SOUTHERN AFRICA
Summer 2008
"Divining Nuclear Intentions: A Review Essay"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
By William C. Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova
Although projections of nuclear proliferation abound, they rarely are founded on empirical research or guided by theory. Even fewer studies are informed by a comparative perspective. The two books under review—The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy, by Jacques Hymans, and Nuclear Logics: Alternative Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen, are welcome exceptions to this general state of affairs, and represent the cutting edge of nonproliferation research. Both works challenge conventional conceptions of the sources of nuclear weapons decisions and offer new insights into why past predictions of rapid proliferation failed to materialize and why current prognoses about rampant proliferation are similarly flawed. While sharing a number of common features, including a focus on subsystemic determinants of national behavior, the books differ in their methodology, level of analysis, receptivity to multicausal explanations, and assumptions about decisionmaker rationality and the revolutionary nature of the decision. Where one author emphasizes the importance of the individual leader’s national identity conception in determining a state’s nuclear path, the other explains nuclear decisions primarily with regard to the political-economic orientation of the ruling coalition. Notwithstanding a tendency to overinterpret evidence, the books represent the best of contemporary social science research and provide compelling interpretations of nuclear proliferation dynamics of great relevance to scholars and policymakers alike.
December 22, 2006
"Ensuring Global Uranium Supplies"
Op-Ed, International Herald Tribune
By Debra K. Decker, Associate, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom and Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan
"...a new look at global atomic energy supplies is sorely needed."
July 13, 2006
Securing the Bomb 2006
Report
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project and Anthony Wier, Former Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 2002-2007
The latest report in the ongoing MTA / NTI collaboration, Securing the Bomb 2006, finds that even though the gap between the threat of nuclear terrorism and the response has narrowed in recent years, there remains an unacceptable danger that terrorists might succeed in their quest to get and use a nuclear bomb.
December 2005
"Until the Sun Grows Cold: Persisting Nuclear Dangers in a Complacent World"
Book Chapter
By Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Presented as a Plenary Lecture at the 55th Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs "60 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki"
22-27 July 2005, Hiroshima, Japan.
May 7, 2005
"Nuclear Pact in Real Trouble"
Op-Ed, The Irish Times
By Thomas J. Wright, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2004-2007
Could the World Be on the Path to a New Nuclear Crisis?
November 6, 2004
The Threat from Rogue States
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
After Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush's foremost policy challenge is posed by rogue states, that is, states that threaten the United States and world peace.
Summer 2008
"Divining Nuclear Intentions: A Review Essay"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
By William C. Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova
Although projections of nuclear proliferation abound, they rarely are founded on empirical research or guided by theory. Even fewer studies are informed by a comparative perspective. The two books under review—The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy, by Jacques Hymans, and Nuclear Logics: Alternative Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen, are welcome exceptions to this general state of affairs, and represent the cutting edge of nonproliferation research. Both works challenge conventional conceptions of the sources of nuclear weapons decisions and offer new insights into why past predictions of rapid proliferation failed to materialize and why current prognoses about rampant proliferation are similarly flawed. While sharing a number of common features, including a focus on subsystemic determinants of national behavior, the books differ in their methodology, level of analysis, receptivity to multicausal explanations, and assumptions about decisionmaker rationality and the revolutionary nature of the decision. Where one author emphasizes the importance of the individual leader’s national identity conception in determining a state’s nuclear path, the other explains nuclear decisions primarily with regard to the political-economic orientation of the ruling coalition. Notwithstanding a tendency to overinterpret evidence, the books represent the best of contemporary social science research and provide compelling interpretations of nuclear proliferation dynamics of great relevance to scholars and policymakers alike.
December 22, 2006
"Ensuring Global Uranium Supplies"
Op-Ed, International Herald Tribune
By Debra K. Decker, Associate, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom and Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan
"...a new look at global atomic energy supplies is sorely needed."
July 13, 2006
Securing the Bomb 2006
Report
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project and Anthony Wier, Former Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 2002-2007
The latest report in the ongoing MTA / NTI collaboration, Securing the Bomb 2006, finds that even though the gap between the threat of nuclear terrorism and the response has narrowed in recent years, there remains an unacceptable danger that terrorists might succeed in their quest to get and use a nuclear bomb.
December 2005
"Until the Sun Grows Cold: Persisting Nuclear Dangers in a Complacent World"
Book Chapter
By Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Presented as a Plenary Lecture at the 55th Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs "60 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki"
22-27 July 2005, Hiroshima, Japan.
