankia bank HQ in Madrid, May 9, 2012.  Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dodged a question on whether the government planned to nationalize Bankia, Spain's 4th-largest bank and the most exposed to bad loans on real estate.

AP Photo

Magazine Article - CNN

The Pain in Spain That Threatens the Eurozone

    Author:
  • Tim Lister
| May 31, 2012

Pierpaolo Barbieri, Ernest May Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, says that "big, international banks like Santander and BVA are well diversified. Of the others, quite a few need capital — but how much? That's the unknown and Bankia has undermined faith in financial reporting."