PUBLICATIONS
March 25, 2013
"North Korea Stirs Cuban Crisis Memory"
Asia Times
By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
"President Barack Obama and Kim Jong-eun could end up confronting each other 'eyeball to eyeball', each with nuclear weapons on hair trigger, as president John F Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev did over five decades ago during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. However, the younger and less-experienced Kim of the smaller and isolated Kingdom might not behave as rationally as Khruschev."
March 13, 2013
"The Evolution of the IAEA: Using Nuclear Crises as Windows of Opportunity (or Not)"
By Trevor Findlay, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program
This seminar considered how the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reacted to nuclear crises. The IAEA often appears not just to have weathered such crises, but to have successfully leaped through windows of opportunity presented by them. This has resulted in periodic expansions of its mandate, capabilities, and resources. The 2011 Fukushima disaster appears to be a puzzling exception, raising the question of what concatenation of factors needs to be present for the IAEA to take advantage of nuclear crises.
March 11, 2013
"Safety vs. Recovery after Disasters"
Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"March 11, 2011, was three distinct disasters. The earthquake and tsunami fell into the category of tragedies that are often unavoidable. But the nuclear accident requires a different analytical frame, and proponents of nuclear energy shouldn't be allowed to write off the Fukushima crisis as a natural disaster. Since the industrial revolution, there have always been industrial harms. As societies require more of technology, engineering, and transportation, there will be blips in the systems. What isn't inevitable, however, is that they happen again."
March 6, 2013
"With Iran Posed to be a Regional Player, US Should Find Ways to Repair Relations"
GlobalPost
By Tytti Erästö, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
"The problem is that, from an Iranian perspective, recent offers fail to suggest that the zero enrichment demand would not be reasserted; sanctions continue to be based on it and the P5+1 continue to refuse to recognize Iran's right to enrichment. The resulting vagueness about end goals is reinforced by the absence of any apparent intention to lift the tightening Western sanctions as part of a potential nuclear deal."
AP Photo
March 6, 2013
"China's North Korea Dilemma"
Los Angeles Times
By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
"From China's perspective, the crisis is driven by Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear ambitions until it gets from the U.S. what it covets most: a reliable security assurance. This would mean an end to Washington's pursuit of regime change. If Washington does not move in this direction, Pyongyang will continue to escalate the crisis. Any resolution of the impasse has to address the reasonable security concerns of North Korea."
February 20, 2013
"Not So Fast: Pyongyang's Nuclear Weapons Ambitions"
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
By Dana Struckman and Terence Roehrig, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
"While concern for North Korea's push to become a relevant nuclear power is warranted, it is equally important to recognize the very serious technical issues that have plagued Pyongyang's efforts to date. Building a nuclear weapon and its delivery system, and then keeping them operational for the long term is hard—even harder for those states attempting to do it under the umbrella of international sanctions and monitoring."
AP Photo
February 16, 2013
"A Way Forward on Nuclear Disarmament"
Boston Globe
By Sven-Eric Fikenscher, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
"Rather than continuing to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on deploying an all-encompassing system of highly doubtful effectiveness that threatens to seriously undermine Washington's nuclear security and disarmament agenda, the Obama administration should shelve the plans for deploying the fourth phase in Europe and engage Russia in joint talks."
February 15, 2013
"North Korea's Third Nuclear Test: Plutonium or Highly Enriched Uranium?"
Power & Policy Blog
By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
"North Korea has only a small supply of plutonium—material that it had stopped producing by 2008—and had more recently demonstrated an operational capability to enrich uranium, which would support a much larger arsenal of weapons given North Korea's huge deposits of natural uranium.... However, the seismic signals are useless in this regard. The question is, then, can the off-site environmental sampling analysis distinguish a plutonium explosion from a HEU explosion?"
January 29, 2013
"Iran and the US Need a Middleman — or Two"
Christian Science Monitor
By Mahsa Rouhi, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program
"The foundations of a Turkey-Japan negotiation with Iran have been laid in decades of dialogue with Tehran and long-established relations focused on energy supplies. Most important, Turkey and Japan continue to maintain strong trade relations with Tehran, which allows them to include economic incentives in a potential proposal. The P5+1 cannot offer such incentives unless they lift a number of sanctions, which seems highly unlikely at the first stage."
AP Photo
January 2013
"Deciphering North Korea's New Year's Address: The Real Road Ahead"
By John S. Park, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
Kim Jong-eun's New Year's Day address signaled a willingness to ease tensions with South Korea and focus on economic development, but how credible is this message? Project on Managing the Atom Associate and MIT Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow John Park analyzes the address in an HKS PolicyCast.
