Nuclear Security Matters

32 Items

teaser image

Analysis & Opinions - Global Policy

Factoring Pandemic Risks into Financial Modelling

| Apr. 01, 2020

Today’s economic crisis leaves us with an unsettling and perplexing regret. Why weren’t financial portfolios already adjusted for risks that stem from health events such as pandemics? After all, financial portfolios are adjusted for liquidity risks, market risks, credit risks, and even operational and political risks.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Black Swans Like COVID-19 are Predictable

| Mar. 30, 2020

Events like the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the US housing crash of 2007-09, and the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, are called “black swans”: in each case, few people were able to predict them reliably, at least not with precision.  But they were known unknowns, not unknown unknowns.  That is, in each case, knowledgeable analysts were fully aware that such a thing could happen, even that it was likely to happen eventually.  They could not predict that the event would happen with high probability in any given year.  But the consequences of each of these events were severe, and predictably so.  Thus, policymakers should have listened to the warnings and should have taken steps in advance. They could have helped avert or mitigate disaster if they had done so.

The Silk Road between a Rock and a Hard Place: Russian and Chinese Competition for Central Asia's Energy

kremlin.ru/Wikimedia Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Insight Turkey

The Silk Road between a Rock and a Hard Place: Russian and Chinese Competition for Central Asia's Energy

| Oct. 01, 2018

China’s displacement of Russian economic influence in Central Asia is generating great interest in Western academic and policy circles, but this research has, as yet, yielded few analytical nuances. This article attempts to shed light on the under-researched question of what explains Central Asian governments’ failure to more effectively capitalize on the growing Central Asian rivalry between Russia, China, the United States, Turkey, Iran, South Korea, Japan, and other regional powers that, since the early 1990s, has been overwhelmingly directed towards strategic energy considerations and hydrocarbon interests.

National Economic Director Gary Cohn walks from Marine One across the South Lawn to the White House on Aug. 30 (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Cohn is Getting It All Wrong on Taxes

| Sep. 05, 2017

Given recent controversies, I was interested to read National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn’s answer to a “why are you staying?” question put by Stuart Varney of the Fox Business Network last week. To his credit Cohn did not back away from his reservations about the president’s response to the Charlottesville violence. He said “Look, tax cuts are really important to me. I think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We haven’t done tax cuts in 31 years. So, to be a part of an administration that gets something done that hasn’t been done for 31 years is enormously challenging, enormously interesting to me.

House Speaker Paul Ryan discusses tax reform during a visit to Intel in Hillsboro, Ore. on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

AP Photo/Don Ryan

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

Tax Reform and Budget Deficits in America

| Aug. 29, 2017

The Republican Party’s leaders in the United States House of Representatives have been hard at work for more than a year designing a major reform of personal and corporate taxes. With an election looming in 2018, the House Republicans are determined to deliver a reform package and send it to the Senate for enactment.

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney holds up a copy of President Donald Trump's proposed fiscal 2018 federal budget as he speaks to members of the media in the Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

Larry Summers: Trump’s budget is simply ludicrous

| May 23, 2017

"Apparently, the budget forecasts that U.S. economic growth will rise to 3.0 percent because of the administration’s policies — largely its tax cuts and perhaps also its regulatory policies.  Fair enough if you believe in tooth fairies and ludicrous supply-side economics."

Blog Post - Nuclear Security Matters

Nuclear Security in Turkey

Aug. 04, 2016

In mid-July, as an attempted coup was taking place in Turkey, many in the United States wondered whether U.S. tactical nuclear weapons stored at the Turkish airbase, Incirlik, were adequately protected against theft. Congressional Research Service Nuclear Weapons Policy Specialist, Amy Woolf, recently published a short article describing some of the security systems surrounding those weapons.

Blog Post - Nuclear Security Matters

Cancel the plutonium fuel factory

July 19, 2016

Matthew Bunn and Gary Samore just published an op-ed arguing that the program to build a factory that converts excess plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons into plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel for nuclear reactors has become too expensive. Although the two helped to launch the program in the mid-90s, they argue "It is time to stop throwing good money after bad and pursue cheaper alternatives that will serve our national security better" and "whatever we do with this plutonium in the long term, we should move to put it under international monitoring, and commit never again to use it in weapons..." You can read their complete argument here.

Blog Post - Nuclear Security Matters

Fresh Thinking on Highly Enriched Uranium Research Reactor Conversions

| Feb. 03, 2016

Last week, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine panel affirmed the goal of eliminating highly enriched uranium (HEU) from civilian use, while recommending step-wise conversion of high performance research reactors using weapon-grade uranium fuel and that the White House coordinate a 50-year national roadmap for neutron-based research. (Full disclosure:  I sat on that committee, and oversaw the NNSA reactor conversion program from 2006-9; this post, however, represents my views, not necessarily those of the committee or NNSA.)