NUCLEAR ISSUES
Spring 2012
From the Director
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
As time passes since Paul Doty’s death, we begin to move beyond our grief to a deeper appreciation of all the ways Paul’s work lives on. Nowhere is this legacy more vividly alive than at Harvard in the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, of which he was the founding member.
AP Photo
March 26, 2012
"Can Seoul summit tackle biggest threat to US security – nuclear terrorism?"
Op-Ed, Christian Science Monitor
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Why did President Obama fly halfway around the world to Seoul, South Korea, for the second Nuclear Security Summit? What can the 50 world leaders who meet today and tomorrow plausibly accomplish? The answer is less than many observers hope – but more than skeptics appreciate.
AP Photo
March 2012
What Happened to the Soviet Superpower’s Nuclear Arsenal? Clues for the Nuclear Security Summit
Discussion Paper
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Twenty years ago Russia and fourteen other newly-independent states emerged from the ruins of the Soviet empire, many as nations for the first time in history. As is typical in the aftermath of the collapse of an empire, this was followed by a period of chaos, confusion, and corruption. As the saying went at the time, “everything is for sale.” At that same moment, as the Soviet state imploded, 35,000 nuclear weapons remained at thousands of sites across a vast Eurasian landmass that stretched across eleven time zones.
Today, fourteen of the fifteen successor states to the Soviet Union are nuclear weapons-free. This paper will address the question: how did this happen? Looking ahead, it will consider what clues we can extract from the success in denuclearizing fourteen post-Soviet states that can inform our non-proliferation and nuclear security efforts in the future. These clues may inform leaders of the U.S., Russia, and other responsible nations attending the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit on March 26-27, 2012. The paper will conclude with specific recommendations, some exceedingly ambitious that world leaders could follow to build on the Seoul summit’s achievements against nuclear terrorism in the period before the next summit in 2014. One of these would be to establish a Global Alliance Against Nuclear Terrorism.
AP Photo
March 8, 2012
"Will Iran be Obama’s Cuban Missile Crisis?"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
The mounting confrontation between the United States and Iran is like a Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion. Events are moving, seemingly inexorably, toward a showdown at which point President Obama will have to choose to either attack Iran’s nuclear facilities or acquiesce in an Iranian nuclear bomb. When examined in turn, each of these two options seems worse than the other.
AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File
December 20, 2011
"The Great Negotiator"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
The Harvard Negotiation Project annually presents a "Great Negotiator Award" to an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in international negotiations. Recent winners have included George Mitchell (for Ireland), Richard Holbrooke (for Bosnia), and Martti Ahtisaari (for Kosovo and Aceh). Only half in jest, over the past several years, I have urged my colleagues who run the program to give the prize to Kim Jong Il.
Department of State
Winter 2011-2012
From the Director
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
"As we approach the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991, we can note with some satisfaction the ongoing role of the Belfer Center in....staying relevant and involved as the challenges shift from Cold War strategic nuclear weapons to contending with the threats of terrorist drones and dirty bombs," writes Belfer Center director Graham Allison
(AP Photo/RIA-Novosti,
Dmitry Astakhov,
Presidential Press Service)
October 30, 2011
"10 Reasons Why Russia Still Matters"
Op-Ed, Politico
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School and Robert D. Blackwill, International Council Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Russia is still a player whose choices affect our vital interests in nuclear security and energy writes Graham Allison and Robert D. Blackwill
(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
October 7, 2011
"Obama should test Iran's nuclear offer"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
"President Obama should take a page from Ronald Reagan’s playbook in winning the final inning of the Cold War," Graham Allison writes in the Washington Post. "Obama can challenge President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to put his enriched uranium where his mouth is — by stopping all Iranian enrichment of uranium beyond the 5 percent level."
(AP Photo/Mic Smith)
September 11, 2011
"An Even Bigger Threat"
Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
On 9/11, 19 terrorists killed more Americans than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. If the terrorists had been in possession of a nuclear weapon, the attack might have killed 300,000.
(AP Photo/David Goldman)
September 10, 2011
"America's Choices - and Their Costs"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
"AMERICA’S LAST 10 years might be called 'The Decade the Locusts Ate,'" writes Graham Allison. "A nation that started with a credible claim to lead a second American century lost its way after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Whether the nation will continue on a path of decline, or, alternatively, find our way to recovery and renewal, is uncertain."
