Topic: Nuclear Weapons - CIAO Search Results

1. Prospects and Problems for Reinvigorating Superpower Nuclear Cooperation

Author:: Ariel Petrovics
Publication Date:: 01-2026
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:: A three-way nuclear arms race between the United States, China, and Russia looms — an escalation that would erode global nonproliferation and usher in an era of unchecked nuclear proliferation. This brief offers a path to preventing this destabilizing outcome through pragmatic nuclear cooperation — an approach that has strong historical precedent and accords with the strategic interests of all three nuclear superpowers. Superpower cooperation historically underpinned the global nuclear nonproliferation regime, but increasing great power competition erodes this entire system of international security. China and Russia have each modernized and expanded their nuclear programs and adopted more aggressive nuclear postures. The United States, in turn, has approved a nearly $2 trillion nuclear modernization program. This burgeoning arms race heightens risks of inadvertent escalation, as each of the superpowers become increasingly reliant on nuclear brinkmanship to hold off the growing capabilities of their adversaries. The deteriorating nuclear security environment places pressure on other states to similarly seek their own nuclear arsenals while weakening the nonproliferation tool kit that previously prevented these states from breaking out. As more armed states join the fray, they in turn multiply the number of potential nuclear flashpoints around the world. Reinvesting in superpower cooperation on nuclear security is not an idealistic bid for goodwill. Rather, halting unchecked competition is a pragmatic strategy that serves the interests of the United States, Russia, and China. It preserves a global nuclear system that has safeguarded the superpowers’ dominance for decades. Weakening it, on the other hand, undermines the international marketplace that has preserved U.S. dominance in private industry and innovation. Russia and China, in turn, risk a multifront nuclear competition, as proximate U.S. allies choose uncontrolled independent arsenals over existing security umbrellas. The superpowers can still step back from the abyss by reviving nuclear cooperation. Toward that objective, this brief recommends that the Trump administration: Accept Russia’s offer to extend New START for a year, paired with verification pathways and transparency measures. Reinvigorate existing direct lines of communication (i.e., hotline systems) with both Russia and China. Initiate trilateral nuclear discussions with Russia and China toward the goal of capping arsenals at parity on specific warheads and delivery systems.
Topic:: Security, International Cooperation, Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, and Great Powers
Political Geography:: Russia, China, and United States of America

2. Shipment of a Controlled Vacuum Furnace to North Korea via Multiple States: An HS Code Case Study

Author:: David Albright
Publication Date:: 01-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:: In tracking trade data and trade flows, Harmonized System (HS) codes are routinely used to aid searches for dual-use commodities and to help guide the identification of dual-use items that require a license or greater scrutiny. A recurring concern is shipper falsification of HS codes to evade detection or payment of duties. An illustration of such falsifications is a case we learned about via government sources from around 2022 that involved North Korea and a dual-use vacuum furnace suitable for uranium melting that wound its way from Spain to North Korea, via Mexico, South Africa, and China. Such a furnace is typically controlled under the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) Part 2 list and is banned for export to North Korea under United Security Council resolutions. This type of furnace is a mainstay of a nuclear weapons program, particularly one that uses weapon-grade uranium as the nuclear explosive material, as North Korea is known to do. With North Korea expanding its uranium enrichment program and producing greater quantities of weapon-grade uranium, this new furnace would be especially important.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Trade, and Dual Use Items
Political Geography:: Asia and North Korea

3. Can France Provide European Allies with Nuclear Deterrence?

Author:: Roberto Zadra
Publication Date:: 03-2025
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:: In his speech to fellow citizens on 5 March, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the opening of a “strategic debate on the protection of our allies on the European continent by our (nuclear) deterrent”.[1] It is not the first time: already in the 1990s then-president François Mitterrand alluded to a vocation européenne of French nuclear deterrence.[2] Macron himself proposed, already in February 2020, the opening of a dialogue on the matter.[3] The initiative was not very successful at the time, essentially because European allies considered the security guarantees provided by the United States to Europe through NATO sufficient, together with the repeated reassurances of NATO communiqués that the British and French nuclear forces “have a deterrent role of their own and contribute significantly to the overall security of the Alliance”.[4] This time, however, the reactions by many European allied countries to the French initiative will probably be different. For a simple reason: excluding the deployment of its own forces to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire and denying security guarantees to Kyiv, the Trump administration fuels the fears of European allies that Washington’s commitment to collective defence is less solid than in the past. Indeed, the Ukraine crisis has shown the limitations of the traditional NATO distinction between Article 5 and non-Article 5 – that is, between those who are members of NATO and therefore protected by collective defence, and those who are not because collective defence is not valid for NATO partners – as it has laid bare how crisis management and cooperative security are having a direct impact on (the perceived lack of US commitment to) collective defence in Europe.
Topic:: Defense Policy, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, and Transatlantic Relations
Political Geography:: Europe and France

4. Political and Legal Foundations of Russia’s Strategic Planning in the Field of Nuclear Weapons

Author:: Tatyana Kashirina
Publication Date:: 01-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:: East View Information Services
Abstract:: RUSSIA’S official position on nuclear deterrence is outlined in several strategic planning documents concerning national security and defense. The deterioration of the international situation, worsening Russian- American and Russian-European relations, and the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine crisis in 2013-2014 prompted Moscow to revise its Military Doctrine in 2014. This document places significant emphasis on the increased activity of military forces unfriendly to Russia and foreign nations operating in territories adjacent to the Russian Federation and its allies. Among the key external military dangers are threats to global stability (which is primarily based on the possession of nuclear weapons) and regional stability through the development and deployment of strategic missile defense systems that disrupt the established balance of power in the nuclear missile domain. Other threats include the implementation of the “global strike” concept, intentions to deploy weapons in space, the proliferation of high-precision nonnuclear strategic systems, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, missiles, and missile technologies.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, National Security, Nuclear Weapons, International Security, Deterrence, and Strategic Planning
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Eurasia

5. Hermeneutics and Psychology of Russia’s Nuclear Deterrence

Author:: Vasily Belozyorov
Publication Date:: 01-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:: East View Information Services
Abstract:: RECENT developments surrounding Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy have sparked widespread reactions in Russia and abroad, ranging from belligerent and aggressive to eschatological and apocalyptic. On November 19, 2024, official guidelines were unveiled in the updated document titled Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence1 (hereinafter referred to as the Fundamentals). Several factors compelled Russia to revise its approaches to nuclear deterrence policy: the erosion of strategic stability, provocations and nuclear blackmail by Ukraine, and Western encouragement of the latter’s irresponsible and reckless leadership. The increasingly adversarial nature of global relations has brought the international system to the brink of large-scale war. The release of this new doctrinal policy provides a critical opportunity to analyze various aspects of Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Communications, Deterrence, Hermeneutics, Russia-Ukraine War, Perception, and Intimidation
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Eurasia

6. Hypersonic Myths and Strategic Realities

Author:: Mihai Giboi
Publication Date:: 02-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: After decades of deterrence preventing nuclear war, hypersonic weapons appear poised to undermine strategic stability due to their speed, manoeuvrability, and potential ability to defeat missile defences. Because of their technological characteristics, Canadian and American discourse largely conclude that they will pose challenges to the international security environment, especially nuclear deterrence. However, the literature’s technical lens provides exaggerated threat assessments that assert hypersonics could disrupt the strategic nuclear balance, without acknowledging the risk of retaliation. Consequently, this paper counters these claims by drawing from Thomas Schelling’s emphasis on mutual vulnerability, and Kenneth Waltz’s insights about counterforce limitations, to demonstrate that hypersonic weapons cannot undermine strategic stability because they are subject to the same constraints that discourage a nuclear attack. It also argues that attacking command-and-control is more dangerous than attempting a counterforce strike, since it does not attempt to physically neutralize a second-strike capability.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, International Security, Deterrence, and Hypersonic Weapons
Political Geography:: Canada, North America, and United States of America

7. Forecasting Nuclear Escalation Risks: Cloudy With a Chance of Fallout

Author:: Jamie Kwong, Anna Bartoux, and James M. Acton
Publication Date:: 04-2025
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:: Forecasting—that is, estimating the probability of specified events’ occurring—can contribute to efforts to better understand and address the challenge of managing escalation.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Forecast, Escalation, and Risk Assessment
Political Geography:: Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America

8. Rethinking a Political Approach to Nuclear Abolition

Author:: George Perkovich, Fumihiko Yoshida, and Michiru Nishida
Publication Date:: 03-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:: Preventing nuclear war and other existential military threats requires nations today to focus more on politics than on the qualities or quantities of weapons. Yet, many participants in nuclear policy debates do the opposite.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, and Military
Political Geography:: Global Focus

9. La Intersección entre Inteligencia Artificial y Armas Nucleares: Riesgos, Beneficios y Recomendaciones

Author:: Manuel Herrera
Publication Date:: 01-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:: Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:: Las innovaciones tecnológicas han sido clave en la evolución de la defensa militar, permitiendo a los Estados obtener ventajas estratégicas, como ocurrió en 1945 con la bomba atómica. Actualmente, la inteligencia artificial (IA) impulsa una revolución similar. Aunque su uso principal es civil y empresarial, varios países la están integrando en sus capacidades militares para ganar superioridad estratégica. La IA ya se emplea con éxito en drones y análisis de macrodatos, pero también comienza a aplicarse en sistemas de armamento nuclear, lo que podría tener consecuencias imprevisibles. Este artículo examina el impacto de la IA en las armas nucleares, centrándose en los sistemas de mando y control, y sus implicaciones para el equilibrio estratégico global. Se define la IA, se analiza su uso histórico en la Guerra Fría por Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética, y se evalúan sus aplicaciones actuales. Finalmente, se proponen recomendaciones para mitigar riesgos asociados a su integración en el ámbito nuclear.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Machine Learning
Political Geography:: Global Focus

10. Averting AI Armageddon: U.S.-China-Russia Rivalry at the Nexus of Nuclear Weapons and Artificial Intelligence

Author:: Jacob Stokes, Colin H. Kahl, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, and Nicholas Lokker
Publication Date:: 02-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:: In recent years, the previous bipolar nuclear order led by the United States and Russia has given way to a more volatile tripolar one, as China has quantitatively and qualitatively built up its nuclear arsenal. At the same time, there have been significant breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including for military applications. As a result of these two trends, understanding the AI-nuclear nexus in the context of U.S.-China-Russia geopolitical competition is increasingly urgent. There are various military use cases for AI, including classification models, analytic and predictive models, generative AI, and autonomy. Given that variety, it is necessary to examine the AI-nuclear nexus across three broad categories: nuclear command, control, and communications; structural elements of the nuclear balance; and entanglement of AI-enabled conventional systems with nuclear risks. While each of these categories has the potential to generate risk, this report argues that the degree of risk posed by a particular case depends on three major factors: the role of humans, the degree to which AI systems become a single point of failure, and the AI offense-defense balance. As Russia and China increasingly aim to modernize their nuclear arsenals and integrate AI into their militaries, it is essential for policymakers to be aware of the risks posed by the AI-nuclear nexus. Dealing with China and Russia on issues at this nexus is likely to be difficult in the current diplomatic and military context, characterized by increasingly strained bilateral relationships between the United States and both China and Russia, along with an uptick in coordination between Beijing and Moscow. Nonetheless, there are still various steps that U.S. policymakers could take to bolster deterrence and stability with respect to these issues. These include: building knowledge and competency around issues at the AI-nuclear nexus; integrating AI into diplomatic initiatives related to nuclear and other strategic risks, and vice versa; establishing and promoting norms for the safe use of AI in relation to nuclear arsenals and other strategic capabilities; developing policy and technical criteria for assessing exactly how and when to keep humans in the loop on all nuclear-related processes; including AI technologies as a factor in oversight and reviews of the U.S. nuclear arsenal; investing in AI-enabled cyber and space capabilities to enhance defense and resilience, reduce incentives to attack those areas, and mitigate entanglement risks; consulting closely with U.S. allies about how AI will shape extended deterrence calculations related to both nuclear and conventional capabilities; and pursuing a comprehensive set of risk reduction and crisis management mechanisms with China and Russia while recognizing the obstacles to progress. Failing to take these steps could leave the country and the world dangerously exposed to risks and ill-prepared to seize any opportunities arising from the increasingly salient AI-nuclear nexus.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, and Rivalry
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

11. Assessing China’s Nuclear Decision-Making: Three Analytical Lenses

Author:: Jacob Stokes
Publication Date:: 03-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:: China’s rapid nuclear buildup is raising questions about how the country makes decisions related to nuclear weapons. This policy brief analyzes that trend by presenting three overarching analytical lenses, or categories of factors, that shape Beijing’s nuclear decision-making: leadership, weapons systems and military organizations, and official policies and doctrine. On leadership, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping likely sees nuclear weapons granting prestige and growing in relevance, but his views on nuclear weapons’ efficacy are less clear. On weapons systems and military organizations, the expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal provides the country’s leaders with new options, which could shift those leaders’ intentions over time. Implementation of those options, though, runs through often-corrupt People’s Liberation Army military organizations. On official policies and doctrine, Beijing possibly sees its professed stance as a country that does not engage in U.S.- and Russian-style arms buildups as a source of diplomatic influence, particularly in the developing world or Global South. Separately, the circumstances where China’s nuclear no-first-use policy would face a true test—for example, during a major Taiwan contingency—are precisely the moments when Beijing would have massive incentives to selectively interpret or simply abandon that policy. In the near term, China’s official nuclear weapons policies will likely stay the same, so the gap between rhetoric and action will grow. A bigger arsenal and more nuclear rhetoric and signaling will, over time, also shape future Chinese coercion campaigns. In response, U.S. policymakers should commission an intelligence assessment of Xi’s views of specific nuclear crises, pressure China to issue more explanation of its nuclear policies and capabilities, and expand information sharing about missile tests on a reciprocal basis. U.S. policymakers should also make an authoritative policy statement on what would constitute China reaching nuclear parity with the United States and counter China’s nuclear buildup using both conventional and nuclear capabilities.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Decision-Making
Political Geography:: China, Asia, and United States of America

12. 30 years of the Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Nuclear Weapons: eppur si muove

Author:: Lucas Carlos Lima
Publication Date:: 04-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:: Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
Abstract:: The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons remains a pivotal reference in international law and disarmament debates. While the Opinion did not categorically prohibit nuclear weapons, its reasoning has been widely cited in legal and diplomatic arenas. This study examines the Opinion’s long-term influence through three key elements: its incorporation into state practice, its role in international litigation, and its impact on the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Employing a methodology centered on primary sources, this research evaluates the Opinion’s relevance in shaping international legal norms and assesses whether it still accurately reflects the state of international law on nuclear disarmament.
Topic:: International Law, Nuclear Weapons, Disarmament, and International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Political Geography:: Global Focus

13. North Korea, Russia, and China: Past Cooperation & Future Prospects

Author:: Sydney Seiler
Publication Date:: 06-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:: Syd Seiler argues that recent developments in the relationship between North Korea, China, and Russia should be examined within the context of past interactions and North Korea’s geopolitical reality over the past several decades. North Korea’s pursuit of a distanced approach toward China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, its post-Cold War management of the bilateral relationships while developing nuclear weapons, and contemporary developments within the North Korea-China-Russia triangle highlight limited shared interests and few signs of deliberate trilateralism. Despite skepticism regarding the durability of trilateralism, Seiler warns against neglecting the threat of collaboration and cooperation among the three countries. In particular, the evolving relationship between North Korea, China, and Russia holds the potential to harm the existing balance of power on the Korean Peninsula and embolden North Korea to believe that the use of force might be justified within the New Cold War structure. Seiler outlines three scenarios in which the evolution of trilateralism could lead to North Korea employing military force on the Korean Peninsula, highlighting the critical role of China and Russia in either restraining or encouraging North Korean revisionism. To properly respond to the dangerous transformation of the geopolitical environment, Seiler recommends the United States, South Korea, and like-minded states reinforce conventional and extended deterrence by convincing China and Russia that they will incur high costs for enabling North Korea’s coercive and revisionist behavior.
Topic:: Security, International Cooperation, Nuclear Weapons, Geopolitics, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Eurasia, Asia, and North Korea

14. The imperative of augmenting US theater nuclear forces

Author:: Greg Weaver
Publication Date:: 04-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Atlantic Council
Abstract:: The United States and its allies and partners face an impending change in the threats posed by nuclear-armed adversaries: a strategic environment marked by two nuclear peer major powers. Russia, long a nuclear peer of the United States, will likely emerge from the war in Ukraine—regardless of how it ends—even more reliant on its nuclear forces, which are already the largest in the world. Meanwhile, China is undertaking the largest nuclear force buildup since the Cold War. That buildup will increase the size of Beijing’s nuclear forces by roughly seven and a half times since 2018, positioning China as a nuclear peer of the United States by 2035.1 Meanwhile, North Korea continues to expand and diversify its nuclear arsenal. Although the North Korean threat has been somewhat constrained by the quality of its ballistic missile systems—particularly its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)—technical assistance from Russia, in exchange for Kim Jong Un’s material support for the war in Ukraine, could rapidly enhance North Korean capabilities. Finally, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East could prompt Iran to choose to acquire its own nuclear arsenal, presenting a wholly new challenge. A pair of recent analyses of the strategic impact of this two-nuclear-peer environment have sounded an alarm, making clear that this environment poses a qualitatively and quantitatively new threat of adversary aggression and the potential for nuclear war.2 Conducted by bipartisan teams of former senior US officials and other nuclear experts, both analyses concluded—in the words of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (hereafter referred to as the Strategic Posture Commission)—that the planned US nuclear force “is absolutely essential, although not sufficient [emphasis added] to meet the new threats posed by Russia and China.”3 Both reports emphasized the urgent need to enhance US theater nuclear forces to address the most likely path to large-scale nuclear war: the failure to deter or counter limited adversary nuclear use in an ongoing conventional conflict. Finally, both reports laid out a set of attributes that US theater nuclear force enhancements must possess to effectively address the threat of limited nuclear escalation. However, these reports did not examine in depth the deterrence and warfighting implications of alternative new US theater nuclear systems. This paper examines why the two-nuclear-peer threat makes the enhancement of US theater nuclear forces an urgent imperative. It explains why the planned US strategic and theater nuclear forces are insufficient to address this threat. The paper then presents a more detailed set of political-military and operational attributes that enhanced US theater nuclear forces must possess to effectively counter the threat. Using these attributes, it evaluates the relative deterrence and warfighting value of various potential alternative theater-range nuclear weapon systems. The paper concludes with a recommended future US theater nuclear force structure and posture, specifically, that the United States should field a theater nuclear force that combines an effectively dispersible dual-capable fighter aircraft (DCA) force in Europe with nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-Ns) deployed day-to-day on attack submarines (SSNs) in Europe and Asia and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCM-Ns) and/or ground-launched ballistic missiles (GLBM-Ns) continuously deployed in Europe and/or Asia.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Europe, North America, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

15. How can Europe’s nuclear deterrence trilemma be resolved?

Author:: Andrea Gilli and Francesco Nicoli
Publication Date:: 06-2025
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Bruegel
Abstract:: The United States under President Donald Trump has adopted an ambiguous position on European security. Although no immediate risk of abandonment is apparent, European countries are rethinking their defence strategies in case the US declines to support them, or provides only partial support, in a crisis. This discussion is particularly sensitive in relation to nuclear weapons, the ultimate deterrent, for which European countries depend extensively on the United States. We argue that a possible future US withdrawal from European nuclear security will force European countries to face a policy trilemma. If they stick to the existing policy framework of no proliferation and no joint deterrence, they expose themselves to nuclear blackmail, should the US withdraw its external guarantee. If they want to protect themselves from nuclear blackmail, they must choose how to provide nuclear security: either collective nuclear security, which would compromise some national sovereignty, or independent provision by individual countries, leading to nuclear proliferation in Europe. Having established that uncontrolled proliferation is an inferior outcome to some form of joint deterrence, we identify four main alternatives: an extension of the Franco-British nuclear deterrent; an extension complemented by a jointly financed expansion of existing deterrence; the absorption of the French (and perhaps British) nuclear arsenals into a European arsenal; and the construction of a separate European submarine deterrent (with Europe using French or British technology or developing new technology). We also discuss briefly forms of non-nuclear deterrence, which however would likely be a complementary rather than a substitute for a nuclear deterrent. We compare these options using a set of parameters: strategic autonomy and credibility, changes to treaties (including non-proliferation), costs, capabilities and readiness. Our analysis shows that all options have advantages and disadvantages, but some are politically, financially and militarily more feasible.
Topic:: Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Industrial Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Geopolitics, Macroeconomics, Deterrence, Transatlantic Relations, and Vulnerability
Political Geography:: Europe, North America, and United States of America

16. Nuclear NATO: How to make it credible and efficient

Author:: Karl-Heinz Kamp
Publication Date:: 01-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: NATO Defense College
Abstract:: NATO’s nuclear deterrence is not suffi ciently prepared for the evolving strategic environment in Europe and beyond. The current Strategic Concept does not defi ne which steps are needed to maintain nuclear deterrence’s eff ectiveness and credibility. To adapt nuclear deterrence to today’s requirements, NATO must fi rst and foremost agree on a new nuclear strategy document.
Topic:: Defense Policy, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Europe

17. Brazil and the TPNW: Brazilian Interests and the Promotion of the Norm of Nuclear Prohibition

Author:: Luiza Elena Januário and Raquel Gontijo
Publication Date:: 08-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Contexto Internacional
Institution:: Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) formalises the norm of nuclear prohibition and is presented as a way to fill a gap regarding nuclear disarmament. Brazil played a leading role in the negotiation of this treaty, in line with its historical advocacy for disarmament. This article aims to analyse the foundations of the Brazilian position, guided by the following question: Can Brazil be considered a norm entrepreneur in favour of the prohibition of nuclear weapons? We hypothesise that Brazil has not truly solidified its role as a normative entrepreneur, exhibiting an ambiguous stance. We begin the article with a discussion of the contributions of norm constructivism. Next, we present some elements of the nuclear normative order. Finally, we analyse Brazil’s posture regarding TPNW and the norm of nuclear prohibition. We provide a historical reconstruction of Brazil’s position, situating it in the context of the norm cluster around nuclear weapons. Despite being vocal in advocating for disarmament, we conclude that Brazil has not fully established itself as a norm entrepreneur in promoting the norm of nuclear prohibition and presents an ambiguous stance due to its weak adherence to humanitarian motivation as the foundation of this norm.
Topic:: Disarmament, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), Nuclear Weapons, and Norms
Political Geography:: Brazil and South America

18. On Limited Nuclear Use in the Western Pacific

Author:: Mike Sweeney
Publication Date:: 08-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Defense Priorities
Abstract:: Introduction Would China or the United States use nuclear weapons in a conflict over Taiwan? If so, what would that look like in practice? This paper examines that dark prospect. It unfolds as a series of queries designed to highlight the key factors that could influence limited nuclear use in a war in the Western Pacific. Firm answers to these questions are not always forthcoming. The exact decision-making calculations related to nuclear employment—from both the Chinese and U.S. side—are impossible to state definitively in advance of the actual moment when such weapons might be utilized. Rather, the paper’s intent is to provide the reader insight into the issues that come into play when debating nuclear use in a Taiwan contingency. The goal is less hard answers and more a basis for further conversation. Examining nuclear use in the Western Pacific obviously should not be conflated with endorsing it. But avoiding nuclear employment in practice might hinge, in part, on better understanding the circumstances where it could come into play in advance. At a minimum, realistic examinations of nuclear use in the Western Pacific can further raise awareness of the escalation risks in any conflict over Taiwan.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Weapons, Armed Conflict, Escalation, and Firms
Political Geography:: China, Taiwan, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

19. Nuclear Weapons In Space: Orbital Bombardment and Strategic Stability

Author:: Aaron Stein
Publication Date:: 09-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:: In 2015, a new space race began. Blue Origin, a privately owned company, landed a booster on a launch pad back on earth, after lifting an object 100 kilometers into the atmosphere. SpaceX quickly followed suit, landing its own Falcon booster back on a pad for use again for later space flight. The dramatic drop in the cost of space launch has revolutionized how humans now use space. SpaceX now operates thousands of satellites in large constellations and a bevy of private companies have hundreds of privately owned satellites now circling the globe taking images of every surface of the planet. Ukrainian soldiers, fighting against the Russian army, use satellite internet to coordinate fires and fly small drones over the front lines. In response to this revolution in space, American adversaries have invested in the tools to hold these satellites at risk. Russia is reportedly experimenting with a nuclear-armed co-orbital satellite, a program that has links back to the early days of the Cold War. China has invested in anti-satellite weapons and, in yet another throwback to Soviet Cold War behavior, invested in an orbital bombardment system to overcome any future deployment of space-based missile defenses. The United States is in an advantageous position. Its space private sector has no true competitor. The dramatic decrease in the cost of space launch has made space-based missile defense more feasible than ever before. However, the moves by U.S. adversaries to hold at risk U.S. assets in space require new thinking about how to protect those same assets, deter the use of nuclear weapons to target large constellations, and to defend against the novel ways adversaries are now experimenting with to defeat space-based missile defense. The U.S. should consider how to repurpose current missile defense interceptors to hold any Russian co-orbital satellites at risk, make explicit that any nuclear attack on U.S. origin satellites would invite retaliation, continue to invest in sensors to detect missile launch from adversary nations (including those fired south to travel over the South Pole), and to be the insurer of last resort for private satellites that could be destroyed by a hostile act.
Topic:: National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Space, and Strategic Stability
Political Geography:: North America, United States of America, China, and Russia

20. Impact of Military Artificial Intelligence on Nuclear Escalation Risk

Author:: Vladislav Chernavskikh and Jules Palayer
Publication Date:: 06-2025
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:: Increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into military systems has the potential to influence nuclear escalation even when that integration occurs outside nuclear weapon systems. Non-nuclear applications of military AI may compress decision-making timelines, potentially increasing miscalculation risks during a crisis. Opaque recommendations from an AI-powered decision-support system can bias a decision maker towards acting, while autonomy in a system with counterforce potential may undermine strategic stability by threatening the integrity of second-strike capabilities. Such uses of AI raise the fundamental question of whether they introduce new risks, exacerbate existing ones or fundamentally alter the nature of nuclear escalation. Contextual and socio-technical factors that might affect nuclear escalation pathways can help to answer this question. Understanding these dynamics is essential for using current risk-reduction measures or developing new strategies to address nuclear escalation risks posed by military AI.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Artificial Intelligence, Military, Armament, and Nuclear Security
Political Geography:: Global Focus

21. Clearing the Path for Nuclear Disarmament: Confidence-building in the Korean Peninsula

Author:: Tytti Erästö
Publication Date:: 04-2025
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:: This paper explores possibilities for building confidence in the Korean peninsula to address the conflict dynamics and militarization in the region. It argues that a key reason for the failure of past diplomatic efforts has been the coercive approach in pursuit of immediate nuclear disarmament in North Korea. In addition to a more incremental approach to North Korean–United States nuclear diplomacy focused on arms control, the paper highlights the need for reciprocity in terms of sanctions relief, as well as more robust confidence-building measures aimed at reducing instability and addressing the security rationales behind North Korea’s nuclear policy. At the same time, it proposes embedding nuclear diplomacy into a broader framework of cooperative risk reduction and arms control that also includes South Korea and possibly other regional actors. If sustained over time, such a framework could ultimately also promote nuclear disarmament alongside the normalization of political relations between key conflict parties.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Disarmament, and Confidence Building Measures
Political Geography:: Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

22. Advancing Governance at the Nexus of Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons

Author:: Fei Su, Vladislav Chernavskikh, and Wilfred Wan
Publication Date:: 03-2025
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:: The rapid advancement of military artificial intelligence (AI), especially its potential integration into nuclear systems, presents significant risks to strategic stability and established deterrence practices. Despite these concerns, no dedicated governance framework currently exists to address the specific challenges of the AI–nuclear nexus. Existing initiatives have primarily focused on ensuring human control over nuclear decision-making. There are a number of state-led initiatives on the governance of military AI more broadly. They can be adapted to address the use of AI in nuclear weapons, but applying them will not be straightforward. There is thus a need to extend the conversation beyond the ‘human in the loop’ concept and develop targeted governance measures. Future discussions could investigate the precise level and degree of required human control and set clear red lines for both the extent and the type of AI integration in nuclear and related systems.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Governance, Disarmament, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:: Global Focus

23. Beyond the Nuclear Balance: A Strategic Forces Net Assessment

Author:: Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr.
Publication Date:: 02-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Hudson Institute
Abstract:: Senior American policymakers and military leaders want and need to know how the United States stands in key military competitions relative to its rivals. This net assessment examines the balance of strategic forces (the strategic balance) between the United States and its two principal rivals, the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or “China”) and the Russian Federation (“Russia”). The assessment examines the current balance as well as trends that may alter the balance significantly over the planning horizon, defined as the 2025–40 time frame. During the Cold War, the term strategic forces referred to nuclear weapons deployed on strategic delivery systems: intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and long-range bombers (LRBs). This taxonomy was codified in the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) and in the SALT I and II agreements negotiated between the United States and Soviet Union. Strategic defenses were those forces capable of defending effectively against attacks by these forces. This assessment retains this taxonomy with two important additions. First, following the Cold War, new capabilities emerged that could, under certain circumstances, perform some strategic strike operations1 that were once the exclusive domain of strategic nuclear forces. This is the case with respect to long-range delivery systems armed with precision-guided munitions, or non-nuclear strategic strike (NNSS) forces. Second, cyber weapons were introduced. Many believe they have the potential to threaten a state’s critical infrastructure (CI), its strategic force command, control communications, and computer (C4) systems, and its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems. Combined with strategic nuclear systems, NNSS and cyber forces constitute an expanded strategic triad, supplementing the nuclear triad of land-based, sea-based, and airborne delivery systems. That said, given their proven ability to inflict prompt catastrophic destruction against the full range of strategic counterforce and countervalue targets, nuclear weapons remain far and away the most important strategic force. Consequently, they are this assessment’s principal focus.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, National Security, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:: Russia, China, and United States of America

24. Implications of Chinese Nuclear Weapons Modernization for the United States and Regional Allies

Author:: John Lee and Lavina Lee
Publication Date:: 07-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Hudson Institute
Abstract:: Based on current trends, China will become a quantitative and qualitative nuclear weapons peer of the United States by the early to mid-2030s with a diversified, accurate, and survivable force that will rival America’s. Rather than having only high-yield nuclear missiles as a strategic deterrent against nuclear attack, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is developing a range of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, the latter being lower-yield weapons usable in a conflict theater. Why is China seemingly going beyond its long-standing nuclear weapons approach of maintaining only a minimal deterrent or assured retaliation? Why has it chosen to rapidly develop its nuclear arsenal and related delivery system in a deliberately opaque manner? This report argues that Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) decided to embark on such a rapid nuclear modernization not primarily because China wants to “win” a nuclear exchange against the US. Rather, Beijing wants to create political and psychological effects that lead to enormously important strategic and military effects. As the report explains, the CCP and PLA are using the rapid development of nuclear capability and related delivery systems to subdue the adversary and win without fighting. The following are components of achieving this: Degrade the adversary’s decision-making. Weaken the adversary’s will to fight. Undermine the adversary’s public support for war. Undermine the resolve of the adversary’s government from within. Support and enhance deterrence. The report assesses that there are three ways in which China uses nuclear modernization to change the material and psychological environment with important strategic effects that work to its advantage.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense, and Modernization
Political Geography:: China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

25. Nuclear Deterrence Explained: Strategic Implications for Europe in the Absence of U.S. Extended Deterrence

Author:: Iakob Dadvani
Publication Date:: 05-2025
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:: Recent developments in U.S. foreign policy discourse indicate two potential future directions: prioritization or retrenchment.1 Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric clearly reflects a tendency toward retrenchment, particularly with respect to Europe. The most prominent indicators of this shift include the potential U.S. withdrawal from NATO European command, or a significant downsizing of its role2 , which would reduce the alliance’s overall combat effectiveness. This change would necessitate increased defense spending from European countries to maintain credible conventional deterrence, as the aggregate military power must remain constant despite reduced American involvement. Further to this are the moves to solve the Russia-Ukraine war by pressuring Ukrainians into negotiations that result in an unjust peace without security guarantees.3 Such an outcome would likely lead to long-term instability across the European continent.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, NATO, Deterrence, Donald Trump, Regional Security, Russia-Ukraine War, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Europe, Ukraine, and United States of America

26. Russia Transitions to Nuclear Intimidation

Author:: Arseny Sivitsky and Alexander Taranov
Publication Date:: 12-2025
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:: Since the launch of Moscow’s large-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, Russia has consistently escalated its nuclear posture from a predominantly defensive deterrence model toward offensive nuclear deterrence and intimidation. Russian offensive nuclear deterrence goes beyond signaling and prescribes demonstrative, selective, or limited nuclear strikes against selected critical facilities to instill fear among Western countries of large-scale and potentially uncontrolled nuclear escalation. Predeployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons and strategic offensive systems in Belarus, updates to the 2024 Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence, and preparations to resume nuclear testing manifest and support a practical transition to this concept. The Kremlin’s preparations to resume nuclear testing were intended to reinforce the credibility of Russian nuclear threats and technically prepare for the potential nuclear weapons use in combat conditions.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, Russia-Ukraine War, and Intimidation
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

27. Virtual Briefing Series | The Future of US-Iran Relations

Author:: Zeina AlShaib, Alan Eyre, and Jason Campbell
Publication Date:: 07-2025
Content Type:: Video
Institution:: Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:: This on-the-record briefing, moderated by MEI's Zeina Al-Shaib, discussed the future of US-Iran relations. The recent 12-day war saw coordinated US and Israeli airstrikes against key Iranian military officials and nuclear facilities. Washington is weighing Iran’s conditional offer to return to nuclear negotiations contingent on firm security guarantees. Tehran is assessing whether to pursue diplomacy or reinforce its deterrent capabilities after this decisive confrontation. What impact will Tehran’s and Washington’s next steps have on the region’s already fragile political balance? The briefing featured Alan Eyre, a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at MEI. A former senior State Department diplomat, Eyre served as a core member of the US nuclear negotiating team with Iran in 2010-15. The briefing also featured Jason H. Campbell, Senior Fellow at MEI. Campbell has previously served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. Our experts discussed the lessons learned from the war between Israel and Iran; the prospect of renewed fighting; the future of Iran’s nuclear ambitions; the ripple effect of this conflict on the wider region; as well as outlines of a durable diplomatic solution.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Bilateral Relations, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Israel, North America, and United States of America

28. Grand strategy: Deterrence

Author:: Christopher McCallion
Publication Date:: 10-2025
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Defense Priorities
Abstract:: Deterrence is the mobilization of coercive means to convince an adversary not to take an aggressive action. This can mean mobilizing an effective defense—convincing an adversary they will not be able to achieve their goal—or threatening to punish an adversary so even successful aggression doesn’t seem worthwhile. The ability to deter an adversary requires that they perceive both the capability and the will to carry out a deterrent threat—in other words, that they find the deterrent threat “credible.” It also requires an implicit assurance that the adversary will not suffer should they refrain from taking action. The massive and mutually destructive power of nuclear weapons makes leaders especially cautious about taking actions that could escalate to nuclear war, thereby suppressing the incentives for conventional war between nuclear-armed states. Extended nuclear deterrence, such as the “nuclear umbrella” the United States has extended to many of its allies since World War II, puts strain on the credibility underlying nuclear deterrence since it risks annihilation on behalf of allies. Extended deterrence becomes less credible and therefore more likely to fail when the fate of the third party is not vital to the state defending it. Now that its core allies have the latent capability to defend themselves—including with nuclear weapons—the United States should exit unnecessary commitments to extended deterrence.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Grand Strategy, Deterrence, and Great Powers
Political Geography:: Global Focus

29. Target Taiwan: Challenges for a U.S. intervention

Author:: Lyle Goldstein
Publication Date:: 10-2025
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Defense Priorities
Abstract:: China could attack Taiwan, attempting a fait accompli before the United States could mobilize sufficient forces in theater to defend it. Chinese advantages of proximity and will suggest that the U.S. would pay a heavy price in this scenario. U.S. ground forces would struggle to enter the combat theater in the relevant time because of uncertainties related to the air and sea campaigns. Attempts to insert U.S. ground forces in peacetime could ignite the very conflict they would intend to deter. Chinese missile, air, and drone assaults could damage U.S. airfields in the region and slow U.S. air support, acutely degrading U.S. maritime operations and Taiwan’s ground defenses. Because U.S. Navy surface forces, including aircraft carrier battle groups, are vulnerable to China’s A2/AD systems, combat in a Taiwan scenario would likely be disproportionately borne by the U.S. Navy submarine force. While these submarines could do damage to the Chinese Navy, they probably lack sufficient firepower to affect the overall outcome of a war. Surging forward U.S. air and naval power in a Taiwan scenario would entail incredible risks, including nuclear escalation. Any war or even intensive militarized rivalry between the U.S. and China would entail enormous risks in exchange for little gain.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Armed Forces, Military Intervention, and Rivalry
Political Geography:: China, Taiwan, Asia, and United States of America

30. How Russian Coercion Diminished Deterrence and Shifted the Nuclear Balance

Author:: WIlliam Schneider
Publication Date:: 06-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Hudson Institute
Abstract:: For a recent example of the rapidity of change in the international security environment, one should look to the United States’ most recent Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Though it was released in 2022, nearly all its policy aims and expectations are already out of date. With Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Caine warning last week that he does not believe Russia will stop at Ukraine, and with Russian President Vladimir Putin boasting that his country is the “highest of all nuclear powers,” Washington needs to update its understanding of the new nuclear balance. In its NPR, the Biden administration sought to place “renewed emphasis on arms control [and] nuclear non-proliferation.” Doing so, it believed, would enable the president to “pursue opportunities to reduce the role of nuclear weapons globally, enhance strategic stability with the [People’s Republic of China] and Russia, and reduce the risks of war or escalation during war.” But nuclear weapons are now central to the diplomatic aspirations of four nuclear-armed (or near-nuclear-armed) US adversaries—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. These increasingly aligned states have signed a series of diplomatic, intelligence, defense-industrial, logistics, and military agreements. Additionally, arms control and nuclear nonproliferation frameworks constructed during the Cold War have ceased to meaningfully constrain Russian nuclear weapons programs. Russia has withdrawn from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which suggests that it will resume nuclear testing and will not extend New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). Moreover, emerging doubts about the US commitment to global nuclear deterrence are emboldening Moscow’s nuclear weapons development and deployment aspirations. And Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine signaled a definitive end to the accords concerning Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity: the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements. Most fundamentally, US policy choices since Russia’s invasion have given US allies and adversaries alike reason to believe that nuclear threats are an effective means of deterring the US. The widespread recognition that the US could be deterred from taking actions otherwise in its interest set in motion a sequence of Russian initiatives that have adversely affected the credibility of US nuclear deterrence and nuclear nonproliferation aims more broadly.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and United States of America

31. From umbrella to arsenal: boosting Europe's nuclear deterrence

Author:: Juraj Majcin
Publication Date:: 06-2025
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:: Europe is entering its most dangerous decade since the Cold War. The post-Cold War peace has been shattered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and an escalating campaign of hybrid aggression aimed at destabilising the continent. Military and intelligence leaders are sounding the alarm with growing urgency: within the next three to five years, Russia could be in shape to launch a direct attack on a NATO member, plunging the Alliance into open war. To prevent such a catastrophe, deterrence must remain the bedrock of Europe’s defence strategy. In response to these threats, frontline states along NATO’s eastern and northern flanks have begun unprecedented rearmament efforts. However, deterrence without a nuclear dimension is incomplete—and, in the face of a nuclear-armed adversary, potentially ineffective. Nuclear deterrence has long been central to European security. During the Cold War, it was the US nuclear umbrella, combined with forward-deployed conventional forces, that held the Soviet threat in check. Today, however, cracks are emerging in the transatlantic bond, as the current US administration’s mixed signals on NATO commitments have deepened European anxieties about the reliability of American security guarantees. Even more concerning, Russia has developed and deployed new intermediate-range nuclear missiles on NATO’s doorstep, while intensifying its nuclear sabre-rattling through explicit threats and provocative rhetoric aimed at undermining allied resolve. Against this backdrop, Europe must confront a pressing question: how can it strengthen its own nuclear arsenal to ensure a credible deterrent against Russia—with or without the backing of the US umbrella?
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: United Kingdom, Europe, and France

32. Attacking Iran's Nuclear Program: The Complex Calculus of Preventive Action

Author:: Michael Eisenstadt
Publication Date:: 03-2025
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:: Should a negotiated deal prove elusive, policymakers will need to consider how to define a successful strike, Iran’s potential responses, and whether a strategy of prevention can be sustained. ran’s nuclear program is one of the most pressing foreign policy challenges facing the Trump administration. While the president has expressed his preference for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, many Israeli officials believe that Iran’s current weakness provides a unique opportunity to destroy or at least set back its nuclear program through a military strike. Should a negotiated deal prove elusive, policymakers will need to weigh the pros and cons of military action and answer several questions, including: How does one define a successful strike? What challenges need to be addressed in planning a campaign to destroy or degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons program? How sustainable is a strategy of prevention? And how might Iran respond to such a campaign? In this Policy Note, military expert Michael Eisenstadt explains that a preventive attack likely won’t be a one-off but rather the opening round of a lengthy campaign employing military strikes, covert action, and other elements of national power. Such a campaign, he writes, could presage either a more stable order for the region or a new, dangerous phase in one of its most volatile conflicts.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Energy, Regional Security, and Preventive Measures
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

33. The Russian Northern Fleet Bastion Revisited

Author:: Jonas Kjellén
Publication Date:: 12-2025
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:: Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:: The Soviet bastion defense concept was likely among the most influential approximations of Soviet wartime strategy during the Cold War, and it has continued to shape Western perceptions of Russian naval strategy in the post–Cold War era. However, recent shifts in Russian military geography and technological advancements challenge the rationale for Moscow to pursue a bastion defense strategy during wartime. Climate change is altering the conditions for Russian military posturing in the Arctic, while new technologies are reshaping the Russian Navy’s role in nuclear deterrence and the function of its naval general-purpose forces. This article contends that Western military planners must adapt their assessments of Russia’s wartime strategies to reflect these evolving dynamics, ensuring sound and strategic responses in the high north.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Navy, Deterrence, and Strategic Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBN)
Political Geography:: Russia, Soviet Union, and Arctic

34. The Future of Nuclear Proliferation after the War in Ukraine

Author:: Nicholas L. Miller
Publication Date:: 04-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:: In the context of deep changes to the international security environment, especially the war in Ukraine, the risks of nuclear proliferation seem quite high, especially in the Middle East and East Asia. Four categories of factors have been identified that might trigger an escalation. Firstly, changes in the international security environment, including heightened competition among major powers, could increase pressure for proliferation in regions like Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Secondly, the declining ability of the United States to enforce non-proliferation regimes may lead allies to seek nuclear capabilities due to concerns over U.S. reliability. Thirdly, failures by nuclear powers to uphold disarmament commitments and the emergence of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons could undermine non-proliferation norms. Lastly, the war in Ukraine highlights the potential use of nuclear threats in conflicts, reinforcing the perception of nuclear weapons as crucial for national security. While there are reasons to anticipate growing proliferation risks, historical precedent suggests that these risks can be managed. Concerns over U.S. reliability and disarmament failures have been addressed through coercion and reassurance in the past. Additionally, the impact of conventional wars supported by nuclear deterrence has been contained. While some risk factors are novel, such as the decline of the U.S. nuclear industry and the emergence of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, their decisive impact remains uncertain. The implications for the Middle East and East Asia vary. Allies like Japan and South Korea may be convinced to remain non-nuclear due to U.S. security assurances, while adversaries like Iran could be incentivized to pursue nuclear capabilities amid declining effectiveness of U.S. sanctions. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it may pressure Saudi Arabia to follow suit, potentially leading to regional proliferation dynamics. Thus, great powers and the international community need to step in to manage proliferation triggers by maintaining a focus on nonproliferation in their statecraft.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, International Security, Deterrence, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America

35. Requirements for nuclear deterrence and arms control in a two-nuclear-peer environment

Author:: Gregory Weaver and Amy Woolf
Publication Date:: 02-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Atlantic Council
Abstract:: After decades of seeking to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in international relations, the United States is now grappling with a global landscape marked by intense strategic competition and the growing salience of nuclear weapons—problems that will likely persist for years to come. Over the past year, Russia compounded its aggression in Ukraine with nuclear saber-rattling, modernizing and expanding its nuclear forces over the past decade. Furthermore, Russia’s possession of a substantial inventory of theater nuclear weapons continues to threaten regional deterrence. Meanwhile, in Asia, Beijing is pursuing an unprecedented surge in its nuclear capabilities. If current trends persist, China is projected to possess about 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035.1 While China was once viewed as a secondary nuclear power, its substantial investment in its nuclear arsenal—including the launch of a third ballistic missile early-warning satellite in 2022 and advancements in land-based ballistic missiles, aircraft, submarines, and hypersonic missiles—positions China to become a near-equal nuclear power in the coming decade. These trends mark a historic shift. For the first time in its history, the United States must face two near-peer nuclear competitors simultaneously. At the same time, Russia’s suspension of its compliance with the New START agreement in 2023 has significantly weakened the last strategic arms control framework established in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. This move leaves scant provisions governing the future of nuclear capabilities among the United States and its adversaries. For over half a century, Washington and Moscow negotiated to establish treaties that imposed limits on their nuclear arsenals, aiming to manage their nuclear rivalry and mitigate the risk of nuclear conflict. This process served the national security interests of both sides by curbing weapons and activities that could jeopardize deterrence, safeguarding strategic stability, offering insights into nuclear capacities, and potentially steering military competition toward less perilous avenues. However, shifts in the global security landscape have altered this calculus. The Russian Federation, much like the Soviet Union before it, has insisted that future agreements factor in the nuclear capabilities of Britain and France. On the other hand, the United States now confronts a security environment featuring two nuclear-armed adversaries—Russia and China—whose forces will potentially pose significant threats to the United States and its allies. This evolving security landscape may prompt the United States to reevaluate its assessments of its deterrence and arms control requirements. But how should the United States approach this problem?
Topic:: Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Asia, Korea, and United States of America

36. Tailored Deterrence Strategy on the Korean Peninsula

Author:: Gary Samore
Publication Date:: 07-2024
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:: Over the last decade, the most significant change in the international strategic environment has been the reemergence of a great power rivalry between the U.S. and its European and Asian allies on one hand and Russia and China on the other. This trend began in the second term of President Obama, with the Russian invasion of Crimea in early 2014 and the Chinese construction of a network of military bases in the South China Sea beginning around 2013. Since then, the trend has sharpened. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has locked the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies against Russia in a long-term struggle for the survival of Ukraine and future of European security. In Asia, tensions between Beijing and Washington have become worse, as both the Trump and Biden admіnistrations pursued economic measures against China, and as China appears to be building military options to unify Taiwan and the mainland by force. The reemergence of great power rivalry has important nuclear dimensions, increasing concerns about “strategic stability” – the nuclear balance among the great powers – and the risk of nuclear conflict. The Ukraine war has lowered the nuclear threshold. Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus and threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons to discourage NATO intervention or assistance to Ukraine. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) - the last remaining arms control treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals - expires in February 2026, and Russia has refused U.S. offers to negotiate a new treaty as long as the U.S. is assisting Ukraine. In the meantime, Russia continues to develop an array of exotic nuclear delivery systеms intended to overcome U.S. missile defenses, including hypersonic reentry vehicles, nuclear-armed submarine drones, and nuclear anti-satellite weapons. China is pursuing an unprecedented nuclear build-up, including new strategic bombers, more advanced nuclear-armed submarines, and three new missile bases with more than 300 silos for solid fuel ICBMs with multiple reentry vehicles. According to U.S. Department of Defense estimates, China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023 and will “probably have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030” (U.S. Department of Defense 2023a). Like Russia, China is also pursuing hypersonic reentry vehicles, anti-satellite weapons, and strategic cyber operations. Some analysts fear that China’s nuclear build-up will make it more confident that it can deter U.S. intervention in the face of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or increase the risk that a U.S.-China confrontation over Taiwan will escalate to nuclear use. To address the reemergence of great power threats, the U.S. has introduced the concepts of “tailored deterrence” and “integrated deterrence” into its nuclear doctrine. According to the Trump admіnistration Nuclear Posture Review, released in February 2018, The United States will apply a tailored and flexible approach to effectively deter across a spectrum of adversaries, threats, and contexts. Tailored deterrence strategies communicate to different potential adversaries that their aggression would carry unacceptable risks and intolerable costs according to their particular calculations of risk and cost (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2018). The tailored deterrence concept was also adopted by the Biden admіnistration in its October 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, saying, Central to U.S. deterrence strategy is the credibility of our nuclear forces to hold at risk what adversary leadership values most. Effectively deterring – and restoring deterrence if necessary – requires tailored strategies for potential adversaries that reflect our best understanding of their decision-making and perceptions (Office of the Secretary of Defense 2022). Building on the concept of tailored deterrence, the Biden admіnistration Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) also introduced the concept of “integrated deterrence,” which is based on the idea that traditional nuclear deterrence can be reinforced by non-nuclear capabilities. According to the NPR, The role of nuclear weapons is well established and embedded in strategic deterrence policy and plans. Non-nuclear capabilities may be able to complement nuclear forces in strategic deterrence plans and operations in ways that are suited to their attributes and consistent with policy on how they are to be employed. A pragmatic approach to integrated deterrence will seek to determine how the Joint Force can combine nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities in complementary ways that leverage the unique attributes of a multi-domain set of forces to enable a range of deterrence options backstopped by a credible nuclear deterrent (Ibid.).
Topic:: Foreign Policy, National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, and Rivalry
Political Geography:: Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America

37. Constraining Iran’s Nuclear Potential in the Absence of the JCPOA

Author:: Kelsey Davenport
Publication Date:: 07-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Arms Control Association
Abstract:: Since 2019, Iran has significantly expanded its sensitive nuclear activities, which has irreversibly altered the pathways available to Iran if the decision were made to develop nuclear weapons. The proliferation risk posed by Iran’s nuclear advances is amplified by the monitoring gaps that Tehran created by reducing IAEA access and monitoring. Iranian officials have long denied any interest in nuclear weapons but there are new signs that Iran may rethink the prohibition on nuclear weapons if security conditions change. Iran’s technical expertise cannot be reversed, and its nuclear infrastructure is less vulnerable to attack. As a result, military strikes against Iran would set back the program, but only temporarily, and risk driving Tehran to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran has signaled its willingness to de-escalate tensions, including on its nuclear program. Leaders in Washington should seize this opportunity to incentivize Tehran to take steps that increase monitoring of its nuclear program and reduce proliferation risk. The experience of the 2015 nuclear deal demonstrated the limitations of transactional bargaining. The regional nuclear environment also has shifted since 2015 and there is an increased risk that additional states will seek to match Iran’s capabilities. The United States should be thinking now about alternative frameworks for negotiating a longer-term nuclear deal, or series of deals, that take into account Iran’s nuclear advances and mitigate regional proliferation risks.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Power, JCPOA, and Monitoring
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

38. Inside the ICBM Lobby: Special Interests or the Public Interest?

Author:: William D. Hartung
Publication Date:: 08-2024
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:: The nuclear weapons lobby is one of the most powerful forces in the military industrial complex. 1 The lobby’s current priority is advocating for the $315 billion Sentinel program to build a new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The program has faced controversy over both its utility and its cost, including a cost increase of a whopping 81 percent since 2020. The key champions of the Sentinel program are the Senators from Montana, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming — states that are home to major ICBM bases or host major work on the Sentinel program. The group — known as the Senate ICBM Coalition — stresses the Sentinel’s purported role in strengthening nuclear deterrence as well as its creation of jobs in the states they represent. However, other members of Congress and ex–defense officials have raised urgent concerns about the Sentinel program, questioning the deterrence rationale that undergirds it and raising the alarm over the risk of accidental nuclear usage. Despite claims about Sentinel’s economic benefits, it remains unclear how many jobs the program will actually create. Weapons contractors — led by the Sentinel’s prime contractor, Northrop Grumman — play a central role in the ICBM lobby. Since 2018, members of the strategic forces subcommittees of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have received $3.8 million from the 11 major Sentinel contractors. In total, ICBM contractors have donated $87 million to members of Congress in the last four election cycles alone. Contractors’ influence efforts are aided by the fact that senior government officials and members of Congress often secure jobs in the arms industry when they leave government; this provides them the opportunity to lobby former colleagues. In all, the 11 ICBM contractors have spent $226 million on lobbying in the past four election cycles. They currently employ 275 lobbyists, the vast majority of whom have passed through the revolving door from influential positions in government. The Sentinel program should be scrutinized as part of a larger reassessment of U.S. nuclear policy. The 2023 report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States endorses the program and calls for a comprehensive nuclear weapons build-up, including the possible placement of multiple nuclear warheads on ICBMs — a highly aggressive strategic posture that has not been in place since the Cold War. A high number of Commission members have ties to the nuclear weapons industry, including its co–chair Jon Kyl, who was once a lobbyist for Sentinel prime contractor Northrop Grumman. Congress must weigh the dubious benefits of the Commission’s proposals against the significant risks and costs its recommendations would entail if carried out.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Grand Strategy, Military-Industrial Complex, Militarism, and Sentinel Program
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Asia, and United States of America

39. NATO as a nuclear alliance : NATO’s nuclear capability and its evolution in the international nuclear order

Author:: Tapio Juntunen, Jyri Lavikainen, Matti Pesu, and Iro Särkkä
Publication Date:: 01-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:: Finland’s entry into NATO marked admission to a nuclear alliance. The aim of this report is to provide an overview of the structure and trends of the international nuclear order, the basics of NATO’s nuclear deterrence and its implementation, and decision-making related to the alliance’s nuclear weapons policy. The study will also assess how Finland can participate in NATO’s nuclear deterrence policy if it so wishes and what effects NATO membership will have on Finland’s arms control policy. Nuclear deterrence constitutes one part of NATO’s deterrence mix, and the alliance views nuclear weapons as the supreme guarantee of its security. U.S. nuclear weapons form the backbone of NATO’s nuclear deterrence, and a small proportion of its nuclear weapons are stationed in allied countries. According to NATO’s statements, the purpose of its nuclear deterrence is to preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter military aggression. NATO has not made any major changes in its nuclear weapons policy in recent years. The key outlines of NATO’s nuclear weapons policy are decided at NATO summits. The alliance has its own senior body for discussion on nuclear weapons: the Nuclear Planning Group. Non-nuclear allies such as Finland have several opportunities to influence and participate in the alliance’s nuclear weapons policy. Importantly, as a member of NATO, Finland can continue its active arms control efforts.
Topic:: NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Alliance, Deterrence, and International Order
Political Geography:: Europe and Finland

40. China as the second nuclear peer of the United States: Implications for deterrence in Europe

Author:: Jyri Lavikainen
Publication Date:: 02-2024
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:: China’s nuclear build-up will make it a nuclear peer adversary of the United States in the 2030s. The US will have to deter both Russia and China, as well as other regional adversaries, with forces geared to engage in one major war at a time. If two major wars occur either simultaneously or sequentially, US military capability will be put under great stress. In the event of a second war, the US may find itself in a situation of conventional military inferiority, which it might have to compensate for with greater reliance on nuclear weapons. Since the US remains the ultimate guarantor of European security, its deterrence challenges elsewhere affect European security as well. Thus, even the possibility of war in the Indo-Pacific is a European security issue. European NATO allies can help mitigate the two-peer problem by permanently taking on a greater share of the burden of Europe’s conventional defence. At the same time, the effectiveness of NATO’s nuclear capability must be enhanced. A strategic defeat for Russia in the war in Ukraine would postpone Russia’s ability to pose a military threat to Europe. Ukraine’s NATO membership would further serve to reduce the threat of another major war in Europe.
Topic:: Security, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Europe, and United States of America

41. Strengthening the Political Credibility of NATO Extended Nuclear Deterrence

Author:: Wannes Verstraete
Publication Date:: 02-2024
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:: Due to Russian nuclear signaling during its war against Ukraine, there is renewed interest in strengthening nuclear deterrence in a Euro-Atlantic context. The changes in the agreed language in the new North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Strategic Concept, adopted on 29 June 2022 at the summit in Madrid, and the Vilnius Summit Communiqué from 11 June 2023, are examples of this interest. Subsequently, this policy brief focuses on one aspect of strengthening NATO’s extended nuclear deterrence (END), namely how can NATO adapt its nuclear policy and posture to mitigate the uncertainties related to the political credibility challenge of extended nuclear deterrence? Questions regarding the political will to use nuclear weapons by the guarantor to protect and reassure allies in an END relationship is a well-known evergreen that reappears from time to time. Therefore, the author argues that NATO should address this political credibility challenge by strengthening the role of European allies in the nuclear strategy of the Alliance.
Topic:: Defense Policy, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Europe

42. Reducing the Role of Nuclear Weapons in Military Alliances

Author:: Tytti Erästö
Publication Date:: 06-2024
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:: This paper examines the role of nuclear weapons in military alliances, focusing on the perspectives of the so-called umbrella states—that is, allied states that do not have their own nuclear weapons but are part of the ‘extended nuclear deterrence arrangements’ of a nuclear-armed patron. After analysing allied security thinking and highlighting the underlying assumptions about nuclear deterrence, the paper subjects some of those assumptions to critical scrutiny. Taking into account regional military balances and escalation risks related to nuclear deterrence, it challenges the perceived security benefits of forward-deployed non-strategic weapons, continued support for allied nuclear doctrines based on readiness for the first use of nuclear weapons, and the assumed inevitability of nuclear second strike that underlies the practices of nuclear assurance. The goal is to open discussion on the development of a more measured approach to deterrence that would allow for minimizing the role of nuclear weapons in military alliances.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, Alliance, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Global Focus

43. The Nuclear Iran “Concept” Is Already Here: Time Is Short to Prevent Israel’s—and America’s—Next Calamitous Intelligence Failure

Author:: Jonathan Schachter
Publication Date:: 05-2024
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Hudson Institute
Abstract:: Groupthink and unchallenged false assumptions about enemy capabilities and decision-making led to the disasters of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 2023 Hamas-led terrorist invasion of Israel. The lessons of these failures demand that Israel’s political and military leadership and their American counterparts immediately reconsider their assumptions about the Iranian nuclear threat to avoid an even costlier miscalculation.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Intelligence, Nuclear Weapons, October 7, and 1973 War
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

44. The Fiftieth Anniversary of India’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosion: An Interview with Jayita Sarkar

Author:: Marc Reyes and Jayita Sarkar
Publication Date:: 03-2024
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:: Today, May 18, 2024, marks the fiftieth anniversary of India’s peaceful nuclear explosion or PNE. To mark the occasion, the Toynbee Prize Foundation facilitated a conversation between historian Jayita Sarkar and myself. Dr. Sarkar explained what the PNE was and how it shaped Indian and nuclear history. In addition to the PNE, Dr. Sarkar and I also spoke about her acclaimed 2022 book, Ploughshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War which received the Bernard S. Cohn Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies and Honorable Mention for Global Development Studies Book Award from the International Studies Association. The book can be freely read through its publisher, Cornell University Press, and here is a link to read my January 2023 Toynbee review of Ploughshares and Swords. Below is an edited version of our conversation.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, History, Global South, and Interview
Political Geography:: South Asia and India

45. Nuclear Danger and the NPT

Author:: Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:: 06-2024
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: Next month, the second Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) preparatory review conference will meet in Geneva. In anticipation of this international conference, NPEC is releasing Nuclear Danger and the NPT, an edited volume of research on what nuclear dangers await and how proper enforcement of the NPT can help. The hope is that the volume’s analysis will prompt constructive debate. It certainly is needed. Within ten years, there is a distinct possibility South Korea, Japan, the UAE, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran may decide to acquire nuclear weapons. After that, Algeria, Finland, Sweden, Ukraine, and Australia may be sorely tempted to do the same. More could follow. What is fueling these grim prospects? Several things: Growing Russian, Chinese, and North Korean nuclear capabilities and threats; Russian forward basing of nuclear weapons in Belarus; waning allied confidence in U.S. nuclear security guarantees; and an increasing acceptance of dangerous civilian nuclear activities that bring states to the brink of bomb-making. Legally, the NPT is supposed to prevent these troubles. The question is will it? Much depends on what major nuclear powers choose to do regarding their NPT commitments and how smaller, nonnuclear nations view the treaty. Nuclear Danger and the NPT is designed to help clarify what that requires. Earlier this year, NPEC released an occasional paper on the challenges of creating a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. Such challenges will surely be considered at the upcoming NPT review conference, but there will be more issues up for discussion. Attendees will likely debate the future of U.S. and Russian nuclear sharing arrangements, as well as the limits of what should be considered “peaceful” under the NPT. Iran’s threatened withdrawal from the treaty will also be a concern, as will China’s worries over the potential for Washington to redeploy nuclear weapons to South Korea or for Seoul to acquire its own nuclear weapons. The U.S. delegation is likely to raise complaints about China’s nuclear weapons build up and Beijing’s unwillingness to enter into good faith negotiations on effective nuclear controls. Finally, Russia’s assaults on Ukraine’s civilian nuclear systems and the legitimacy of such assaults are likely to be discussed. Nuclear Danger and the NPT covers all of these topics in depth. For hawks and doves, Washington insiders, and simply concerned citizens, it’s worth reading.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, Nuclear Energy, and Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Iran, South Korea, Global Focus, and United States of America

46. China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War

Author:: Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:: 11-2024
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: As the dust settles on the election, one thing is certain: there is going to be increased interest in expanding America’s nuclear arsenal. Whatever the merits of what that move might be, it’s hardly a complete strategy to cope with a long term strategic contest, Russia, China, and their proxies. That will require far more than any adjustment of our nuclear arsenal. What’s required? At the request of several national security officials and outside experts, NPEC is sharing its answer with today’s release of China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War available as an Amazon book. It consists of four chapters. The first sketches out what a long-term contest with China, Russia, and its proxies will demand. Although building up military might and using threats of massive destruction against our enemies were critical to winning the Cold War, in the coming cool contest, they will no longer serve as our top ace in the hole. Instead, the key levers will be keeping our key military, political, and commercial functions immune to attacks and communicating, protecting, sharing, and analyzing essential information on an unprecedented scale. Wars may be waged against nations but the aim increasingly will be to disable them without physically obliterating them. What, though, should we do about the growing nuclear threat? That’s the focus of the book’s next chapter, “Xi and Putin Are Building More Nukes: How to Compete.” It, in turn, is followed by “What Missile-driven Competition with China Will Look Like,” which was first released three years ago. The Pentagon recently confirmed this chapter’s predictions about China’s development of intercontinental conventional missiles by 2030. The chapter’s other forecasts and military and diplomatic proposals are still timely. This brings us to the book’s last chapter, “Can Self-Government Survive the Next Convulsion?” It examines the domestic political, economic, and social implications of pursuing this volume’s recommendations. What’s needed most is a geographic distribution of America’s critical military and financial infrastructure and demographic capital. Fortunately, this has already begun, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, and aligns with America’s bent to spread and increase political power and wealth domestically. The book’s final section is an appendix consisting of an introduction Thomas Cochran and I co-authored for “China’s Civil Nuclear Sector: Plowshares to Swords?” — a three-year NPEC study of China’s nuclear weapons production potential. The Pentagon has cited this research in each of its annual Chinese military power assessments for the last three years running. The Pentagon has used the study to help explain why China is likely to acquire as many nuclear weapons in a decade as the United States currently has deployed. It was this projection, perhaps more than any other, that caused national security analysts to focus on what is likely to be a long-term strategic contest with China and its new ally, Russia. Paul Bracken, author of The Second Nuclear Age, reviewed the book: “China and Russia’s military buildups have far-reaching political and strategic consequences. Yet the US is not remotely prepared to cope either intellectually or with appropriate hardware. Henry Sokolski takes a major step forward here by analyzing these challenges and what we need to do about them.”
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, Strategic Competition, and AUKUS
Political Geography:: Russia, China, and United States of America

47. Lessons from China: How Soon Could Iran Get the Bomb? (Occasional Paper 2404)

Author:: Hui Zhang
Publication Date:: 12-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: It’s unclear when Iran might get the bomb. In July, Secretary of State Blinken revealed that Iran was only one to two weeks away from producing enough weapons grade uranium for several bombs. The New York Times quoted experts who estimated it would take Iran up to another year to make a missile-deliverable weapon. A conservative estimate would be no more than five months but could be much less. In the attached historical analysis of China’s nuclear weapons program, Hui Zhang pegs the number at three to five weeks, and possibly less. It makes for interesting reading, not only on what China was able to accomplish so quickly sixty years ago, but on what Iran may do.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Weapons, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:: China and Iran

48. War Game Reveals Chinese Attacks on Communications Could Paralyze Taiwan’s Efforts to Resist

Author:: Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:: 09-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: Top security analysts have long noted that if China disables Taiwan’s underseas cable and disrupts its microwave, cell and space-based communications systems, Beijing could secure a smokeless victory over the island. Over the last five to 10 years, however, private commercial space-based communications and internet services have grown dramatically in importance. The critical role of Starlink in supporting Ukrainian military operations amply demonstrates this point. This prompts several policy questions: What national security roles should governments require commercial space service providers to play during a security crisis or war? Should governments set minimum standards for cyber and physical hardening for commercial satcom providers to meet in order to be eligible to compete for government contracts? What is the proper response to repeated “accidental” or deniable assaults on commercial and military space systems? To find out, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center conducted a space war game that focused on a near-term Taiwan-China scenario. It utilized the talents of current and retired officials, congressional staff, and outside experts to play the game. In the game, China cut communications cables, disrupted microwave and cellular services, attacked Taiwan’s electrical supply system locally and jammed its satellite communications. The United States and its space-faring allies acted slowly. Private space service providers were no quicker. Finally, the President of the United States authorized covert cyberattacks against China’s Beidou satellite ground stations. China responded by launching similar cyberattacks on U.S. GPS systems and the U.S., redoubling its attacks against the Beidou system. With U.S. naval forces closing in to disrupt a Chinese naval quarantine of Taiwan, Beijing called for a mutual ceasefire in exchange for bilateral talks to lock Taiwan’s future as a province of China. The U.S., allies and Taiwan rejected this offer, opening the door for further military escalation. In the hot wash, the players discussed three key findings: Washington, its space-faring allies and industry players must clarify how they might backfill Taiwanese communication systems well before China might try to disable them. The US and its allies must address Taiwan’s lack of legal recognition, which leaves it uniquely vulnerable to offensive Chinese space and terrestrial military actions against Taiwan’s communications systems. Washington and its space-faring allies must develop additional military space options with plausible deniability to deter and counter similar Chinese capabilities. The recommendations paired with each of these findings. Taiwan needs to be more vocal about its communications systems’ vulnerabilities and consider developing mechanisms to disable China’s satellites temporarily, in a deniable manner. The United States should lower the classifications associated with its non-kinetic anti-satellite systems and create an operational working group on space security that includes Taiwan.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Communications, Nonproliferation, and War Games
Political Geography:: China and Taiwan

49. Gaming Israeli Nuclear Use: Pandora Unleashed

Author:: Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:: 02-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: With the continued fighting in Gaza, a nuclear rubicon of sorts has been crossed: Elected Israeli officials — a deputy minister and a ruling party member of Parliament—not only have publicly referenced Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, but suggested how such weapons might be used to target Gaza. This is unprecedented. More recently, Iran directly attacked an Israeli-manned intelligence outpost in Iraq and publicized a staged missile strike against a mock Israeli air base. Iran also has inched within weeks of making several nuclear weapons and made its military ever more immune to first strikes against its key missile and nuclear facilities. Iran and its proxies also now have long-range, high-precision missiles that can easily reach key Israeli targets. None of these developments is positive. For decades, most security analysts assumed Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons were only deployed to deter attacks and that Iran would not dare to attack Israel directly. The attached war game report, “Gaming Israeli Nuclear Use: Pandora Unleashed,” directly challenges these assumptions. The game starts in 2027 with Israeli intelligence reporting that Iran is mating nuclear warheads to its long-range missiles. This prompts Israel to ask Washington to collaborate in a conventional military strike against key Iranian nuclear facilities and missile bases. Not wanting to be drawn into a major war with Iran, the United States, however, demurs and instead offers Israel U.S. standoff hypersonic missiles. Several moves later, Israel, isolated and desperate, launches two nuclear strikes against Iran to which Iran replies with a nuclear strike of its own. The game raised several basic questions. Would Israel or Iran conduct further military nuclear operations? Might Israel target Tehran with nuclear weapons? Might Iran target Tel Aviv with nuclear arms? Would Russia or the United States be drawn into the war? These and other unknowns informed the game’s key findings. These included: 1. The strategic uncertainties generated after an Israeli-Iranian nuclear exchange are likely to be at least as fraught as any that might arise before such a clash. 2. Although Israel and Iran might initially avoid the nuclear targeting of innocents, such self-restraint is tenuous. 3. Multilateral support for Israeli security may be essential to deter Israeli nuclear use but will likely hinge on Israeli willingness to discuss regional denuclearization. 4. Little progress is likely in reducing Middle Eastern nuclear threats if the United States continues its public policy of denying knowledge of Israeli nuclear weapons.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Weapons, Nonproliferation, and War Games
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and Gaza

50. Nuclear Verification’s Holy Grail: Verifying Nuclear Warheads — a new approach

Author:: Miles Pomper, William Moon, Marshall Brown, Ferenc Dalnkoki-Veress, Dan Zhukov, Dick Gullickson, and Yanliang Pan
Publication Date:: 12-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: This study is the culmination of four years of work to think through what would be required to track and monitor nuclear warheads in a verification process. It first began in 2021, shortly after President Joe Biden of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia extended the New START Treaty until February 2026; the two presidents also announced the launch of bilateral strategic stability talks. This positive moment in the U.S.-Russian relationship, which became almost unimaginable after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, was the original impetus for the project. It also launched in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, commonly known as the INF Treaty. The Russians had been violating the Treaty with the production and deployment of the 9M729 missile, also known in NATO parlance as the SSC-8. All NATO allies concurred with the withdrawal, which the United States completed in August 2019. The effort began with two strands of activity. The study team knew that when the United States and Russia decided to return to the negotiating table, the United States would place a high priority on seeking direct limits on warheads. Prior treaties had focused on controlling and eliminating missiles but had not focused directly on the warheads that armed them. It had long been a goal of the United States to seek direct limits on warheads, in order to more accurately constrain a Russian preponderance in warheads designated for theaterand shorter-range systems.1 However, if such an agreement were negotiated, the European allies would be ill-equipped to participate. On-site inspections under the INF Treaty had ended on May 31, 2001, so it had been twenty years since the allies had had to participate in verification activities. Most had lost expertise and institutional memory; some had never participated at all. “Raising the IQ” of the NATO allies about participating in arms control implementation was thus the first strand of activity. The second strand grew up around a conviction in the study team that the well-practiced verification techniques that had been exercised in INF and strategic arms control treaties since the 1980s could be augmented with new technology and innovative techniques. Thus emerged the emphasis on using cryptography to underpin a unique warhead tracking system. This work took advantage of some of the finest experts in the field of cryptography at Stanford University, and also the extensive experience gained during the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s many years of work to strengthen warhead protection, control and accounting in Russian Ministry of Defense nuclear warhead storage facilities. This work, which spanned a period of over fifteen years from 1995- 2013, provided the study team with a great depth of knowledge about the normal operating procedures in Russian military warhead facilities. This deep knowledge was vital to developing a concept for the tracking system, providing it with a realism and accuracy that otherwise would not have been possible. These two strands of work culminated in 2022 in a significant study, “Everything Counts: Building a Control Regime for Non-Strategic Nuclear Warheads in Europe.”2 However, the team realized that only one element of warhead verification had been touched—the broad outlines of a system for maintaining and exchanging information over the life of an agreement. Other verification elements such as on-site inspections and particular verification technologies had not been considered. They therefore resolved to expand the scope of work to imagine an entire closed system for nuclear warhead verification. With the cryptographic element as its foundation, the team reviewed the extensive experience of treaties, agreements and other activities such as exhibitions and joint experiments that had been built up over the many years of U.S.-Soviet and Russian cooperation on nuclear weapons control. From this, they created a comprehensive menu of measures that could be considered for a future warhead control regime, calibrating the measures according to the level of their intrusiveness.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:: Russia and United States of America

51. Nuclear China in the Twenty-First Century: Status and Implications for the World and Europe

Author:: David Santoro
Publication Date:: 07-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Abstract:: In August 2021, shortly after new evidence surfaced that China might be expanding its nuclear arsenal much more extensively and rapidly than previously assumed, Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, described Beijing’s military investments as a “strategic breakout.” He underscored that the “explosive growth and modernization of [China’s] nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I describe as breathtaking,” adding that “that word, breathtaking, may not be enough.” Since then, several senior officials in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere have echoed that message and the final report of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States published in October 2023 concluded that at its current pace, China “will reach rough quantitative parity with the United States in deployed nuclear warheads by the mid-2030s.” The result has been the emergence of work, including by this author, to understand this unprecedented development. This work is in its infancy, however, and more is needed to grasp the scale and scope of Chinese nuclear modernization (especially given that much of it is shrouded in secrecy) as well as its implications for strategic stability, deterrence, and arms control and risk reduction. Existing work has focused primarily on the implications for the United States and, to some extent, the United States and Russia. Yet it is also important to grapple with the implications for Europe, especially the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and reflect on actions that Europeans, individually or with others, should take in response.
Topic:: NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, and Modernization
Political Geography:: China, Europe, and Asia

52. Russia, The Global South and Multilateral Nuclear Diplomacy after the Invasion of Ukraine

Author:: Hanna Notte
Publication Date:: 05-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had a detrimental impact on multilateral nuclear diplomacy. The war caused an earthquake in procedure, paralyzing processes at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations First Committee, and meetings dealing with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This was the case even as Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling and occupation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants, and Europe’s recommitment to nuclear weapons, demonstrated the ongoing need for nuclear dialogue. States from the Global South tended to navigate cautiously vis-à-vis Russia across the multilateral nuclear negotiating forums. Amid greater difficulties in forging common positions on nuclear issues related to the Ukraine war, these states were also frustrated with what they perceived as a deprioritization of their interests in multilateral nuclear diplomacy. Western states, especially during the first year of the war, were seen as exercising unwelcome pressure on the Global South to take sides against Russia. Russia, meanwhile, pursued a dual strategy, undermining nonproliferation efforts and chipping away at trust in legacy institutions, while also leveraging these forums in pursuit of greater alignment with states in the Global South. The implications of these different dynamics for the health of the nuclear order may take some time to fully play out, but will likely be profound.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, Multilateralism, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Global Focus, and Global South

53. A Significant Change in Russian Doctrine on Nuclear Weapon Use

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 09-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Speaking to the Russian Presidential Security Council on Sept 25, 2024, Vladimir Putin asserted that “Aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state… supported by a nuclear power should be treated as their joint attack.” But what does this imply for the Ukraine war and more generally? Although the announcement reaffirms several long-standing provisions of Russian nuclear weapon doctrine, it does add something new and portentous. It asserts that Russia may reply to a massive aerial attack on the homeland while it is underway even if the attack is purely conventional. The perceived “massiveness” of the attack is held practically speaking to be equivalent to an existential attack. The new view may also imply that such an attack by Ukraine would be considered a joint UA-NATO attack and possibly warrant a similar response.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia and Europe

54. Unsealed Indictment Shows Iranian Agents Acquired Controlled Camera with Nuclear Weapons Application from United States

Author:: Sarah Burkhard, Chloe DeVere, and Kendall Roach
Publication Date:: 08-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:: In the spring of 2023, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment from 2012, which shows that in addition to the previously known high-speed cameras Iran purchased from Russia, brokered by Mohsen Vanaki, 2 Iran also acquired another camera with applications in nuclear and ballistic missile testing at the same time from the United States. 3 From 2006 to 2009, five agents residing in Iran, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Canada worked together to purchase the camera, which required an export license, from a U.S. company. They then shipped the camera via Canada and the UAE to an Iranian customer with known ties to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program. While a first attempt to purchase the camera failed, a second attempt succeeded, requiring an elaborate scheme with multiple transshipment points, front companies, and falsified end-user information. Ironically, the Iranian end user experienced multiple technical issues with the camera post-shipment, requiring prolonged back-and-forth communication among the network and with the manufacturer. Despite efforts taken by the multiple agents to ship the camera and conceal its end use, this case reveals red flags and missed opportunities to stop the initial shipment or the repair and technical consultations post-shipment. While it is difficult to determine in what way the camera could have contributed to Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts, there are several indications that Iran was continuing nuclear weapons related activities previously conducted under the Amad plan during that time frame, and multiple governments agreed at the time that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was likely ongoing. The case highlights that Iran seeks controlled high-speed cameras for nuclear and military applications. It also serves as an important reminder that Iran does have the type of sophisticated equipment needed to conduct various aspects of nuclear weapons development, then and today. Additionally, this case again shows the value of dual-national and other Iranian procurement agents located outside of Iran, especially in Western countries. Moreover, if they are arrested and prosecuted, Iran has effectively developed a strategy of trading them for innocent Western hostages it has arbitrarily seized inside Iran.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Sanctions, Weapons, and Trade
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

55. Effectiveness of United Nations Security Council Sanctions: A Case Study of North Korea

Author:: Saira Iqbal
Publication Date:: 07-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: South Asian Studies
Institution:: Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:: In the absence of a governmental structure, associations, organizations, or groups oversee managing global affairs and preserving stability and peace. The United Nations was founded in the wake of World War II and the start of the Cold War to guard against the possibility of nuclear weapons and a third world war, because of the then-current nuclear race. Nonetheless, the organizational structure has rules and regulations, occasionally with penalties attached, to maintain that harmony. This paper examines the effectiveness of the UN Security Council sanctions by using the case study of North Korea. This research evaluates how sanctions affect North Korea's political and economic behavior by applying the coercive diplomacy theory and this study is analytical and descriptive in nature. Many books, articles, newspapers, books, journal articles, governmental publications and United Nations resolutions documents are used to read, explore and analyze the resolutions passed by United Nations Security Council regarding North Korea. The results imply that sanctions have not had much of an impact on North Korea's nuclear program, while having some success in reducing the country's trade and access to foreign capital. The report indicates that denuclearization is unlikely to be achieved by sanctions alone and suggests a comprehensive strategy that combines ongoing pressure, diplomatic engagement, and economic incentives. The paper offers insights for policymakers attempting to solve the North Korean nuclear development threat and adds to the continuing discussion over the efficacy of sanctions as a coercive diplomatic tool.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, United Nations, Sanctions, and UN Security Council
Political Geography:: Asia and North Korea

56. Cold War Case Studies and Chinese Perspectives

Author:: Raven Witherspoon, Jenna Wichterman, and Shivam Shankar Singh
Publication Date:: 03-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: The Carter Center
Abstract:: Rising Sino-American tensions have prompted widespread discussion of a “New Cold War,” and analysts increasingly worry that flashpoints in the bilateral relationship could trigger conventional war that could escalate to the nuclear domain. This research utilizes the Cold War analogy as a starting point for analyzing how nuclear war between the U.S. and China can be averted.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Cold War, Nuclear Weapons, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:: China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

57. Has the Iranian challenge been forgotten?

Author:: Efraim Inbar
Publication Date:: 04-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:: Israel must take seriously Iran’s stated intention to destroy the Jewish state. Iran’s desire to attain nuclear weapons serves its goal of eliminating Israel and its strategy of using its proxies to threaten Israel’s civilian population. All measures taken so far to stop Tehran’s nuclear project have failed, and Israel has no choice but to urgently eliminate this threat by military means.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, Military Affairs, and Proxy Groups
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

58. Russian Nuclear Calibration in the War in Ukraine

Author:: Heather Williams, Kelsey Hartigan, Lachlan MacKenzie, and Reja Younis
Publication Date:: 02-2024
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:: Russian nuclear threats have cast a long shadow over the war in Ukraine. As the conflict enters its third year, it is crucial to understand the objectives of Russia’s nuclear signaling at various stages and the effectiveness of U.S. and allied responses thus far. To explore these issues, the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues recently compiled a database and released a digital report Russian nuclear narratives and their evolution during the first 18 months of the war.[1] This brief builds on that work and finds that Russian officials noticeably calibrated their nuclear signaling at key points in the war. It also concludes that the risks of nuclear use will likely rise if Russia faces significant battlefield setbacks in the future or the conflict expands in new or unexpected ways. Accordingly, Washington should work to maintain international pressure against nuclear use in Ukraine while combatting narratives that downplay or rationalize Russia’s nuclear threats.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia and Europe

59. Russia Changes Its Nuclear Doctrine

Author:: Artur Kacprzyk
Publication Date:: 11-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:: The publication of Russia’s new nuclear doctrine is another in its attempts to intimidate NATO states, especially in order to discourage them from supporting Ukraine. Russia is lowering the declared threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and specifying additional situations in which it is to be possible. This does not mean, however, an increased danger of nuclear weapons use in the ongoing conflict. Russia is nonetheless likely to take further steps to heighten the fears of such a scenario among NATO governments and societies. At the same time, the document reflects the weakening of Russia’s conventional forces.
Topic:: Security, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

60. Political Drivers of China’s Changing Nuclear Policy: Implications for U.S.-China Nuclear Relations and International Security

Author:: Tong Zhao
Publication Date:: 07-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:: The message from Chinese officials has become increasingly clear: the United States and China should first stabilize their political relationship before taking on nuclear issues.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, International Security, Bilateral Relations, and Decision-Making
Political Geography:: China, Asia, and United States of America

61. Assessing the Efficacy of the India-Pakistan Agreement on Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations/Facilities

Author:: Nasir Mehmood
Publication Date:: 12-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
Abstract:: This paper analyzes the 1988 India-Pakistan Non-Attack Agreement prohibiting attacks on nuclear installations and facilities, examining its origins, implementation, and implications through declassified documents, primary sources, news reports, and interviews. While some view this agreement as a model for protecting nuclear facilities during conflicts and others question its effectiveness, this research reveals that the agreement successfully maintains a crucial balance between reassurance and deterrence. The study demonstrates that both nations have consistently complied with the agreement during peace and conflict, as it aligns with their strategic interests without compromising deterrence stability. The agreement has yielded significant benefits, including reduced fears of nuclear attacks, improved bilateral relations, international diplomatic gains, and cost-effective security measures for nuclear installations. The paper proposes two supplementary measures to enhance the agreement's effectiveness: establishing a Bilateral Consultative Commission for addressing implementation issues and creating a bilateral instrument specifically prohibiting cyber-attacks on nuclear facilities. This analysis contributes to the broader understanding of arms control theory by validating the complementary yet opposing relationship between arms control arrangements and nuclear deterrence operations, while offering valuable lessons for securing nuclear sites globally.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, Bilateral Relations, Deterrence, and Nuclear Safety
Political Geography:: Pakistan, South Asia, and India

62. Adapting US strategy to account for China’s transformation into a peer nuclear power

Author:: David Shullman, John K. Culver, Kitsch Liao, and Samantha Wong
Publication Date:: 09-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Atlantic Council
Abstract:: China’s rapidly improving nuclear capabilities and expanding nuclear arsenal underpin its recent rise as a nuclear peer power. For the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region, the uncertainty of China’s intentions behind this nuclear expansion poses a major challenge. It necessitates a revisit of the fundamental assumptions underpinning US and allied planning and preparation for a potential conflict with China. The 2022 White House National Security Strategy1 and National Defense Strategy2 identified China as the only competitor with both the intent and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological wherewithal to reshape the international order. The 2022 United States Nuclear Posture Review noted how China has embarked on an ambitious expansion, modernization, and diversification of its nuclear forces and established a nascent nuclear triad.3 The report further assessed that Beijing will likely possess at least 1,000 deliverable warheads by the end of the decade.4 China also sustains extensive and ambitious space operations. According to the Department of Defense’s 2022 China Military Power Report5, as of 2021, China’s 260 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites were the largest collection of such constellations globally other than the United States’. The transformation of China’s military capabilities no longer represents the linear, stepwise modernization of an outmoded military that characterized the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for the past two decades. Since the PLA launched its major internal command and service restructuring in 2015, previous doctrinal and teaching publications acquired and exploited by Western analysts are out of date and likely declining in relevance. By extension, much of the Western analysis of PLA plans, operations, and concepts of deterrence and escalation control are also likely to be out of date. China’s rapid expansion of strategic warfighting capabilities (i.e., nuclear forces, space/counterspace systems, and cyber/information operations) represents tremendous discontinuity in the pace, scope, and scale of the PLA’s transformation, necessitating a major US reassessment of Chinese strategy, doctrine, and warfighting operations. The commonly accepted notion that deliberate Chinese nuclear force modernization is characterized as “running faster to stay in the same place” to sustain a minimal retaliatory posture is assessed to have evolved. China now has a higher likelihood of using its newfound nuclear power to more actively deter or compel6 its opponents and safeguard its core interests. This includes perceived external threats that could negatively impact domestic political interests. As a step in this reassessment, this project reevaluated China’s strategy, doctrine, and warfighting concepts in light of its ongoing rapid transformation into a peer nuclear power, examined implications of this assessment for future US contingencies in the Indo-Pacific region, and produced several actionable findings and recommendations for US government decision-makers that can be addressed in the next five- to ten-year horizon.
Topic:: Defense Policy, National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Conflict, and Missile Defense
Political Geography:: China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

63. A bipartisan Iran strategy for the next US administration—and the next two decades

Author:: Atlantic Council
Publication Date:: 10-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Atlantic Council
Abstract:: The United States needs a bipartisan strategy toward Iran that can be maintained across several administrations, one that works patiently and resolutely to counter Iran’s efforts to dominate the Middle East, drive the United States out, destroy Israel, and threaten Arab allies. Pressure to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to halt its malign regional influence is crucial—but won’t work absent a strategic goal of new negotiations to address both challenges simultaneously. The United States must also counter Iran’s hostage taking, assassinations, and cyber and election meddling by triggering automatic penalties and responses in lockstep with allies.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

64. Controlling the danger: managing the risks of AI-enabled nuclear systems

Author:: Noah Greene
Publication Date:: 11-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: NATO Defense College
Abstract:: Research on AI and nuclear weapons often discusses three broad categories of risk: technical risks, pitfalls in human-machine teaming, and strategic stability concerns. The potential solutions for mitigating these risks include international political declarations, United Nations level reporting, and a limited purpose AIenabled nuclear weapons treaty.
Topic:: NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, Weapons, Risk, Artificial Intelligence, and Strategic Stability
Political Geography:: Global Focus

65. The Worst Angels of Our Nature

Author:: Mason Richey and Rob York
Publication Date:: 12-2024
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Comparative Connections
Institution:: Pacific Forum
Abstract:: The last several reporting periods of Comparative Connections have featured little drama in US relations with the two Koreas. A lot of important changes happened—a burgeoning Washington-Seoul-Tokyo trilateral, Pyongyang’s advancing nuclear weapons program, etc.—but these developments were mostly incremental. However, the June-December 2024 reporting period—the final Comparative Connections—has featured bombshells, both metaphorically and literally. The most spectacular event was South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol going full rogue authoritarian and recklessly declaring martial law at 11pm on December 3 in order to carry out a military “self-coup d’état.” That is, Yoon annulled democratic processes and civil constitutional protections, arrogated all political and executive power to himself and the military, and attempted to suspend the national assembly. This shocking step toward tyranny—considered long-relegated to the distant past of South Korea’s developmental dictatorships of the 1950s-1980s—was as badly conceived as it was executed, farcically falling apart after less than three hours, when legislators (mostly from the opposition) breached the cordon of deployed soldiers around the national assembly, entered the plenary chamber, and voted 190-0 to revoke the martial law decree.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Domestic Politics, Coup, Donald Trump, and Trilateral Relations
Political Geography:: Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

66. Nuclear Disarmament Summits: A Proposal for Rejuvenating Progress Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

Author:: Kelsey Davenport
Publication Date:: 09-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Arms Control Association
Abstract:: The failure to abolish nuclear weapons is due in part to the limitations of the current nuclear disarmament architecture. The complex array of treaties, voluntary multilateral initiatives, and negotiating forums dedicated to fostering action toward the verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons has produced many important initiatives and agreements designed to reduce nuclear risks, curb proliferation, and slow nuclear arms competition. In recent years, however, these instruments have proven to be inadequate in facilitating the progress and actions necessary to address new challenges to disarmament, which include more competitive and less cooperative relations between major nuclear-armed states and a lack of political will to pursue bold, creative steps to reduce nuclear risk and reverse the buildup of nuclear weapons capabilities. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and President Vladimir Putin’s irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling further exacerbate the challenges of making progress on the elimination of nuclear weapons. Russia’s actions over the past two years, such as its decision to block the adoption of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference final document in August 2022, demonstrate how one state can exploit structures and processes in existing forums to hold hostage progress on disarmament and nonproliferation. Moscow’s actions underscore the necessity of new strategies to reduce nuclear risk and advance disarmament in the short term. Additionally, the existing architecture is not well suited to integrate the three states that possess nuclear weapons that are not party to the NPT (India, Israel, and Pakistan) with multilateral nuclear disarmament efforts. Although some forums that focus on disarmament include these states, the structures and processes of these bodies do not offer the flexibility and creativity necessary to make progress in the current geopolitical environment. A new series of disarmament summits modeled after the highly successful nuclear security summit (NSS) process could inject much-needed momentum and creativity into the existing architecture. A carefully calibrated disarmament summit process could bypass some of the structural and political factors that have slowed progress on efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons. Given the geopolitical rifts exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this new approach emphasizing voluntary national and multilateral commitments would mitigate the extent to which one state can block progress on disarmament. Additionally, disarmament summits could generate political pressure to push states to take bolder actions to reduce nuclear risk.
Topic:: Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Disarmament, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Europe and Global Focus

67. Modernizing Sino-U.S. Confidence-building Measures: Cold War Case Studies and Chinese Perspectives

Author:: Raven Witherspoon, Jenna Wichterman, and Shivam Shankar Singh
Publication Date:: 03-2024
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: The Carter Center
Abstract:: Rising Sino-American tensions have prompted widespread discussion of a “New Cold War,” and analysts increasingly worry that flashpoints in the bilateral relationship could trigger conventional war that could escalate to the nuclear domain. This research utilizes the Cold War analogy as a starting point for analyzing how nuclear war between the U.S. and China can be averted.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Nuclear Weapons, Bilateral Relations, Rivalry, and Confidence Building Measures
Political Geography:: China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

68. Nuclear Verification’s Holy Grail: Verifying Nuclear Warheads — a new approach

Author:: Miles Pomper, William Moon, Marshall Brown, Ferenc Dalnkoki-Veress, Dan Zhukov, Dick Gullickson, and Yanliang Pan
Publication Date:: 12-2024
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Abstract:: This study is the culmination of four years of work to think through what would be required to track and monitor nuclear warheads in a verification process. It first began in 2021, shortly after President Joe Biden of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia extended the New START Treaty until February 2026; the two presidents also announced the launch of bilateral strategic stability talks. This positive moment in the U.S.-Russian relationship, which became almost unimaginable after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, was the original impetus for the project. It also launched in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, commonly known as the INF Treaty. The Russians had been violating the Treaty with the production and deployment of the 9M729 missile, also known in NATO parlance as the SSC-8. All NATO allies concurred with the withdrawal, which the United States completed in August 2019. The effort began with two strands of activity. The study team knew that when the United States and Russia decided to return to the negotiating table, the United States would place a high priority on seeking direct limits on warheads. Prior treaties had focused on controlling and eliminating missiles but had not focused directly on the warheads that armed them. It had long been a goal of the United States to seek direct limits on warheads, in order to more accurately constrain a Russian preponderance in warheads designated for theaterand shorter-range systems.1 However, if such an agreement were negotiated, the European allies would be ill-equipped to participate. On-site inspections under the INF Treaty had ended on May 31, 2001, so it had been twenty years since the allies had had to participate in verification activities. Most had lost expertise and institutional memory; some had never participated at all. “Raising the IQ” of the NATO allies about participating in arms control implementation was thus the first strand of activity. The second strand grew up around a conviction in the study team that the well-practiced verification techniques that had been exercised in INF and strategic arms control treaties since the 1980s could be augmented with new technology and innovative techniques. Thus emerged the emphasis on using cryptography to underpin a unique warhead tracking system. This work took advantage of some of the finest experts in the field of cryptography at Stanford University, and also the extensive experience gained during the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s many years of work to strengthen warhead protection, control and accounting in Russian Ministry of Defense nuclear warhead storage facilities. This work, which spanned a period of over fifteen years from 1995- 2013, provided the study team with a great depth of knowledge about the normal operating procedures in Russian military warhead facilities. This deep knowledge was vital to developing a concept for the tracking system, providing it with a realism and accuracy that otherwise would not have been possible.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, and Strategic Stability
Political Geography:: Global Focus

69. China Maritime Report No. 30: A Brief Technical History of PLAN Nuclear Submarines

Author:: Christopher P. Carlson and Howard Wang
Publication Date:: 08-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
Abstract:: After nearly 50 years since the first Type 091 SSN was commissioned, China is finally on the verge of producing world-class nuclear-powered submarines. This report argues that the propulsion, quieting, sensors, and weapons capabilities of the Type 095 SSGN could approach Russia’s Improved Akula I class SSN. The Type 095 will likely be equipped with a pump jet propulsor, a freefloating horizontal raft, a hybrid propulsion system, and 12-18 vertical launch system tubes able to accommodate anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles. China’s newest SSBN, the Type 096, will likewise see significant improvements over its predecessor, with the potential to compare favorably to Russia’s Dolgorukiy class SSBN in the areas of propulsion, sensors, and weapons, but more like the Improved Akula I in terms of quieting. If this analysis is correct, the introduction of the Type 095 and Type 096 would have profound implications for U.S. undersea security.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Armed Forces, Maritime, Submarines, and People's Liberation Army (PLA)
Political Geography:: China and Asia

70. China Maritime Report No. 31: China's Submarine Industrial Base: State-Led Innovation with Chinese Characteristics

Author:: Sarah Kirchberger
Publication Date:: 09-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
Abstract:: In recent years, China’s naval industries have made tremendous progress supporting the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) submarine force, both through robust commitment to research and development (R&D) and the upgrading of production infrastructure at the country’s three submarine shipyards: Bohai Shipyard, Huludao; Wuchang Shipyard, Wuhan; and Jiangnan Shipyard, Shanghai. Nevertheless, China’s submarine industrial base continues to suffer from surprising weaknesses in propulsion (from marine diesels to fuel cells) and submarine quieting. Closer ties with Russia could provide opportunities for China to overcome these enduring technological limitations by exploiting political and economic levers to gain access to Russia’s remaining undersea technology secrets.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Navy, Industry, Submarines, and People's Liberation Army (PLA)
Political Geography:: China and Asia

71. Commercial Satellite Use Catalyzes Nuclear-Armed States to Combat: A Wargame After-Action Report (Occasional Paper 2306)

Author:: Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:: 10-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: Recent reports of Elon Musk’s refusal to allow Ukraine to use his satellites to help it mount strikes against Russian military targets in Crimea pose a basic question: Just how sustainable might military use of commercial satellites be? So far, the United States and other spacefaring nations have deferred or taken a hands-off approach to dealing with this issue. When it comes to space, states are roughly where they were with sea power in the 1600s and air power before World War I: dramatic acts of air war and naval piracy were about to ensue, but instituting national or international regulation hardly seemed urgent… until they were. How prepared are we to deal with such a transition in space? Can we keep non-state and state actors from using space to intensify the pace of military air and ground operations? Or are space Lusitanias, in which the world’s major powers get dragged into wars, more likely? To find out, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) designed and conducted a wargame this summer tailored to this purpose. SpaceNews published the game’s results (see below). The game’s play begins in 2027 with a Pakistani terrorist group’s hijacking of “commercial” Chinese satellite services to mount an attack against an Indian nuclear base. The terrorists’ aim is to drag Pakistan into a war with India to help decide the status of Kashmir. Through a number of twists and turns, the game ends with intensified ground operations between Pakistan and India and China and the United States engaging in space combat against a set of each others’ commercial space satellites. Are we ready for this future? The short answer is no. The long answer can be teased from the game’s report and its key takeaways below.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Weapons, Space, War Games, Satellite, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: South Asia and Asia

72. Space: America's New Strategic Front Line

Author:: Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:: 10-2023
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: Last week, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States released its final report. Although Congress tasked it to assess the role of space systems in America’s strategic posture, the commission dedicated less than a half-page of its 160-page review to this matter. Of its 20 pages of specific recommendations, the commission made none on space. This seems odd. As China and Russia build up their nuclear arsenals well beyond what America has deployed, the cost and impracticality of quantitatively countering these threats only grows. The commission report rightly recommends the United States make its strategic nuclear forces less vulnerable to a potential first strike. But what of the argument that to do this America and its allies must be able to stun or disable its adversaries’ military eyes, ears, voices, and nervous systems both on Earth and in space? Those who argue this maintain that if America commands space, it can be assured of victory in war and, better yet, be able to deter conflicts. Does it follow that if America and its allies lose assured command of space, acquiring more and better nuclear weapons may be for naught? What does securing command of space demand? What would it enable our military to do? What space capabilities are our key space adversary — China — and our key Asian allies—Japan and South Korea — planning to employ? What will implementing America’s current space strategy entail and cost? What might alternatives to this strategy entail? Which, if any, space capacities and military actions does the Outer Space Treaty (to which Russia, China, the United States, and most states in Asia and Europe are parties) allow or prohibit? Can these limits be enforced? What can space war simulations do to help get the answers? NPEC commissioned some of the nation’s top military and legal space experts to examine these issues. It then held a series of space simulations to test their answers out. The result, which my staff and I are releasing today, is a 354-page volume, Space: America’s New Strategic Front Line (introduction below). It features insights from space policy experts and practitioners and more than suggests that strategic deterrence will depend on securing space superiority.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, and Space
Political Geography:: Russia, Japan, China, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

73. Nuclear deterrence in the Ukraine war: Diplomacy of violence

Author:: Jyri Lavikainen
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)
Abstract:: Russia’s nuclear blackmailing has been the primary reason why NATO has not intervened in the Ukraine war. However, the US nuclear deterrence has allowed the West to resist Russia’s nuclear coercion, which has resulted in an unprecedented delivery of military aid to Ukraine. The US has reacted to Russia’s nuclear coercion by emphasizing its readiness to retaliate if Russia uses nuclear weapons. The war progresses in line with the historical tradition of limited wars where the opposing sides regulate the conflict by issuing threats in a game of nerves. Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy is failing because it uses nuclear deterrence for something it is not suited for: as a coercive tool in a protracted war of conquest. As long as such threats can be countered with a threat to retaliate, their credibility is low because the benefits cannot outweigh the costs in the vast majority of circumstances. The deterrence dynamic still allows more room for manoeuvre for the supporters of Ukraine. The West should increase the military aid delivered to Ukraine with the goal of defeating Russia.
Topic:: NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and United States of America

74. British Nuclear Policy

Author:: Peter Watkins
Publication Date:: 05-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:: Nuclear deterrence has been a major pillar of British defence policy since the mid-1950s. The United Kingdom maintains a minimum, credible, independent strategic nuclear deterrent force, assigned to the defence of NATO. Its purpose is purely defensive: to deter the most extreme threats to the security of the UK and to that of her NATO allies. Potential adversaries must thus take into account the UK’s nuclear capabilities when facing UK conventional forces deployed as part of NATO’s forward deterrence and defence posture, not least the UK-led battlegroup in Estonia. The UK does not see a contradiction between cooperation with allies and having an “independent” deterrent – its nuclear force is operationally independent and only the UK Prime Minister can authorise the use of the UK’s nuclear weapons, even as part of a wider NATO response. Today, the Soviet Union is gone – yet a weaker but more dangerous Russia as well as an increasingly powerful China create a potential “two peer” nuclear challenge. The UK is currently renewing its nuclear deterrent as the existing capability is aging – but continues to seek opportunities for multilateral nuclear disarmament as the strategic circumstances allow. In light of the international security environment, the 2021 change to the warhead ceiling reflected that. But the UK needs to ask itself whether bigger changes will be needed for the future.
Topic:: NATO, Nuclear Weapons, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: United Kingdom, Europe, and Estonia

75. Iran’s Defence Industry: What’s in Stock for Russia?

Author:: Tato Kvamladze
Publication Date:: 01-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:: Albeit heavily sanctioned and exhausted by the Islamic revolution and the war with Iraq, Iran has managed to upbuild a self-sufficient defence industry from the ashes and demonstrate a robust weapon system manufacturing capacity over the last decades. It started with low-tech reverse-engineering of 3rd generation fighters and tanks and ended with indigenously producing high-accuracy and long-range ballistic missiles. Although Tehran has exported $435 million worth of weaponry, its arms trade is not a source of revenue, but a foreign policy tool to bolster its allies and proxies in the region and beyond. Supplying weapons to Russia, however, is a unique case that signals Moscow’s desperation and inability to achieve its military objectives in Ukraine. In 2022, after years of military cooperation with Russia, Teheran finally had an opportunity to provide support to Moscow, when the exhausted and depleted Russian army requested – and immediately received – unmanned combat aerial vehicles that are now used to target critical civilian infrastructure. Further economic cooperation between two rogue states might also extend to (nuclear) technology transfers, which for now remains an Achilles’ heel for Teheran. For as long as the war in Ukraine lasts, the Kremlin will have a reliable partner who can deliver an assortment of weapons needed on short notice.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, Arms Trade, Military, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, Iran, Ukraine, and Middle East

76. French Nuclear Policy

Author:: Jean-Louis Lozier
Publication Date:: 01-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:: France’s independent nuclear deterrence has been the main pillar of its defence strategy for sixty years. The French nuclear policy, as well as its European and allied dimensions, however, tends to be misunderstood abroad, including by those who rely on French military involvement in the pursuit of their national security goals. French nuclear deterrence is, first and foremost, strictly conceived as defensive. It is designed to protect the country’s vital interests and ensure its sovereignty and freedom of action, with the fundamental purpose to prevent a major war that would threaten those vital interests. In the wake of the war in Ukraine and Russian nuclear sabre-rattling, the value of French deterrent for European security has been raised once again. Not so long ago, President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that France’s vital interests have a European dimension. Allies must understand that France does not intend to replace the U.S. extended deterrence but rather wishes to enhance and strengthen Europe’s common defence in a more uncertain security environment. Hence, there should be a shared interest to engage in a strategic dialogue on common threats and challenges before they have materialised.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Europe and France

77. Russia’s Nuclear Policy After Ukraine

Author:: Stephen Blank
Publication Date:: 07-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:: The recent mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary force, generated international concern about the control of Russian nuclear weapons and Russia’s future nuclear policy.[1] Therefore we must ask, will Russia change its nuclear policy due to contemporary strategic developments? This question correctly assumes that the war in Ukraine and all its ramifications, despite their undoubted importance, are not the only factors influencing Russian decision-making on nuclear policy. Accordingly, we analyze those factors—including, among others, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine—that will likely influence the direction and nature of Russia’s nuclear policy. Those factors influencing policy, itself the outcome of myriad domestic and foreign pressures, also include Russia’s overall security policies, the global strategic environment, and the lessons Russia learns from recent wars—most prominently its aggression against Ukraine. Russian national security strategy and policy originate in what Carl Schmitt called the presupposition of unceasing conflict.[2] Since the U.S. is Russia’s principal interlocutor, it also is its primary antagonist. Russian security policy is inherently adversarial. It postulates a state of permanent conflict with Washington and its allies where Washington seeks to undermine, if not destroy, the Russian state and prevent it from restoring its empire (i.e., global great power status). As Deputy Foreign Minister Rybakov recently stated, “Russia’s foreign policy interests as a great power have a global projection. Our country plays a stabilizing role in various regions of the world.”[3] Allegedly the U.S. employs nuclear weapons, missile defenses, and advanced conventional weapons that could negate Russia’s nuclear deterrent to frustrate Russia’s policies.[4] Thus it is an article of faith in Moscow that its nuclear weapons are the main guarantees of Russia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, great power status, and the factor that deters the West from intervening against Russia in Ukraine.[5] Moreover, those weapons, when deployed abroad, also deter NATO’s potential, largely maritime, threats to Russia. Therefore, Russia must conduct a global military—i.e., an expeditionary, nuclear, and military policy.[6] Indeed, Putin has recently and revealingly called nuclear weapons, “the key guarantee of Russia’s military security and global stability.”[7] Russian nuclear strategy and behavior also derive from a cognitive universe wholly unlike and unfamiliar to American strategic thought. Identical words often mean entirely different things to Russians and Americans; much Russian rhetoric is politicized, deliberately deceptive, or opaque, and invariably follows state requirements. Yet, despite voluminous and even insightful commentary on war, Russian forces often do not fight as its doctrine stipulates, adding to the difficulties involved in determining what its policy is.[8] Simultaneously, however, Russian strategy and policy are also inherently evolutionary—i.e., they respond to changes in the strategic environment that are then incorporated into doctrine, strategy, official statements, exercises, procurement, and policy. Finally, despite our own difficulties in understanding Russia, either willfully or because it cannot help itself due to the deep-seated paranoia in its political culture, equally misreads the West, wholly misunderstands the West, and habitually ascribes the worst motives to U.S. and Western policies.[9] This misreading of the West repeatedly generates worst-case threat assessments that frequently lead to Russian nuclear threats or procurements. Taking all these factors into account, including Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, it is quite likely if not certain that Russian nuclear strategy and policy will change in the wake of the war in Ukraine, win, lose, or draw. Unfortunately, in most potential outcomes to the war save defeat and collapse of the government, that change points to an enhanced role of nuclear weapons in Russian policy with no letup in hostility toward the West. The war in Ukraine has been instrumental in fostering still more animosity toward the West and an enhanced role for nuclear weapons.[10]
Topic:: National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Wagner Group, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Ukraine

78. Biden’s Middle East Balancing Act: Iran’s Nuclear Program and Saudi-Israeli Ties

Author:: Leon Hadar
Publication Date:: 08-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:: This summer, the Biden administration decided to negotiate a temporary deal with Iran involving the release of American prisoners held by the Islamic Republic in exchange for the release of some of the funds that were held by the United States as part of the economic sanctions on Tehran. The White House expects that this package deal will open the road to talks with Iran on its nuclear program. The outline of a deal would include a pause in the accumulation of enriched uranium and an Iranian pledge not to produce weapons-grade fissile material, in exchange for the removal of US economic sanctions. But any diplomatic deal between Washington and Tehran raises fears among two of America’s allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Israel, that regard Iran as an existential threat. From that perspective, a US-led process of normalizing the relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem could help contain Iran and reinforce the American pledge to strengthen the alliance with Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Sanctions, Negotiation, and Joe Biden
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and United States of America

79. The Role of Umbrella States in the Global Nuclear Order

Author:: Tytti Erästö
Publication Date:: 06-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:: This paper focuses on countries under extended nuclear deterrence arrangements, or ‘umbrella’ states. The paper explores the ways in which umbrella states both in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe have supported prevailing nuclear deterrence practices or distanced themselves from such practices. While there is a tendency for these countries to side with their nuclear-armed patron on matters related to nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament norms, at times they have taken steps away from the allied mainstream position by advocating for anti-nuclear weapon policies. As long as extended deterrence has a nuclear dimension, allies will need to balance between normative pressures to support nuclear disarmament and alliance commitments that require at least passive support for nuclear deterrence practices.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, Alliance, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Europe and Asia-Pacific

80. Verifying Nuclear Disarmament: Lessons Learned in South Africa, Iraq and Libya

Author:: Robert E. Kelley
Publication Date:: 01-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Abstract:: Inspections in the 1990s and early 2000s in South Africa, Iraq and Libya were designed to discover the details of nuclear weapon programmes and destroy any remnants. As the global norm against nuclear weapons strengthens, the international community may once more require verification of a state’s denuclearization. But success in the three earlier cases does not guarantee success in the next similar task—any future inspection mission must learn from the lessons of the past. This report draws on the unique experience of Robert E. Kelley, a participant in all three past denuclearization efforts. In it, he gives an account of the unique scale and circumstances of each investigation and the different tools and approaches required. By publicly documenting and comparing obstacles and successes in the three cases for the first time, this report gives meaningful and practical insight into the difficult work of disarmament and its verification. It is an essential resource for future inspectors—and all others interested in what real disarmament looks like on the ground.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Disarmament, and Transparency
Political Geography:: Africa, Iraq, Middle East, Libya, South Africa, and North Africa

81. America’s Response after Russian Suspension of New START

Author:: Rebeccah L. Heinrichs and Marshall Billingslea
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Hudson Institute
Abstract:: This week’s news that Russia will suspend participation in the New START nuclear treaty follows the State Department’s January announcement that Russia is in breach of New START and its obligation to allow inspection activities on its territory. Since the Cold War, the United States has led efforts to promote nuclear non-proliferation and to create a transparent and stable dynamic between Moscow and Washington regarding our nuclear weapons forces. But the Russians have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to violate the terms of our agreements. While the United States has sought to decrease our reliance on nuclear weapons in our military strategies, Russia has gone the other way. Russia is developing, testing, and fielding new delivery systems within traditional categories like road-mobile and silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. But it has also developed novel systems like nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicles that raise questions about their intent. And its large arsenal of non-strategic nuclear weapons remains outside the bounds of any treaty. As we’ve seen in Ukraine, Russia uses the threat of nuclear employment to coerce nations in wars of aggression that Russia has chosen. Moscow appears to have lowered the nuclear threshold. The best path for peace is for the United States to maintain credible deterrence options. This provides incentives for our adversaries to engage in diplomacy.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, Military, and New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START)
Political Geography:: Russia, North America, and United States of America

82. The System Is Blinking Red over Iran

Author:: Jonathan Schachter
Publication Date:: 03-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Hudson Institute
Abstract:: In his testimony to the 9/11 Commission, then-CIA Director George Tenet described the harrowing intelligence picture that had emerged in the summer of 2001. “The system was blinking red,” he famously recalled. What followed, of course, was the well-documented, multi-agency failure to prevent an avoidable disaster that changed the course of history. The system is blinking red again, and the American response appears frighteningly familiar. Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that its inspectors in Iran had discovered uranium particles enriched to about 84 percent purity. Most reports have noted that this is just shy of the 90 percent level generally considered to be “weapons grade.” Others correctly point out that uranium enriched to around 80 percent fueled the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Almost no one mentions that Iran has no civilian need to enrich uranium in the first place. During the nearly four years leading up to the IAEA’s finding, Iran has engaged in increasingly grave violations of its international nuclear obligations, only some of which derive from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran still refuses to cooperate with at least three separate IAEA investigations of undeclared nuclear materials, activities, and sites, in violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With Iran’s long history of nuclear lawbreaking, the discovery of undeclared, highly enriched uranium is unsurprising. Iran does not have a peaceful uranium enrichment program. Uranium enrichment remains part and parcel of the regime’s effort to develop and maintain the ability to produce and deliver nuclear weapons on demand. Rather than dismantling Iran’s illegally built military enrichment program, the JCPOA decriminalized it. Even if the US had not withdrawn from the JCPOA in 2018, the deal’s limited and temporary terms explicitly permit Iran to expand its enrichment capability and capacity and increase its stockpile of enriched uranium, legally and without limitation, by the end of this decade. In a February 24 interview with CBS News, the current CIA director, William Burns, downplayed the danger. He reaffirmed that “we don’t believe that the Supreme Leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program that we judge that they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003.” The materials Israeli intelligence spirited out of a Tehran warehouse (the “Atomic Archive”) in 2018, which Israel shared with the United States, raise disturbing questions about the assessment Burns presented and its persistence. The archive materials showed that the regime did not stop or suspend its weaponization program in 2003, but, in the Iranians’ own words, modified it. What had been a crash program geared toward testing a nuclear device on a short timeline became a dispersed, long-term effort—part clandestine, part under the cover of civilian research—to develop and maintain capabilities relevant to the production of nuclear weapons. The program went from sprint to marathon, though both have a nuclear weapons finish line. More broadly, the archive showed that the Iranian nuclear weapons program was more advanced and comprehensive than previously understood. Israel and the United States became aware of how much so 15 years after the fact and only thanks to one of the most stunning intelligence coups in modern history. Despite this long lag and the long odds of repeating such an intelligence feat, Burns seems to believe that we will know in near-real time if and when Iran’s leader decides to switch the program back to an even shorter nuclear sprint. This belief seems to reflect, as the saying goes, the triumph of hope over experience. Perhaps this too is unsurprising. The JCPOA was always built on little more than hope. The largely unspoken logic behind the agreement was that an engaged, wealthier Iran would lose interest in nuclear weapons before the deal’s restrictions expired. Iran quickly proved the optimists wrong. In the years immediately after striking the deal, Tehran increased defense spending by more than 30 percent; offered substantially more support to terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis; and intensified its aggression across the region. Iran continues to develop missiles and, as Burns pointed out, the associated ability to deliver a nuclear warhead. Now Iran is using the same uranium enrichment infrastructure guaranteed by the JCPOA to violate its terms. The Biden administration’s policy toward Iran reflects a clear and consistent preference for diplomacy over the use of force, and understandably so. But the White House treats the two as contradictory, rather than complementary. For over two years, the administration has demonstrated its reticence to use, or even credibly threaten to use, force against Iran. Manifestly undeterred, Iran has continued and accelerated its drive toward the nuclear threshold. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine and Iran’s provision of weapons to Russia mean that even if the IAEA Board of Governors were to refer Iran’s nuclear crimes to the United Nations Security Council, Russia surely would veto any punitive measure toward the Islamic Republic. In other words, America’s soft-handed approach and global events are making a diplomatic solution less likely. If Washington continues on its current path, the world almost certainly will face a nuclear-armed Iran, a war to prevent that eventuality, or both. It is not too late to act. First, the United States can press its European partners to activate the JCPOA’s snap-back mechanism, which is not subject to a Russian (or Chinese) veto. Doing so would reimpose international sanctions and the UN arms embargo on Iran that the deal lifted in 2020. It also would prevent the planned lifting of the UN missile embargo on Iran in October of this year. Second, the president, his administration, and Congress can make clear that the United States and its allies can and will use force to prevent Iran from violating its nuclear obligations. The United States would not be moving its red lines, but rather enforcing them. Doing so would send a powerful message to Iranian leaders that they have already crossed America’s red lines and need to back down. Such a threat might not be effective. But without a credible American commitment to use force, no diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear problem is possible. This moment could be America’s last chance to change course on Iran. If it does not, one wonders what Director Burns and his colleagues in the administration might say in their future testimony about why they failed to act when the system was blinking red on their watch.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, National Security, Nuclear Weapons, and JCPOA
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

83. The Restraining Effect of Nuclear Deterrence

Author:: William D'Ambruoso
Publication Date:: 06-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Defense Priorities
Abstract:: Recent developments in international affairs and military technology have led some analysts to conclude that the nuclear revolution, which purportedly prevents war between nuclear powers, no longer has much effect—that the world is getting safer for nuclear war or conventional war beneath the nuclear umbrella. This conclusion is wrong; technological change has not meaningfully shifted the political calculus pacifying relations between nuclear weapons states. The war in Ukraine demonstrates the continued strength of nuclear restraint: while Russian President Vladimir Putin is risk-acceptant and brutal, he did not attack a country protected by U.S.-extended deterrence, and, like NATO members, he appears deterred by the possibility that a Russia-NATO war could escalate out of control. North Korea provides another example of the endurance of mutual deterrence: Despite heated rhetoric and a barrage of missile tests, North Korea remains deterrable, and its small arsenal has also been able to deter the United States. Because the chances of nuclear war are usually low but never zero, the nuclear age should continue to be an era of great power restraint. Traditional foreign policy approaches emphasizing strategic ambiguity and arms control, including with China, remain useful tools to help keep the peace.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, International Affairs, Deterrence, and Military
Political Geography:: Russia, China, North Korea, and United States of America

84. Atomic Strait: How China’s Nuclear Buildup Shapes Security Dynamics with Taiwan and the United States

Author:: Jacob Stokes
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:: This report examines the intersection of China’s nuclear modernization and cross-Strait tensions, especially how they might play out during a crisis, contingency, or conflict involving China, Taiwan, and the United States. Beijing is rapidly modernizing its nuclear arsenal to make it larger and more sophisticated. Changes include an increase in warhead numbers from more than 400 today to potentially 700 by 2027 and more beyond, consolidating a nuclear triad, developing new delivery systems, and digging at least 300 new missile silos. Some factors still could constrain the growth of China’s arsenal or the policies that shape the way Chinese leaders employ it. They range from fissile material stocks to competing military spending priorities, considerations about China’s international reputation, and upholding Beijing’s claimed No First Use policy. But nearly all those constraining factors either already have weakened or could do so in the near future. China’s expanding nuclear arsenal suggests that the force will be designed to fulfill new missions. Some part of Beijing’s buildup surely is meant to bolster its second-strike retaliatory capability in the face of what China perceives as shifts in U.S. conventional and nuclear capabilities and policies. China’s long-term goal for the expansion, however, could be more ambitious and potentially even include seeking to build an arsenal on par with Washington’s and Moscow’s. Meanwhile, China continues to ramp up pressure on Taiwan using political, economic, and military tools. Beijing’s campaign could provoke more crises in the coming years. The three major roles that nuclear weapons could play for China when dealing with cross-Strait crises or conflicts are: to shield China from U.S. nuclear coercion, to threaten Chinese nuclear use to try to forestall U.S. intervention, and to conduct a limited Chinese nuclear detonation in an attempt to force U.S. and Taiwanese capitulation. The report concludes with recommendations for U.S. policymakers. It calls for carrying out U.S. nuclear modernization plans to deter China but avoiding nuclear arms racing as a strategy in itself. It recommends incorporating nuclear elements into contingency planning and scenario exercises related to Taiwan, both unilaterally and with allies and partners. The report then calls for improving Taiwan’s conventional military capabilities while maintaining a consistent U.S. policy on cross-Strait issues and ensuring Taiwan forgoes pursuing indigenous nuclear weapons. Finally, the report argues in favor of pushing forward tough-minded bilateral engagement with Beijing on strategic stability and security issues while crafting a multilateral arms control strategy that builds coalitions to incentivize China to join and impose costs on Beijing if it opts to stay outside of key agreements.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Regional Security
Political Geography:: China, Taiwan, Asia, North America, and United States of America

85. Avoiding the Brink: Escalation Management in a War to Defend Taiwan

Author:: Stacie L. Pettyjohn and Hannah Dennis
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:: The United States is entering an unprecedented multipolar nuclear era that is far more complex and challenging than that of the Cold War. This report examines potential triggers, thresholds, and targets for Chinese nuclear use as well as options for the United States and its allies and partners to avoid and manage escalation. It uses the results of two exploratory tabletop exercises (TTXs) focused on how China’s expanding nuclear arsenal could impact the risk of nuclear escalation in a conventional conflict over Taiwan. From these two TTXs, the authors derived tentative insights into how nuclear escalation in a war over Taiwan might unfold and identified areas where further research is needed. First, the expansions and improvements projected for China’s nuclear forces will provide it with a wider range of coercive options. With a secure second-strike capability and more diverse theater nuclear options, China may be willing to brandish its nuclear weapons to attempt to deter the United States from entering a war. There are few incentives to conduct nuclear strikes early in such a conflict, but a war over Taiwan might well lead to a protracted war between the great powers—another area where more study will be critical. The authors also found that American policymakers today might not find the PRC’s nuclear threats credible because of its smaller arsenal size and historic policy of no first use (NFU). Furthermore, the authors found that attempts to degrade key conventional capabilities might lead either side to cross the other’s red lines, setting off an escalatory spiral and transforming a regional conflict into a great-power war. Both the United States and China will have to weigh the value of eliminating certain targets with the risk of crossing an adversary red line. Last, the authors found an asymmetry between the targets available to the United States and China in a Taiwan contingency. With fewer categories of targets to strike and types of capabilities with which to strike them, the United States may have fewer options to manage escalation. All these findings merit further study. The two TTXs, conducted in summer 2022, pitted a U.S. Blue team against a Chinese Red team in a war over Taiwan. The two wargames were designed as a controlled comparison to focus on the impact of one specific variable—the size and composition of the PLA’s nuclear arsenal—on the Red team’s decision-making and its propensity to deliberately escalate and on the Blue team’s ability to defend its allies and partners while managing escalation. By holding most other factors constant but changing Red’s nuclear force structure, the authors aimed to concentrate on the role that nuclear weapons played. In TTX 1, the players had a notional 2027 order of battle with a nuclear arsenal of about 700 warheads, diverse in yield and delivery system type and range. The second TTX, set in 2030, included a similarly diverse Red arsenal of over 1,000 nuclear warheads. After analyzing the results of both exercises, the authors contextualized and expanded the findings through research on existing literature on nuclear deterrence and escalation.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Escalation
Political Geography:: Taiwan, Asia, and United States of America

86. Disarming the Bomb: Distilling the Drivers and Disincentives for Iran's Nuclear Program

Author:: Jonathan Lord, Arona Baigal, Hunter Streling, and Stewart Latwin
Publication Date:: 03-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:: Negotiations to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal, reached an impasse this past year. Further, Iran made parallel decisions to brutally crack down on a nationwide protest movement and to inject itself into the conflict in Ukraine by furnishing Russia with weapons. These decisions may have rendered the impasse insurmountable. U.S. President Joe Biden has not retreated from the U.S. policy that it will never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. However, Iran’s maximalist demands at the negotiating table, along with its domestic and foreign activities, have made it politically impossible for the United States and Europe to pursue further negotiation. Further complicating the situation and perhaps rendering the JCPOA increasingly obsolete, critical provisions of the original deal will expire in 2025 and 2030.1 The United States and the international community must consider how to constrain Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear deterrent in a post-JCPOA world, in which Iran has never been closer to achieving a bomb. The CNAS Middle East Security Program designed and ran a scenario exercise in October 2022 to identify key factors that might accelerate or decelerate Iran’s nuclear program in 2024. Additionally, the exercise explored how Iran, the United States, Israel, and the Gulf nations could prioritize their own national security objectives with respect to Iran’s nuclear program, along with the potential actions each might take to accomplish those objectives. The exercise examined two scenarios. Scenario 1 explored key countries’ policy actions and perspectives if the United States and Iran failed to reenter the JCPOA. Scenario 2 explored key countries’ policy actions and perspectives if the United States and Iran successfully renegotiated a return to compliance with the JCPOA and faced the imminent expiration of elements of the deal. Overall observations from the exercise suggest that Iran’s leadership’s primary concern is self-preservation. Pursuing a nuclear program is secondary and ultimately serves to advance the primary objective (self-preservation). U.S. policymakers face many challenges in rallying partners against Iran while prioritizing a negotiated approach to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Negotiation, Deterrence, and JCPOA
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

87. Assessing the Evolving Russian Nuclear Threat

Author:: Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Michael Kofman, Nicholas Lokker, and Heli Hautala
Publication Date:: 10-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its nuclear rhetoric has become more permissive, more inconsistent, and more instrumental. Russia has also placed greater emphasis on military exercises involving nuclear-capable weapons, and it has altered policies and planning for its nuclear forces. Although it is too soon to draw definitive conclusions as the war in Ukraine is still ongoing and the lessons that Russia draws from it uncertain, the changes in Russia’s approach to nuclear weapons since its invasion suggest that Russia is likely to adopt a more assertive nuclear force posture, especially with respect to its non-strategic nuclear weapons, in order to signal that the country will no longer be a status quo power and increase the credibility of its nuclear threats. Russia is also likely to increase its efforts to test NATO cohesion—potentially through greater nuclear provocations and/or by signaling an insincere willingness to engage in forms of arms control or cooperative threat reduction—and continue to look for opportunities to leverage nuclear weapons to signal great-power status. In a future war with NATO, Russia would likely perceive the need to use nuclear weapons earlier in the conflict, either to seek victory against superior NATO conventional forces through nuclear first use on the battlefield, or to prevent defeat by those NATO forces. Moreover, since 2022, it has become increasingly difficult for U.S. and Russian policymakers to discern each other’s red lines, raising the risk of unintended escalation. Heightened Russian nuclear rhetoric at home could also alter the public’s views of acceptable nuclear use, eroding a potential constraint on Kremlin decision-making. Finally, changes since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine indicate both reduced Russian commitment to nonproliferation as its image increasingly becomes that of a rogue actor in international affairs, and diminished opportunities for nuclear arms control, for now.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Russia-Ukraine War, and Threat Assessment
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

88. Cold War rivalry on Brazil’s and Argentina’snuclear programs: examining military and civilian intentions

Author:: André Luiz Cançado Motta and José Paulo Silva Ferreira
Publication Date:: 07-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Institution:: Conjuntura Austral: Journal of the Global South
Abstract:: The objective of this article is to investigate whether Cold War rivalry influenced the development of nuclear programs in Brazil and Argentina. The research employs a qualitative approach and bibliographic analysis of primary sources, including articles, books, and other relevant sources. The main hypothesis is to examine whether the culture of Cold War rivalry stimulated the development of nuclear programs in these countries, analysing the military and civilian intentions behind their nuclear technologies. While it is commonly reported that Latin America was under the influence of the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) during the Cold War, the cases of Brazil and Argentina show the opposite. Both countries adopted independent nuclear policies, seeking technological transfer through diversified and autonomous partnerships. Additionally, these divergent positions included arguments and actions regarding their respective nuclear policies. However, mutual distrust between Brazil and Argentina regarding the advancement and sophistication of their nuclear programs generated a dynamic similar to the Cold War in the Southern Cone region. This dynamic originated internally based on the logic of the two countries, despite the later creation of joint non-proliferation mechanisms.
Topic:: Cold War, Nuclear Weapons, Politics, History, Rivalry, Military, and Nuclearization
Political Geography:: Brazil, Argentina, and South America

89. Dominating the Superpower: A Bounded Rationality Approach to Nuclear Proliferation and Inhibition in the U.S. / North Korea Dyad

Author:: Sercan Canbolat and Stephen Benedict Dyson
Publication Date:: 12-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:: International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:: Why was the United States, despite its overwhelming superiority in power, unable to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons? Why did North Korea persist in its nuclear pursuit in the face of U.S. opposition? In this article, we represent nuclear proliferation and counter-proliferation as situations of subjective strategic interaction between states. We measure preferences over strategies and outcomes using operational codes of the leaders of each country, derived via linguistic analysis. Our results indicate that neither the U.S. nor North Korea accurately understood the other side’s preference ordering, and that their operational codes interacted in such a way as to produce an outcome favorable to North Korea – the weaker party - and unfavorable to the U.S. – the stronger. The wider contribution is to show that (mis)perceptions of the goals and resolve of the opponent play a crucial role in the success or failure of strong states to compel weak states and vice versa.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Politics, Leadership, and Perception
Political Geography:: Asia, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

90. Brinkmanship and Nuclear Threat in the Ukraine War

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 05-2023
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Western leaders and Kyiv pledge to “stay the course” despite Russian nuclear threats. But does western brinkmanship in the Ukraine war depend on denying there is a brink? This short article examines “nuclear threat denialism” and its function in war policy. It explores Moscow’s most likely but occluded nuclear option and the unique danger it represents. And the post examines the relevance of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the current conflict.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Nuclear Weapons, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

91. “Nuclear Blackmail” – Misdirection in the Ukraine War Debate

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 05-2023
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Moscow’s repeated warnings about possible world war and nuclear conflict in response to Western support for Ukraine’s fighting forces have elicited calls in the West to resist “nuclear blackmail.”[1] Some observers go further to claim that moderating Western policy in light of nuclear dangers would actually increase the likelihood of nuclear war, if not now then in the future.[2] Prof Timothy Snyder (Yale University) advances the argument succinctly. He writes: “All of you who are saying that we have to give in to [Russian] nuclear blackmail are making nuclear war more likely. Please stop. When you give in to it, you empower dictators to do it again, encourage worldwide nuclear proliferation, and make nuclear war much, much more likely.”[3] The stratagem of this argument is to turn concern about nuclear war against itself; To see the concern itself as the problem. This is wrong headed. There are a variety of effective and sensible ways to inhibit nuclear weapons proliferation, but categorically daring nuclear threats made by nuclear weapon superpowers fighting wars on their borders is not one of them.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Nuclear Weapons, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Europe and Ukraine

92. Tempting Armageddon: The Likelihood of Russian Nuclear Use is Misconstrued in Western Policy

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: This article tracks and assesses the evolution of Russian nuclear threats in the Ukraine crisis, the related interplay between Moscow and Washington, the factors driving Russian thinking on nuclear use, the nuclear options available to Russia, and why US-NATO leaders and hawkish observers dismiss these options as impracticable. We conclude that the probability of Russian nuclear use, although conditionally modest, is rising as Ukraine’s armed forces push forward toward Crimea and the Russian border while also increasing their retaliatory attacks on recognized Russian territory. On its present trajectory, the crisis will soon run a risk of nuclear conflict greater than that experienced during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Topic:: NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Armed Forces, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

93. The Next Generation of Iranian Ballistic Missiles: Technical Advances, Strategic Objectives, and Potential Western Responses

Author:: Farzin Nadimi
Publication Date:: 07-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:: On May 25, 2023, Iran’s minister of defense, Gen. Mohammad Reza Qaraei Ashtiani, unveiled the so-called fourth generation of the Khoramshahr liquid-fuel ballistic missile—aka Kheibar—amid heightened tensions with Israel and the West regarding Tehran’s nuclear program and renewed talk of preventive strikes against Iran’s key nuclear sites. Ashtiani spoke at the Hakimiyeh Aerospace Industries Organization complex, east of Tehran, against a backdrop with the new missile and a large model of Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock. The name Kheibar comes from a fortified oasis settlement north of Medina, Saudi Arabia, inhabited by Jewish tribes before the Islamic era. In AD 628, the Jews there were defeated by Muslim armies led by Ali ibn Abi Talib, who has become a legendary figure in Shia Islam. The message to Israel implicit in the Kheibar announcement was therefore unmistakable. The Khoramshahr is Iran’s most advanced liquid-fuel ballistic missile and probably the first using storable liquid fuel, with its first version having been introduced at a military parade on September 22, 2017. The missile is believed to have much in common technically with the North Korean Hwasong-10—itself based on the retired Russian R-27 submarine-launched ballistic missile. Iran is thought to have received several Hwasong-10 missiles from North Korea in 2005 for reverse engineering purposes. The Khoramshahr is also Iran’s first departure from the Russian Scud and scaled Scud-generation propulsion systems.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, Military Affairs, and Deterrence
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

94. Arming the Revolution: Trends in Iranian Defense Spending, 2013–23

Author:: Henry Rome
Publication Date:: 06-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:: The Islamic Republic boasts a large and expanding nuclear program, the most capable missile and drone force in the Middle East, and a broad network of proxies that threaten U.S. interests. Nevertheless, scholars have devoted little attention to a key area: Iran’s defense spending. Although the data is publicly available, tabulating it is more difficult than one might assume, and three particular hazards await: (1) conversion of Iranian rials to dollars at unrealistic rates, (2) reliance on spending plans as opposed to actual spending, and (3) undercounting. Thus, any attempt to understand Iran’s military spending must scrupulously avoid such traps. In this Policy Note, Iran expert Henry Rome offers the most detailed public accounting yet of Tehran’s recent defense spending, illustrated by charts showing domestic trends and comparisons with regional rivals. The findings show how spending surged following the 2015 nuclear deal and plummeted following the U.S. withdrawal from the deal in 2018. They also suggest that a new nuclear accord with Washington will likely prompt another increase, demanding a broader strategy to counter Iran’s military ambitions alongside its nuclear ones.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, Economy, Defense Spending, and Military
Political Geography:: Iran and Middle East

95. Iran’s Nuclear Endgame Warrants a Change in U.S. Strategy

Author:: Michael Singh
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:: Recently, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered that Iran had enriched uranium to a level just shy of what is generally considered weapons grade. Like many findings before it, this revelation underscores the need for a new U.S. and European policy toward Iran. The two most important and immediate steps in that process are clear by this point: Washington and its partners need to move on from any remaining plans they might have to resurrect the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), namely by activating that accord’s “snapback” mechanism; and governments must heighten their efforts to deter Iran through credible threats of military force.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and JCPOA
Political Geography:: Iran, Middle East, and United States of America

96. The Wind Rose’s Directions: Russia’s Strategic Deterrence during the First Year of the War in Ukraine

Author:: Anya Fink
Publication Date:: 08-2023
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:: Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, and even before February 2022, the Russian government has conducted intense nuclear rhetoric and actions. This behavior is a specific approach to strategic deterrence that seeks to incorporate nonmilitary and military (nuclear and nonnuclear) means into a continuous spectrum of actions for deterrence, escalation management, and warfighting. Nuclear weapons are the foundation of credible strategic deterrence and signaling with these and other strategic capabilities could in theory be instrumental for deterring the escalation of a local conflict to a regional war. Russian signaling varies from aggressive declarations from Putin himself but also Russian officials such as Medvedev or journalistic cronies, to medium to large scale strategic exercises like the infamous Grom. Likewise, on the international stage, Russia has shown restraint by reimplementing the Reagan-Gorbachev declaration, but also deliberate disrespect of arms control agreements, notably by suspending its participation to the New START treaty. In practice, however, Russia’s use of strategic deterrence signaling in this conflict has been met with mixed results insofar as it has not compelled the cessation of or constraints on Western lethal aid to Ukraine, even though it may have, at least in the eyes of Russian officials, deterred direct Western intervention. Consequently, there might be more to expect from Russia, depending on the evolution of the daily battlefield in Ukraine. If the use of a nuclear weapon is still very unlikely, some other strategic moves in the hybrid domain (cyberattacks, attacks on undersea cables, information manipulation) could also serve as signaling.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, Deterrence, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

97. Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals: Avoiding Spirals and Mitigating Escalation Risks

Author:: Ankit Panda
Publication Date:: 10-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:: The Indo-Pacific region is on the cusp of a new missile age: inventories of short- to intermediate-range surface-to-surface missile systems are quickly growing in the region. Military planners and policymakers may view these capabilities as essential to preserving peace and maintaining deterrence, but this proliferation could intensify already complex security dilemmas, particularly related to North Korea and the Taiwan Strait, and heighten nuclear escalation risks. A new Carnegie report identifies the motivators of missile proliferation dynamics in Asia and offers recommendations for addressing the most salient risks.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:: Taiwan, North Korea, and Indo-Pacific

98. Starr Forum: Chornobyl to Zaporizhzhia: The Atom and its Impact on Ukraine’s Politics and Security

Author:: Kate Brown and Mariana Budjeryn
Publication Date:: 04-2023
Content Type:: Video
Institution:: MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:: Speakers: Kate Brown is the Thomas M Siebel Distinguished Professor in History of Science at MIT. She is on leave from MIT AY2022-23 and at the Netherland Institute for Advanced Studies. Brown’s research interests illuminate the point where history, science, technology and bio-politics converge to create large-scale disasters and modernist wastelands. She has written four books about topics ranging from population politics, linguistic mapping, the production of nuclear weapons and concomitant utopian communities, the health and environmental consequences of nuclear fallout from the Chernobyl disaster to narrative innovations of history writing in the 21st century.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, Politics, Nuclear Power, and Chernobyl Disaster
Political Geography:: Ukraine and Eastern Europe

99. KEI's Special Project on the South Korean Nuclear Armament Debate

Author:: Andy Hong, Karl Friedhoff, Terrence Matsuo, Clint Work, and Jennifer Ahn
Publication Date:: 03-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:: South Korea’s nuclear armament debate received renewed attention in 2023. But, this issue is one that has animated Korean politics, both domestic and international, for the past five decades. To explore this multifaceted issue, KEI brought together 12 emerging and mid-career experts to cover the South Korean nuclear weapons debate from three angles—the historical background, the domestic discourse, and the international implications. The views expressed herein are the authors’ alone.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, Politics, and Armament
Political Geography:: Asia and South Korea

100. Fifty shades of red: where does Russia draw the line?

Author:: Polina Sinovets
Publication Date:: 11-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: NATO Defense College
Abstract:: From the outset, the war on Ukraine came with a particular feature attached: the threat of nuclear escalation. As President Putin stated in his 24 February speech, “whoever tries to hinder us or threaten our country or our people should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to consequences that you have never faced in your history.”1 Rather than deterring any type of support to Ukraine, this has instead led to a discussion about what exactly would trigger a nuckear escalation: where do Russia's red lines really lie? This paper is structured as follows: it defines what “red lines” are in international relations theory, and outlines the narratives and timeline associated with their use in the war on Ukraine. It then proposes three shades of red to categorize the different degrees of threat they represent. It concludes that Russia’s nuclear rhetoric has decreased rather than increased the chances of a major escalation of the conflict.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, International Relations Theory, Deterrence, Russia-Ukraine War, and Red Line
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

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