NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Summer 2011
Belfer Center Newsletter Summer 2011
Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
The Summer 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features analysis and advice by Belfer Center scholars regarding the historic upheavals in the Middle East and the disastrous consequences of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Center’s new Geopolitics of Energy project is also highlighted, along with efforts by the Project on Managing the Atom to strengthen nuclear export rules.
June 11, 2012
"The Special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism"
Testimony
By William H. Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Simon Saradzhyan, Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
On June 11, 2012, the Belfer Center's William Tobey, Matthew Bunn and Simon Saradzhyan testified before Canada's upper house of parliament, the Senate, on the threat of nuclear terrorism and strategies to combat it.
Summer 2012
Spotlight: William Tobey
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
William H. Tobey, spotlighted in the Summer 2012 Belfer Center newsletter, is a senior fellow in the Belfer Center, and is director of the Center’s U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism. He joined the Belfer Center in 2009 after serving in senior counterproliferation roles in the George W. Bush Administration. In March, Tobey was named chairman of the board of directors of the World Institute for Nuclear Security.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
March 20, 2012
"U.S. and Russia Work Together Against Threat of Nuclear Terrorism"
Op-Ed, GlobalPost
By Kevin Ryan, Director, Defense and Intelligence Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and The Elbe Group
The Elbe Group, former leaders of American and Russian intelligence and military organizations, write that the nuclear security summit in Seoul provides an important opportunity to reaffirm U.S. and Russian leadership against the deadly menace of nuclear terrorism — a threat that combines the Cold War peril of nuclear holocaust and the 21st century danger of international terrorism. Kevin Ryan joined other Elbe Group members in writing this oped.
Spring 2012
Center Prepares Dossier for Seoul Nuclear Summit
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
When President Barack Obama hosted nearly 50 heads of state in Washington, D.C. for the first global Nuclear Security Summit in 2010, the Belfer Center made available to the leaders and their sherpas a range of relevant background materials and information. With the arrival of the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, the Center created www.nuclearsummit.org – an online Nuclear Security Summit dossier.
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.
December 20, 2011
"Mutually Assured Stability"
Op-Ed, Moscow Times
By Simon Saradzhyan, Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"Fall 1991 saw U.S. and Soviet leaders display goodwill by pledging to unilaterally consolidate and reduce their nations' arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons in what became the last milestone in the history of U.S.-Soviet arms control....Twenty years after, however, the two countries still have thousands of tactical nuclear weapons outside any of the existing international arms control regimes," writes Simon Saradzhyan
Kevin Ryan
Winter 2011-2012
"U.S. and Russian Experts Assess Threat of Nuclear Terror"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
Researchers from the United States and Russia issued in June a joint assessment of the global threat of nuclear terrorism, warning of a persistent danger that terrorists could obtain or make a nuclear device and use it with catastrophic consequences.
(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
August 18, 2011
Russia in Review
Media Feature
An update from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for August 12 - 18, 2011
