NUCLEAR WEAPONS
AP Photo
March 6, 2013
"China's North Korea Dilemma"
Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times
By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
"From China's perspective, the crisis is driven by Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear ambitions until it gets from the U.S. what it covets most: a reliable security assurance. This would mean an end to Washington's pursuit of regime change. If Washington does not move in this direction, Pyongyang will continue to escalate the crisis. Any resolution of the impasse has to address the reasonable security concerns of North Korea."
February 20, 2013
"Not So Fast: Pyongyang's Nuclear Weapons Ambitions"
Op-Ed, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
By Dana Struckman and Terence Roehrig, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
"While concern for North Korea's push to become a relevant nuclear power is warranted, it is equally important to recognize the very serious technical issues that have plagued Pyongyang's efforts to date. Building a nuclear weapon and its delivery system, and then keeping them operational for the long term is hard—even harder for those states attempting to do it under the umbrella of international sanctions and monitoring."
AP Photo
February 16, 2013
"A Way Forward on Nuclear Disarmament"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Sven-Eric Fikenscher, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
"Rather than continuing to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on deploying an all-encompassing system of highly doubtful effectiveness that threatens to seriously undermine Washington's nuclear security and disarmament agenda, the Obama administration should shelve the plans for deploying the fourth phase in Europe and engage Russia in joint talks."
February 15, 2013
"North Korea's Third Nuclear Test: Plutonium or Highly Enriched Uranium?"
Op-Ed, Power & Policy Blog
By Hui Zhang, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom
"North Korea has only a small supply of plutonium—material that it had stopped producing by 2008—and had more recently demonstrated an operational capability to enrich uranium, which would support a much larger arsenal of weapons given North Korea's huge deposits of natural uranium.... However, the seismic signals are useless in this regard. The question is, then, can the off-site environmental sampling analysis distinguish a plutonium explosion from a HEU explosion?"
iStock photo
February 14, 2013
"How the US should handle Iran"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, Harvard Kennedy School
Following President Obama's State of the Union address, Professor Burns outlines steps that the administration can take to produce the best possible outcome with US-Iran talks.
AP Images
February 12, 2013
"North Korea's Lesson: Nukes for Sale"
Op-Ed, New York Times
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
THE most dangerous message North Korea sent Tuesday with its third nuclear weapon test is: nukes are for sale. Graham Allison writes in the New York Times that the real significance of North Korea's overnight nuclear test is that this particular test was, in the estimation of American officials, most likely fueled by highly enriched uranium, not the plutonium that served as the core of North Korea’s earlier tests. "Testing a uranium-based bomb would announce to the world — including potential buyers — that North Korea is now operating a new, undiscovered production line for weapons-usable material."
January 29, 2013
President Obama's WMD "Czar" Appointed Executive Director of Belfer Center
News
By James F. Smith, Communications Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Gary Samore, President Obama’s Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction Counter-Terrorism and Arms Control, has been appointed Executive Director (Research) for Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. A former fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program, Samore has served for the past four years as the principal advisor to the President on all matters relating to arms control and the prevention of weapons of mass destruction proliferation and WMD terrorism.
December 2012
"A WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East: Creating the Conditions for Sustained Progress"
Discussion Paper
By Martin B. Malin, Executive Director, Project on Managing the Atom and Paolo Foradori, Associate, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program
How can the states of the Middle East begin to create the political conditions for achieving sustained progress toward the elimination of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons? This paper examines the challenges and obstacles that the parties of the region will need to overcome to bring a WMD-free zone into force, and recommends near-term steps for improving regional security.
IAEA
December 20, 2012
"IAEA’s Integral Role in Ending the Iranian Nuclear Crisis"
Op-Ed, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
By Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Mark Hibbs
There is a small opening to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis after the conclusion of the U.S. presidential election, write Mark Hibbs and Olli Heinonen. "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called this a 'window of opportunity,' and it is beginning to focus minds on identifying the necessary components of a package deal that will put Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and UN Security Council powers squarely on a path toward conflict resolution."
AP Photo
Winter 2012/13
"Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation: Examining the Linkage Argument"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 3, volume 37
Comparative assessment of the arguments on both sides suggests that signs of commitment to nuclear disarmament by the nuclear weapon states will tend to enhance support for nonproliferation. Because of the multitude of other factors that affect state decisionmaking, however, progress on disarmament will not by itself address all of the challenges to making the nonproliferation regime effective.
