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Launch of an important new book, Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Emerging Threats in an Evolving Security Environment, featuring presentations by the book’s editor, Alistair Millar, and several of its contributing authors, including Joshua Handler, Timothy Hoyt, and Robert Nelson.
After three months of United Nations inspections in Iraq by several hundred UN experts and three months of exhaustive searches by thousands of US, British and Australian soldiers and experts, the UN inspections now look much better than critics at the time claimed. This may have important implications for future inspection efforts. The intrusive inspections approach, while not as coercive as some wanted nor as forceful as the UN Security Council was prepared to go in the weeks before the war, now appears to have been working well in Iraq.
Senior administration officials say they based their escalating warnings of the imminent danger posed by Iraqi weapons on official intelligence assessments. In many cases, the statements went far beyond the classified estimates now available. In other cases, such as Secretary Powell's presentation to the United Nations, they tracked closely with the CIA reports to Congress. These reports themselves, however, underwent a dramatic transformation from 2001 to 2002 after reporting essentially the same data for many years. There is little new evidence in the reports to account for this change. So what triggered the new, alarmist tone in 2002?
The heat is on for Iran to clarify its nuclear ambitions. On June 19, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called on Tehran to stop plans to begin enriching uranium and to allow "all access deemed necessary" to clarify questions over Iran's nuclear program. But the Board stopped short of declaring Iran in violation of its treaty obligations, nor did it refer the matter to the UN Security Council, as some U.S. officials had urged.
Regardless of whether Saddam Hussein had actual chemical or biological weapons, it is known with absolute certainty that Iraq had a large and well-trained cadre of scientists and technicians capable of producing such arms.
The ongoing crisis in North Korea encompasses many complex issues, including: weapons of mass destruction, proliferation, security, humanitarian, and long-term development. Some observers believe that the only solution to the problem at hand is a staged approach, while others argue for a comprehensive one.
On June 7, 2003, the Defense Department released an unclassified excerpt of a 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency study on Iraq's chemical warfare program in which it stated that there is "no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities." Significantly, the DIA study also implied that UN inspections could stop Iraq from restarting any chemical weapons program, when the analysts concluded, "...we believe Iraq ...can reconstitute a chemical warfare program in the absence of an international inspection regime."
The United States is currently pushing the International Atomic Energy Agency to press charges against Iran for technical violations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But the answer to this nuclear challenge is in Iraq, not Vienna. Post-war, Iran's leaders are nervous enough to look for accommodations with Washington.
Most of Russia's aging nuclear submarines still have their nuclear fuel and nuclear waste on board, and many are tied up at docks that are at best lightly guarded. These submarines contain the raw materials for nuclear terrorism and need to be urgently dismantled and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.
David Mosher and Lowell Schwartz of the RAND Corporation discuss the findings of their new report on U.S.-Russian relations and nuclear security.
A seminar with Vadim Razumovsky, Yuri Fedorov, and Andrei Zagorsky of the Institute for Applied International Research (IAIR).
Even as snow continues to fall in the Himalayan passes of Kashmir, there is an unexpected spring thaw in relations between South Asia's nuclear rivals. On May 18, Indian soldiers released by Pakistan after two years of imprisonment returned to their families. The emotional scenes illustrated renewed hopes for the region as confidence-building steps continued in South Asia. New Delhi and Islamabad are exchanging ambassadors and resuming travel links. In his latest visit to the region, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he was "cautiously optimistic" that Prime Minister Vajpayee's diplomatic opening "could possibly lead to a step-by-step process that would eventually resolve all issues."
The Russian Duma ratified the Strategic Offensive ReductionsTreaty (SORT) on May 14, which calls for both the U.S. and Russia to reduce their alert strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700-2,200 over the next ten years. The move follows the U.S. Senate's March approval of the pact and clears the way for the U.S. and Russian presidents to mark the entry into force of this agreement at their upcoming summit in St. Petersburg. While the adoption of the agreement is a political victory for both presidents, it is not clear that the treaty makes a major improvement in the security of either country or for the world as a whole.
Cooperative threat reduction in Russia today needs to be addressed on three platforms: what has been accomplished so far and why it is not enough; prospects for the G-8; and what needs to be done to speed up progress.
May 14, 2003
The news that Iran is building a uranium enrichment facility has increased previously existing concerns over Iran's nuclear intentions. Information about the full extent of Iran's current and future capabilities is not known, but enough information has been publicly discussed to provide some background.
When the end of the Cold War largely eliminated the likelihood of a global thermonuclear war, policymakers turned their attention to the very real danger that weapons of mass destruction could be used in smaller, but still horrifically deadly numbers. Ballistic missiles garnered the most of the attention, though they are only one-and perhaps the most difficult-method of delivery of these weapons.
The announcement that the United States, North Korea and China will hold talks next week in Beijing over North Korea's nuclear program is a welcome development and an apparent victory for the Bush administration's decision to oppose direct, one-on-one talks with Pyongyang.
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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.
Dalton is the co-director and a senior fellow 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 the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
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.
Thomas MacDonald is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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 Stanton pre-doctoral fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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 in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program.
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