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On Tuesday President George W. Bush acknowledged that the al Qaeda network terrorist network has been attempting to acquire nuclear materials for use in terrorist plots against the West. Construction of a nuclear device from the ground-up, however, is not an easy task. The following excerpt from Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, A Guide in Maps and Charts 1998 provides insight into the level of expertise and technological sophistication that are required to build a nuclear weapon.
A special briefing featured a discussion on the U.S.-Russian relationship in terms of strategic reductions, cooperative threat reduction, and missile defense issues.
If the U.S-Russian relationship stabilizes and an agreement is reached on missile defenses, Russia’s nuclear arsenal could dip as low as 1,000 weapons by 2010, allowing the U.S. to pursue deep cuts. It is unlikely, however, that Washington’s current position on missile defenses, the ABM Treaty, or negotiated arms control will create the environment needed for these reductions to materialize.
The waiving of U.S. sanctions and the promise of economic assistance cannot have come too soon for Pakistan. The country has a teetering economy with an external debt of $32 billion, with 60% of the government's revenue going towards servicing the country's total debt. Prior to September 22nd and October 17th waivers, U.S. assistance to Pakistan was limited to mainly refugee and counter-narcotics assistance as well as an education program. We offer a brief summary of the primary sanctions that have been lifted.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on October 25 said he was delaying planned missile defense tests because they might violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. But wait. On October 5, the department announced the same tests would be delayed for technical reasons. What's going on here?
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell traveled to South Asia, at least in part "to lower the temperature," over Kashmir. On October 15 the urgency of his mission was dramatized by the Indian shelling across the Line of Control at Pakistani positions. There is fear that heightened tensions and heated rhetoric might spill over into unintended military escalation in the mountains of Kashmir.
A Carnegie Proliferation Roundtable
The Bush-Putin arms control roller-coaster took another turn for the worse last Thursday when President Bush stated in no uncertain terms that he will continue to press his Russian counterpart on the need to scrap the 1972 ABM Treaty. In one fell swoop, the administration hopes not only to implement its 'new strategic relationship' with Russia sans the ABM Treaty, but also speed development and deployment of its missile defense program at home. Such a move, however, makes achieving the Administration's near term goal of deploying a missile defense with Russia's blessing harder, and could result in long-term damage to the U.S.- Russian relationship.
This book examines the forces—political, strategic, technological, and ideational—that led to India's dramatic nuclear policy shift and describes how New Delhi's force-in-being will be fashioned, particularly in light of the threat India faces from its two most salient adversaries, China, and Pakistan.
An internal government report, obtained by an outside watch-dog group, reveals that America's 10 nuclear weapons research and production facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack and have failed about half of recent security drills. In several cases, commando squads were able to capture enough nuclear materials to make nuclear weapons. If this report scares you, then just imagine how much worse things are in Russia, with its huge and under-funded nuclear weapons complex.
Lost amid the commotion surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks were alarming comments made earlier in the month by former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu urging Israel to openly deploy nuclear weapons and abandon its policy of strategic ambiguity. How the world deals with the Israeli "bomb in the basement" at this critical point in time could have lasting affects on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and beyond.
Military operations appear imminent as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld takes a swing through the Middle East and Central Asia. But this will not be like previous wars. Don't expect to see explosions behind CNN reporters. The targets will be select, precise and far from telephoto lenses.
Closer than expected cooperation between Moscow and Washington opens the door to a genuine improvement of the relationship between the two former cold war adversaries in ways not seen since the early days of Russian reform in the 1990s. There is a broad belief in Moscow that a genuine opportunity to build trust, confidence and a true security partnership has developed out of the rubble in New York and Washington.
A Carnegie Proliferation Roundtable
Transcript of
Event
A stray remark by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld caused confusion and concern in parts of Europe on Monday, September 24. When he would not explicitly rule out the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror, headlines and television featured stories on a new "Rischio Atomica," (Atomic Risk) Joseph Cirincione reports from Italy. While support for America is strong, there is concern that the U.S. might go too far in its new war.
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Acton holds the Jessica T. Mathews Chair and is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Fiona Cunningham is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow in 2020-21.
Toby Dalton is a senior fellow and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment. An expert on nonproliferation and nuclear energy, his work addresses regional security challenges and the evolution of the global nuclear order.
Rose Gottemoeller is a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. She also serves as lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Nicole Grajewski is a Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research examines Russian and Iranian policies in the global nuclear order, with a particular focus on Russian nuclear strategy, Iran’s nuclear decision-making, contestation in the non-proliferation regime, and nuclear deterrence.
Hibbs is a Germany-based nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. His areas of expertise are nuclear verification and safeguards, multilateral nuclear trade policy, international nuclear cooperation, and nonproliferation arrangements.
Kassenova is a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment.
Ulrich Kühn is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the head of the arms control and emerging technologies program at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg.
Jamie Kwong is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Levite was the principal deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission from 2002 to 2007.
Ankit Panda is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Perkovich works primarily on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation issues; cyberconflict; and new approaches to international public-private management of strategic technologies.
Lindsay Rand is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at Carnegie in 2022-2023.
Todd S. Sechser is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program and the Pamela Feinour Edmonds and Franklin S. Edmonds Jr. Discovery professor of politics and public policy at the University of Virginia.
Anne Stickells is a Stanton pre-doctoral fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Dr. Lauren Sukin is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program and an assistant professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Ülgen is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, where his research focuses on Turkish foreign policy, nuclear policy, cyberpolicy, and transatlantic relations.
Tristan Volpe is a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and assistant professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School.
Fumihiko Yoshida is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Tong Zhao is a senior fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program and Carnegie China.
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