Nuclear Security Matters

265 Items

On January 22, 2021, Foreign Minister of Austria Alexander Schallenberg gave a press conference on the entry into force of the TPNW at the Foreign Ministry in Vienna.

Austrian Foreign Ministry via Wikimedia Commons

Magazine Article - Arms Control Today

The First TPNW Meeting and the Future of the Nuclear Ban Treaty

| September 2022

As diplomats, activists, and researchers converged on Vienna in June for the first meeting of states-parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), recent tragic world events highlighted how critical it was to convene this multilateral forum on nuclear disarmament.

Since February, Russia’s war against Ukraine has epitomized the grave dangers of a world where nine states possess approximately 12,700 nuclear weapons.1 That Russia could invade a sovereign state and indiscriminately target its civilian population, while using nuclear threats to deter NATO from intervening, has stunned the world. It offers a stark reminder that possessing nuclear arms can enable abhorrent violations of international law

Rose Gottemoeller Talks To Anatoly Antonov

Wikimedia Commons/ US Mission Geneva

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

How to Avoid the Dark Ages of Arms Control

| Apr. 01, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is upending one long-standing geopolitical norm after the other, with nuclear arms control potentially one of the next to go. In 2021, the United States and Russia extended the 2010 New START pact—the only remaining major nuclear agreement between the two countries—through 2026. Russia is now threatening to halt U.S. military inspections required under the agreement, but there are challenges for the future of arms control that go beyond the fate of New START.

There are two possible pathways for arms control after Russia’s war in Ukraine. The first, less likely scenario is an arms control renaissance. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis, for example, was a wake-up call for the United States and Soviet Union to the dangers of nuclear escalation. The decade after the crisis saw a suite of arms control efforts, including the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and a series of risk-reduction measures, such as the Incidents at Sea Agreement. The Ukraine crisis may prove another impetus for post-conflict cooperation, albeit a costly one.

A boy plays with his toy soldiers inside a school that is being used as a shelter for people who fled the war, in Dnipro city, Ukraine, on Tuesday, April 12, 2022.

AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris

Analysis & Opinions - Offensive Cyber Working Group

Subversion over Offense: Why the Practice of Cyber Conflict Looks Nothing Like Its Theory and What This Means for Strategy and Scholarship

    Author:
  • Lennart Maschmeyer
| Jan. 19, 2022

Cyber attacks are both exciting and terrifying, but the ongoing obsession with ‘cyber warfare’ clouds analysis and hampers strategy development. Much commentary and analysis of cyber conflict continues to use the language of war, where actors use ‘offensive cyber operations’ to meet adversaries in ‘engagements’ striving for victory on the ‘battlefield’ in the ‘cyber domain’. This discourse persists despite a growing consensus that cyber operations are primarily relevant in conflict short of war.

Parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gather in Geneva for NPT Prepcom 2018.

JWB/Wikimedia Commons

Journal Article - Contemporary Security Policy

Durable Institution Under Fire? The NPT Confronts Emerging Multipolarity

The regime built around the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has helped curtail the spread of nuclear arms for fifty years. In hindsight, it is remarkable only nine states possess the world’s most powerful weapon. The NPT achieved much success during Cold War bipolarity and U.S. unipolarity in its aftermath. But today, China’s rise and Russia’s resurgence have ushered in a new era of emerging multipolarity. Can the treaty withstand the potential challenges of this dynamic environment? There is a real risk that multipolarity may shake the scaffolding of the nonproliferation regime, presenting a significant test to the NPT’s durability. This article identifies four essential elements of the nonproliferation regime: widespread membership, adaptability, enforcement, and fairness. History suggests bipolarity and unipolarity in the international system largely sustained and promoted these NPT features. When international regimes lack such elements, it sharply curtails their long-term efficacy.

FORT GORDON NELSON HALL, Augusta, Georgia, June 10, 2014 – The U.S. Army’s ‘Cyber Center of Excellence’, Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, hosted a multi-service ‘NetWar’ to show, and build, cyber Warrior capabilities Tuesday, June 10.

Georgia Army National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Tracy J. Smith

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Subversive Trilemma: Why Cyber Operations Fall Short of Expectations

    Author:
  • Lennart Maschmeyer
| Fall 2021

Although cyber conflict has existed for thirty years, the strategic utility of cyber operations remains unclear. The subversive trilemma explains why cyber operations tend to fall short of their promise in both warfare and low-intensity competition.

Signing of the SALT treaty between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. is observed by officials as U.S. President Richard Nixon, left and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, right, sign document in Moscow, May 26, 1972. (AP Photo)

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Arms Control as Wedge Strategy: How Arms Limitation Deals Divide Alliances

| Fall 2021

Wedge strategy theory explains how states use strategic arms control to divide adversaries by affecting their trust, threat perceptions, and beliefs about a commitment’s trade-offs. Examining three landmark arms control negotiations shows how the wedge motive was a key component to these negotiations.

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Correspondence: Are Belligerent Reprisals against Civilians Legal?

    Authors:
  • Christopher A. Ford
  • John R. Harvey
  • Franklin C. Miller
  • Dr. Keith B. Payne
  • Bradley H. Roberts
  • Allen S. Weiner
| Fall 2021

Christopher Ford, John Harvey, Franklin Miller, Keith Payne, and Bradley Roberts respond to Scott Sagan and Allen Weiner’s spring 2021 article, “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine.