NUCLEAR WEAPONS
March 23, 2012
New Study Finds Four-Year Nuclear Security Effort Making Major Progress But Won't Complete the Nuclear Security Job
Press Release
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
On the eve of the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, a new study finds that an international initiative to secure all vulnerable nuclear stockpiles within four years has reduced the dangers posed by many of the world’s highest-risk nuclear stockpiles. But the new analysis, by researchers with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, also concludes that much will remain to be done to ensure that all nuclear weapons and material are secure when the current four-year effort comes to an end.
AP Photo/Jorge Saenz
March 2012
Progress on Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: The Four-Year Effort and Beyond
Report
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Eben Harrell, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom and Martin B. Malin, Executive Director, Project on Managing the Atom
On the eve of the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, a new study finds that an international initiative to secure all vulnerable nuclear stockpiles within four years has reduced the dangers they pose.
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.
March 12, 2012
Nuclear Security Summit Dossier
Presentation
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Matthew Bunn's introduction to the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit.
U.S. Department of Energy
March 2012
Consolidation: Thwarting Nuclear Theft
Report
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom and Eben Harrell, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
A detailed assessment of the campaign to consolidate dangerous nuclear materials worldwide in fewer, more secure sites, with analysis of success stories, ongoing risks, near-term opportunities, and numerous recommendations for next steps.
AP Photo
March 7, 2012
"Netanyahu, Churchill, and Iran"
Op-Ed, The Times of Israel
By Shai Feldman, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"It has been said that when it comes to the looming Iranian threat, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his role in Jewish history in Churchillian terms," writes Shai Feldman, "As Israel’s newly recycled prime minister, Netanyahu could make sure that the regime in Tehran, which he regarded as the modern-day Middle East parallel to Nazi Germany, would never obtain the capacity to obliterate the Jewish state."
March, 2012
Nuclear Modernization in China
Book Chapter
By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
This new, groundbreaking study by Reaching Critical Will explores in-depth the nuclear weapon modernization programmes in China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and analyzes the costs of nuclear weapons in the context of the economic crisis, austerity measures, and rising challenges in meeting human and environmental needs.
AP Photo
February 27, 2012
"Smart Nuclear Reduction"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The nuclear debate in Washington is only about the past, about a notion of this nation as the better of only two options. It's as if the critics are wondering: why must we tinker with everything that made America once spectacular? Endless discussions about whether America is exceptional or not (and whether this president thinks we are or not) are preconditioned on a memory that equates the size of our nuclear arsenal with our own relevance. It is simplicity in its most perverse form. What makes us exceptional is our capacity to adapt to a world that has changed, not holding onto a world dynamic that ended long ago."
AP Photo
February 21, 2012
"Ask the Experts: What Would Iran Do With a Bomb?"
Op-Ed, Politics, Power, and Preventive Action, A Council on Foreign Relations Blog
By Micah Zenko, Former Research Assistant to Graham Allison, 2003–2006; Former Research Associate, Project on Managing The Atom, 2006–2008, Kyle Beardsley, Sarah Kreps, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2007–2008, Matthew Kroenig, Former Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program, 2007–2008, Annie Tracy Samuel, Research Fellow, International Security Program and Todd Sechser, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2004–2006
"Iran's leaders, like those in other states, want to remain in power. They want the regime in which they have invested and which serves their interests to endure. Foreign policy, in addition to safeguarding Iran's borders and national integrity, is a means for safeguarding the regime. Possession of a nuclear weapon will likely make Iran more impervious to attack and may make Iran bolder in its support for armed groups. However, possessing a nuclear weapon will is not likely to alter Iran's paramount foreign policy goals of national and regime security."
January 31, 2012
China's Underground Great Wall: Subterranean Ballistic Missiles
Op-Ed, Power & Policy Blog
By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
In a post to the Belfer Center's Power and Policy blog Hui Zhang considers the purposes of China's extensive system of tunnels for ballistic missiles, known as the "Underground Great Wall"
