Stanford University

Policy impact: Fellows publish on nuclear issues

  • Clifton B. Parker
gettyimages 513176790 Workers stand outside the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2016 in Japan. As CISAC fellow Sayuri Romei writes, the struggles of Japanese survivors from nuclear events like Fukushima are often neglected – thereby hiding some of the costs of our nuclear world.

The Center for International Security and Cooperation is educating the next generation of thought leaders and policy makers in international security. Toward this, fellows produce policy-relevant research on topics they are studying. One way they connect research with the policy arena is through journal articles, op-eds and essays. Three recent publications by CISAC pre- and post-doctoral fellows on the subject of nuclear risks include:

• Sayuri Romei’s op-ed The Hidden Costs of our Nuclear World appeared March 10 in the Monkey Cage blog that's published by the Washignton Post. Her research with Japanese people who have survived radioactive exposure in World War II and Fukushima suggests that they long endure discrimination and shame, as well as a government and society relecutant to come to grips with the human effects. "For a long time after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Japanese citizens had no clear and reliable information on the health effects of the bomb. That opacity continues in the secretive and contradictory way information is coming out about the Fukushima nuclear accident," she wrote.

• Jooeun Kim’s op-ed ‘Actions speak louder than words’: Rhetoric and nuclear policy realities’ was published in the Freeman Spogli Institute's Medium site on March 7. She explored why it is so important for the U.S. to be viewed by its Asian allies as a dependable nuclear and military power that can help them during a crisis. She notes that "the greater the number of nuclear states, the higher the risk of nuclear war by miscalculation or accident." She concludes that if the Trump administration provides support to allies when they are in need, the president's "rhetoric from the campaign trail can be forgotten amid the policy realities of the international order."

• Anna Péczeli’s journal article Russia, NATO and the INF Treaty was featured in the Strategic Studies Quarterly on Feb. 28. She noted that Russia’s leadership must understand that continued noncompliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty will yield no political or military gains for them – a message that must be communicated to the Kremlin by the U.S. government. She wrote, "The INF treaty, long a cornerstone of European security, is in acute danger of collapse since the United States and Russia are operating on the basis of different, indeed contrasting, logic."  

CISAC has had 399 fellows since its founding more than 30 years ago. They conduct research, write about their findings, and spur informed public discussions about policy. To learn how to apply to the CISAC fellowship program, click here.

 

 

 

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