PAKISTAN
AP Photo
January 2010
"Pakistan's Nuclear Posture: Implications for South Asian Stability"
Policy Brief
By Vipin Narang, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
"...[E]xtremist elements in Pakistan have a clear incentive to precipitate a crisis between India and Pakistan, so that Pakistan's nuclear assets become more exposed and vulnerable to theft. Terrorist organizations in the region with nuclear ambitions, such as al-Qaida, may find no easier route to obtaining fissile material or a fully functional nuclear weapon than to attack India, thereby triggering a crisis between India and Pakistan and forcing Pakistan to ready and disperse nuclear assets—with few, if any, negative controls—and then attempting to steal the nuclear material when it is being moved or in the field, where it is less secure than in peacetime locations."
AP Photo
Winter 2009/10
"Understanding Support for Islamist Militancy in Pakistan"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 34
By Jacob N. Shapiro and C. Christine Fair
Western interest in Pakistan increased dramatically with the rise of the Taliban and other militant groups. Current U.S. policy toward Pakistan rests on four factors that purportedly explain Pakistani support for militancy: poverty; personal religiosity and approval of sharia law; support for legal Islamist political parties; and failure to support democracy. A survey of the sentiments of the Pakistani public, however, shows that these conventional wisdoms may be mistaken. To undermine support for militant groups, therefore, policymakers must pay greater attention to determining who supports militant organizations.
AP Photo
Winter 2009/10
"Posturing for Peace? Pakistan's Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 34
By Vipin Narang, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
India and Pakistan are both nuclear-armed states, but their divergent nuclear postures have led to a stark difference in their deterrence capabilities. India has maintained an assured retaliation posture, but Pakistan has shifted from a catalytic to an asymmetric escalation posture, allowing it to pursue aggressive policies without significant fear of retaliation. Furthermore, to make its posture credible, Pakistan has had to relinquish some central control over the security of its nuclear arsenal. The implications for South Asian and international stability, therefore, are grim unless India and Pakistan can minimize the dangers of their current postures, and the United States can help Pakistan to better secure its nuclear arsenal.
AP Photo
Fall 2009
"Reducing the Greatest Risks of Nuclear Theft & Terrorism"
Journal Article, Daedalus, issue 4, volume 138
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
"Keeping nuclear weapons and the difficult-to-manufacture materials needed to make them out of terrorist hands is critical to U.S. and world security — and to the future of nuclear energy as well. In the aftermath of a terrorist nuclear attack, there would be no chance of convincing governments, utilities, and publics to build nuclear reactors on the scale required for nuclear energy to make any significant contribution to coping with climate change."
AP Photo
Fall 2009
"The Minimum Deterrent & Beyond"
Journal Article, Daedalus, issue 4, volume 138
By Paul Doty, Director Emeritus, Center for Science and International Affairs; Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry, Emeritus
"...[A] primary goal in the next decades must be to remove this risk of near global self-destruction by drastically reducing nuclear forces to a level where this outcome is not possible, but where a deterrent value is preserved — in other words, to a level of minimum deterrence. This conception was widely discussed in the early years of the nuclear era, but it drowned in the Cold War flood of weaponry. No matter how remote the risk of civilization collapse may seem now — despite its being so vivid only a few decades ago — the elimination of this risk, for this century and centuries to come, must be a primary driver for radical reductions in nuclear weapons."
AP Photo
January 8, 2010
"Hands Off Kashmir!"
Op-Ed, World Policy Blog
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
"The temptation for U.S. policymakers to get involved in the dispute is latent. In October 2008, Barack Obama, a month before he was elected, stated that 'working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way' was among the 'critical tasks for the next administration.' Pakistan, as the irridentist party, would welcome it; indeed, the attacks by Pakistan-sponsored groups in Kashmir and elsewhere in India may be aimed in part in provoking the U.S. to intervene on the dispute."
AP Photo
January/February 2010
"Nuclear Disorder: Surveying Atomic Threats"
Journal Article, Foreign Affairs, issue 1, volume 89
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
The current global nuclear order is extremely fragile, and the three most urgent challenges to it are North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. If North Korea and Iran become established nuclear weapons states over the next several years, the nonproliferation regime will have been hollowed out. If Pakistan were to lose control of even one nuclear weapon that was ultimately used by terrorists, that would change the world. It would transform life in cities, shrink what are now regarded as essential civil liberties, and alter conceptions of a viable nuclear order.
AP Photo
December 15, 2009
"Rooting for Arms Control"
Op-Ed, The Providence Journal, Letter to the Editor
By Andrew Brown, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
"Dwight Eisenhower was the first Republican to recognize that the achievement of an international system to restrain the proliferation of nuclear weapons would be well worth a minor abrogation of national sovereignty. It is to be hoped that the necessary handful of Republican senators will endorse the collective wisdom of predecessors Root, Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and join their Democratic colleagues in supporting START renewal and ratification of the CTBT."
AP Photo
December 8, 2009
"A Toilet in Somalia"
Op-Ed, The Huffington Post
By Charles G. Cogan, Associate, International Security Program
"...al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorists don't need Afghanistan to carry out terrorist operations. These can be mounted from anywhere or anyplace, from Yemen to Somalia, to Hamburg or to ... Detroit....Then, one may ask, since al-Qaeda's terrorists, numbering in the hundreds, are now in a safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas, why are we sending thousands more combat troops into ... Afghanistan!"
AP Images
December 7, 2009
"The Winds of War"
Op-Ed, The Huffington Post
By Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"A troop surge in Afghanistan and strategic partnership with Pakistan may be important, but they are not enough. It would be a pyrrhic victory to deny terrorists sanctuary in Afghanistan and Pakistan, only to discover that al Qaeda and associates have moved operational capability and built terrorist cells in new sanctuaries in order to launch strikes across the globe."
