Reports & Papers

9 Items

Global diplomats after reaching an interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear program on November 24, 2013.

AFP/Getty Images

Report

A Final Deal with Iran: Filling the Gaps

| May 14, 2014

What would be the consequences if the interim deal became, de facto, permanent?  Does the interim deal have gaps that would be fatal to any long-term arrangement?  What are the consequences if no deal is reached?  And, are such consequences better or worse than those resulting from an extension of the interim deal, or from a deal that fails to meet minimum acceptable standards? These questions, among others, were addressed at a private roundtable discussion hosted by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control on April 25, 2014.

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Paper

Russia’s “Black Widows”: Organization Behind Sensation

    Author:
  • Nabi Abdullaev
| November 8, 2013

This article analyzes female suicide bombings in Russia in order to prove that suicide terrorism in the largest of the post-Soviet states is an organizational rather than trauma-driven phenomenon.While female suicide bombers have so far used conventional explosives in their attacks, one can imagine how much havoc a suicide terrorist or terrorists could wreak if they got their hands on radioactive materials to make a dirty bomb, or penetrated a nuclear facility to sabotage it.

Report - Global Governance 2022

Securing the Net: Global Governance in the Digital Domain

    Authors:
  • Puji Abbassi
  • Martin Kaul
  • Yi Shen
  • Zev Winkelman
| September 2013

What will be the shape of the internet in 20 years? The authors explore possible futures in global cyber security governance and recommend a robust set of actions that pave a path forward towards establishing an environment in which a more cooperative form of global cyber security governance could evolve.

Report - Center for Strategic and International Studies

The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Anchoring Stability in Asia

| August 2012

The following report presents a consensus view of the members of a bipartisan study group on the U.S.-Japan alliance. The report specifically addresses energy, economics and global trade, relations with neighbors, and security-related issues. Within these areas, the study group offers policy recommendations for Japan and the United States, which span near- and long-term time frames. These recommendations are intended to bolster the alliance as a force for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

A Pakistani Internet user surfs the YouTube Web site at a local Internet cafe in Islamabad, Pakistan, Feb. 26, 2008. Pakistan defended its clampdown on the YouTube Web site which accidentally interrupted access for Internet users around the globe.

AP Photo

Paper - Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto

Duties for Internet Service Providers

| March 2012

In today's interconnected world, the Internet is no longer a tool. Rather, it is a service that helps generate income and employment, provides access to business and information, enables e-learning, and facilitates government activities. It is an essential service that has been integrated into every part of our society. Our experience begins when an Internet Service Provider (ISP) uses fixed telephony (plain old telephone service), mobile-cellular telephony, or fixed fiber-optic or broadband service to connect us to the global network. From that moment on, the ISP shoulders the responsibility for the instantaneous, reliable, and secure movement of our data over the Internet.

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

What Happened to the Soviet Superpower’s Nuclear Arsenal? Clues for the Nuclear Security Summit

| March 2012

Twenty years ago Russia and fourteen other newly-independent states emerged from the ruins of the Soviet empire, many as nations for the first time in history. As is typical in the aftermath of the collapse of an empire, this was followed by a period of chaos, confusion, and corruption. As the saying went at the time, “everything is for sale.” At that same moment, as the Soviet state imploded, 35,000 nuclear weapons remained at thousands of sites across a vast Eurasian landmass that stretched across eleven time zones. 

Today, fourteen of the fifteen successor states to the Soviet Union are nuclear weapons-free. This paper will address the question: how did this happen? Looking ahead, it will consider what clues we can extract from the success in denuclearizing fourteen post-Soviet states that can inform our non-proliferation and nuclear security efforts in the future. These clues may inform leaders of the U.S., Russia, and other responsible nations attending the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit on March 26-27, 2012. The paper will conclude with specific recommendations, some exceedingly ambitious that world leaders could follow to build on the Seoul summit’s achievements against nuclear terrorism in the period before the next summit in 2014. One of these would be to establish a Global Alliance Against Nuclear Terrorism.

Report - Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation

From Government 2.0 to Society 2.0: Pathways to Engagement, Collaboration and Transformation

| October 2011

In June 2010, 25 leaders of government and industry convened to Harvard University to assess the move to "Government 2.0" to date; to share insight to its limits and possibilities, as well as its enablers and obstacles; and to assess the road ahead. This is a report of that meeting, made possible by a grant from Microsoft.

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

Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present: Theoretical and Applied Questions

    Author:
  • Andrei A. Kokoshin
| June 2011

In the Foreword to this paper by Andrei Kokoshin, Belfer Center Director Graham Allison writes: "The global nuclear order is reaching a tipping point. Several trends are advancing along crooked paths, each undermining this order. These trends include North Korea’s expanding nuclear weapons program, Iran’s continuing nuclear ambitions, Pakistan’s increasing instability, growing doubts about the sustainability of the nonproliferation regime in general, and terrorist groups’ enduring aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons. Andrei Kokoshin, deputy of the State Duma and former secretary of Russia’s Security Council, analyzes these challenges that threaten to cause the nuclear order to collapse in the following paper."

Report

The U.S.-Russia Joint Threat Assessment of Nuclear Terrorism

| June 6, 2011

Researchers from the United States and Russia have issued a joint assessment of the global threat of nuclear terrorism, warning of a persistent danger that terrorists could obtain or make a nuclear device and use it with catastrophic consequences. The first joint threat assessment by experts from the world’s two major nuclear powers concludes: “If current approaches toward eliminating the threat are not replaced with a sense of urgency and resolve, the question will become not if but when, and on what scale, the first act of nuclear terrorism occurs.”