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Reagan and Gorbachev signing INF Treaty in 1987

(AP Photo/Bob Daugherty)

News - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Center Experts Comment on Significance of Withdrawing from INF Treaty

Following the news that the Trump administration plans to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, ten Belfer Center nuclear and U.S.-Russia relations experts offered their thoughts on the significance and consequences of this action.
 

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Nuclear Negotiations between the United States and its Allies

| March 12, 2014

What can the United States do to thwart the nuclear ambitions of its allies? Dr. Kogan analyzes past cases where the United States was able to leverage its alliance commitments to stop friendly states from going nuclear. He then asks what lessons these past nuclear negotiations hold for today.  In the coming decade, key U.S. allies in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia) and East Asia (South Korea, Japan) may consider reducing their reliance on U.S. security guarantees by acquiring independent nuclear deterrents.  In conversation with Project Director Kevin Ryan, Dr. Kogan discusses Washington's options in confronting these contemporary allies with nascent nuclear appetites.

In this May 12, 1999, U.S. Navy handout photo, air traffic controllers monitor the radar screens of the Air Operations Center aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier in support of airstrikes against Yugoslavia.

AP Photo

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Compellent Military Threats in U.S. Foreign Policy

| February 27, 2013

Why do small states resist when the United States threatens them? Pfundstein describes the difference between a compellent threats, which is intended to convince a target state to change its behavior, and a deterrent threat, which is intended to prevent an adversary from taking some future action. In her research, Pfundstein evaluates why weak states choose to resist when the United States issues a compellent threat against them. She argues that the use of force has become so cheap for the United States that targets are not convinced it has the motivation to stick around long enough to defeat them after the threat of force fails. Pfundstein also considers U.S. drone policy.