The Center for International Security and Cooperation is a center of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
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Filter results CloseEverything Counts: Building a Control Regime for Nonstrategic Nuclear Warheads in Europe
A team of experts led by Rose Gottemoeller has produced a new report for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies on non-strategic nuclear warhead policies in Europe, particulary in light of Russia's changing status in the global nuclear community.
The Standstill Conundrum: The Advent of Second-Strike Vulnerability and Options to Address It
Emerging and disruptive technologies spell an uncertain future for second-strike retaliatory forces. New sensors and big data analysis may render mobile missiles and submarines vulnerable to detection. I call this development the “standstill conundrum”: States will no longer be able to assure a nuclear response should they be hit by a nuclear first strike. If the nuclear weapons states can manage this vulnerability, however, they might be able to escape its worst effects. “Managing” could mean shoring up nuclear deterrence; it could mean focusing more on defenses; or it could mean negotiating to ensure continued viability of second-strike deterrent forces.
The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations
With the rapid rise of China and the relative decline of the United States, the topic of power transition conflicts is back in popular and scholarly attention.
Socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation of long-term spent nuclear fuel management strategies: A framework and method
In the absence of a federal geologic repository or consolidated, interim storage in the United States, commercial spent fuel will remain stranded at some 75 sites across the country. Currently, these include 18 “orphaned sites” where spent fuel has been left at decommissioned reactor sites.
Staying Current: an Investigation into a Now-Suspended Facebook Network Promoting the Palestinian Democratic Reform Current (TAKEDOWN)
The Birth of Nuclear Eternity
This chapter reconnects modes of futures-making with the requirements of democracy by focusing on the naturalization of nuclear weapons and their removal from the realm of democratic choice at a particular point in time.
Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order
An assessment of Russia that suggests that we should look beyond traditional means of power to understand its strength and capacity to disrupt international politics.
Teach What You Preach: A Comprehensive Guide to the Policy Memo as a Methods Teaching Tool
The policy memo is particularly suited for introducing basic methodological concepts to upper-division undergraduate students of political science, argues Oriana Skylar Mastro.
Unfit for purpose: reassessing the development and deployment of French nuclear weapons (1956–1974)
This article presents the first reassessment of the strategic rationality and credibility of French nuclear weapons policy before 1974.
European nuclear weapons? Zombie debates and nuclear realities
In February 2020, French president Emmanuel Macron invited all interested European states to a “strategic dialogue” on the supposed contribution of France’s nuclear arsenal to European collective security.
The PLA’s Evolving Role in China’s South China Sea Strategy
During the past eight months of the global COVID pandemic, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been active in promoting China’s claims in the South China Sea. This essay evaluates PLA statements, military exercises and operations, and deployment of relevant platforms and weapons in the South China Sea during this period. I leverage Chinese-language sources in addition to my own operational knowledge from over a decade of military experience to provide greater context for these activities.
Abadeh is Marivan (Revised and Updated): A Key Iranian Former Secret Nuclear Weapons Development Test Site
Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power? A Debate
Our 2015 survey experiment—reported in the 2017 International Security article “Revisiting Hiroshima in Iran”—asked a representative sample of Americans to choose between continuing a ground invasion of Iran that would kill an estimated 20,000 U.S. soldiers or launching a nuclear attack on an Iranian city that would kill an estimated 100,000 civilians.1 Fifty-six percent of the respondents preferred the nuclear strike.
Rethinking Nuclear Arms Control
Where is nuclear arms control—negotiated restraints on the deadliest weapons of mass destruction—headed? This 50-year tool of US national security policy is currently under attack. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last remaining nuclear arms agreement with the Russian Federation, will go out of force in February 2021 unless it is extended for an additional five years as the treaty permits. At this moment, nothing is on the horizon to replace it, though the Trump administration has promised a new and more extensive agreement that includes China as well as Russia.
Al Qaeda’s Leader Is Old, Bumbling—and a Terrorist Mastermind
Nineteen years after 9/11, al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has yet to achieve the household notoriety evoked by his immediate predecessor, Osama bin Laden. In part that’s because the United States hasn’t cared enough to focus attention on him. Aside from massive financial overtures for intelligence on his whereabouts—there’s currently a $25 million bounty offered for his head, higher than the reward for any other terrorist in the world—the U.S. government has been relatively blasé about al Qaeda since Zawahiri took over in 2011.
Al Qaeda’s Franchise Reboot
Nineteen years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, does al Qaeda still pose a significant threat to U.S. national security? Among researchers, military and intelligence officials, and policymakers who study the group, there is little consensus. But very few experts on Salafi-jihadi movements would dismiss the group outright. So when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confidently declared in a March interview on Fox & Friends that “al Qaeda is a shadow of its former self,” we were startled and concerned.
Can China’s Military Win the Tech War?
As the Chinese government has set out to harness the growing strength of the Chinese technology sector to bolster its military, policymakers in the United States have reacted with mounting alarm. U.S.
Particulate Plutonium Released from the Fukushima Daiichi Meltdowns
A new study reveals particles that were released from nuclear plants damaged in the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami contained small amounts of radioactive plutonium.
Why didn’t the U.S. rebuke Russia for its Taliban bounty deal? Four things to know.
President Trump is in the middle of another controversy involving Russia. A New York Times article on June 26 revealed Trump was informed in March that Russia offered bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S.
Donald Trump Could Lose the Election by Authorizing a New Nuclear Weapons Test
Polls in the United States and nine allied countries in Europe and Asia show that public support for a nuclear test is very low. If the Trump administration conducts a test, then it shouldn’t expect backing from Americans or its closest U.S. partners.
Read more at The National Interest
How the West could win a technological ‘shadow war’ with China
A new shadow war is underway within the International Telecommunication Union, one of the obscure organizations that sets global technical standards.
International standard-setting is a morass of positive intentions and poor execution. When the process works well, it selects the best technologies based on merit and, for example, allows people to use their personal cellphone numbers anywhere on Earth. When the system fails, we end up with different electrical outlets in each country and scramble for adapters.
How to use the next stimulus to counter China
“Build back better” was the mantra New Orleans adopted after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. It should be our country’s motto as we work to recover from the economic and public health crises caused by covid-19.
Read more at The Washington Post
U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Negotiations—A Short History
An accomplished negotiator puts nuclear arms control in perspective—what it has achieved, where it has failed and what it can do for our future security.