Asia & the Pacific

“A New Nuclear World Order: Safety, Security and Safeguards” in Die Zwischengesellschaft, written by Senior Fellow Olli Heinonen, reviews in detail measures to strengthen nuclear safety, security and safeguards to support states in developing and using nuclear energy in a safe, secure and peaceful manner.

This chapter assesses the Chinese position on the global nuclear disarmament and discusses the evolution of China's nuclear weapons strategy. Specifically focused on China's perspectives on the move toward nuclear disarmament and interim steps each side could take, and China's concerns that give rise to preconditions or conditions for deep cuts and/or abolition of nuclear weapons. Also examined is, why China's consistently maintained policies of no-first-use and minimum deterrence, the characteristics of China's nuclear strategy, and whether China would maintain its current nuclear strategy under a changing strategic dynamic in the future. Finally, it discusses the requirements of strategic stability between US and China, and the regional security dilemma.

For more than a century, the United States has been the world's most powerful state. Now some analysts predict that China will soon take its place. Does this mean that we are living in a post-American world? Will China's rapid rise spark a new Cold War between the two titans?

Iran may already possess the ability to produce nuclear weapons, but for the time being Tehran appears content to continue gradually advancing its nuclear program while remaining within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This book chapter assesses Iran’s potential to develop nuclear weapons, the nature of its nuclear decision-making, and the possible policy implications of Iran’s nuclear choices.

With origins dating back to the late 1960s, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has evolved to be a multipurpose instrument of the regime’s security strategy.This book chapter presents a new framework of analysis to explore North Korea’s evolving use of its nuclear arsenal and implications for both the Korean Peninsula and U.S. policy.

This chapter summarizes the case that it is plausible that sophisticated terrorist groups could make a nuclear bomb if they got the nuclear material; that some terrorist groups have actively tried to get nuclear bombs in the past, and some groups are likely to try again in the future; and that unless urgent action is taken to improve nuclear security, it is plausible that terrorists might be able to get the potential nuclear bomb material they would need.

Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age assembles a group of distinguished scholars to grapple with the matter of how the United States, its allies, and its friends must size up the strategies, doctrines, and force structures currently taking shape if they are to design responses that reinforce deterrence amid vastly more complex strategic circumstances.

Despite continuing efforts to convince North Korea to relinquish its nuclear capability, it appears increasingly unlikely that it will ever do so. Pyongyang might be willing to curtail or freeze certain parts of the program but the likelihood of North Korean denuclearization is quickly fading. With Pyongyang likely to retain some level of nuclear-weapons capability, analysis turns to an assessment of how these weapons might be integrated into its defense posture. Using deterrence theory as the analytical framework, this chapter examines possible avenues for North Korea's nuclear weapons strategy and doctrine.