Reports & Papers

As the United States now confronts the prospect of a multi-faceted and quite possibly generational competition with China—underscored not only by recent Trump Administration public statements but also by the clear emergence of bipartisan support for a firm posture against certain Chinese practices—it is essential that U.S. policymakers take steps to ensure our approach is as coherent and comprehensive as possible. (As we make this point, we offer our hope that the relationship between the U.S. and China, unquestionably the most important in the world, can evolve into one that is mutually beneficial and avoids confrontation.

In the lead-up to the nuclear security summit, Advancing Nuclear Security: Evaluating Progress and Setting New Goals outlines what was accomplished in a four-year effort launched in 2009 to secure nuclear material around the globe—and what remains to be done. The effort made significant progress, but some weapons-usable nuclear materials still remain “dangerously vulnerable." The authors highlight the continuing danger of nuclear and radiological terrorism and call for urgent action.

The Belfer Center’s Eben Harrell and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David E. Hoffman for the first time report the details of one of the largest nuclear security operations of the post-Cold War years — a  secret 17-year, $150 million operation to secure plutonium in the tunnels of Degelen Mountain.

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."

The authors compare the targets and actions to which countries have committed under the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord allows participating countries to express their commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions in a variety of ways—most broadly, through economy-wide quantified emissions targets for developed countries and mitigation "actions" by developing countries. These are difficult to compare. However, even mitigation commitments that look similar can require very different levels of effort in different countries, and commitments that produce similar economic outcomes can look inequitable. These variations in effort and equity depend on historical patterns of energy use, marginal costs of greenhouse-gas abatement, choice of base year, methods for determining "business as usual" projections, and other factors.

The Arab World Competitiveness Report 2007, released by the World Economic Forum was co-authored by Dr. Tarik Yousef, DI Senior Fellow and Dean of the Dubai School of Government. The report states that the United Arab Emirates is the most competitive economy in the Arab world among the countries at the third and most advanced stage of development.

This workshop report describes the policies and programs that will give content to the security dimension of engagement and increase the probability that China will emerge as a security partner, rather than an adversary, of the United States in the 21st century.

Leaders at the 2010 nuclear security summit agreed on the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material in four years, but the factors that drive and/or constrain nuclear security changes are not well understood. Matthew Bunn and Eben Harrell surveyed nuclear security professionals in countries with nuclear weapons, HEU, or separated plutonium to explore this issue. This paper describes the survey, its results, and implications for strengthening global nuclear security.

PDP paper on Sino-American Crisis Management Procedures, Practices, and Organization

The United States should approach China with an "Affirmative Agenda," rather than thwart its ambition to become a great power, concludes new Council on Foreign Relations report.