April 21st, 2011

Kelly M. Greenhill: Why Qadaffi tried to use refugees as weapons

"In the early days of what grew into the Libyan uprising, Muammar el-Qaddafi summoned European Union ministers to Tripoli and issued an ultimatum: Stop supporting the protesters, or I’ll suspend cooperation on migration and Europe will be facing a human flood of from North Africa," writes former CISAC fellow Kelly M. Greenhill. "Given Libya’s history as an attractive transit point for North Africans seeking entry to Europe, it was a credible threat." Read more »

March 23rd, 2011

Tarak Barkawi: Egypt and the globalized revolution

"The question now is what kind of example will Egypt provide, to its Arab sisters and brothers, and to present and future struggles for justice, liberty and democracy the world over," writes former CISAC fellow Tarak Barkawi. Read more »

March 7th, 2011

William J. Perry: Why we need a new deterrence strategy

Nations should move toward a strategy that does "not rely primarily on nuclear weapons or nuclear threats to maintain international peace and security," write CISAC's William J. Perry, George P. Shultz, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Read more »

Richard Rhodes: 'What if deterrence fails?'

CISAC's Richard Rhodes reviews in the New York Times Ron Rosenbaum's "How the End Begins," which explores the possibility of a second Holocaust. Rhodes' most recent book is "The Twilight of the Bombs."

• » Book Review: How the End Begins

January 26th, 2011

Michael Sulmeyer: The Bob Gates management playbook

"Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’ Jan. 6 announcement of major budget and program changes at the Pentagon was a watershed," writes Michael Sulmeyer, a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. "It canceled several multi-billion dollar weapons programs, redirected $100 billion from old programs to new ones, and laid the groundwork for reducing the active-duty size of America’s ground forces after a draw-down in Afghanistan. But in light of the rumors that Gates will step down sometime this year, his remarks soon after the announcement also helped to consolidate one particular aspect of his reformist legacy: managing our nation’s vast military weapons budget." Read more »

January 18th, 2011

Thomas Fingar: Don't make the Wikileaks problem worse

Overreaction over Wikileaks is "likely unless there is a concerted effort to prevent it," write CISAC's Thomas Fingar and Roger George, a former national intelligence officer who teaches at the National War College. "The theft and unauthorized disclosure of these materials are inexcusable, but media coverage has consistently -- and predictably -- depicted a single, albeit horrendous, incident as indicative of widespread systemic deficiencies and makes it appear that Washington is unable to safeguard any classified information. That isn't the case." Read more »

January 6th, 2011

Pavel Podvig: Offense and defense after new START

"New START is the last 'traditional' arms control agreement in that it exclusively deals with the two largest nuclear weapons states and their strategic nuclear weapons," writes CISAC affiliate and former research associate Pavel Podvig in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "Further steps toward nuclear disarmament will require dealing with a range of different issues, and difficult issues in their own right -- from tactical nuclear weapons and conventional strategic launchers to nuclear warheads in storage and the arsenals in other nuclear weapon states. Success in dealing with these matters will depend on whether the United States and Russia find a way around a problem that will quite likely dominate the debate: missile defense."

• » Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: "Offense and defense after new START"

January 4th, 2011

Redefining denuclearization in North Korea

Siegfried Hecker: When my Stanford University colleagues and I were taken to the construction site of a small, experimental light water reactor (LWR) and to a new centrifuge facility in North Korea on November 12, it marked my seventh visit to North Korea and my fourth to the Yongbyon nuclear complex. I was not surprised that Pyongyang finally admitted to having a uranium enrichment program; however, I was stunned by the size and sophistication of the 2,000 centrifuges in the cascade hall visible from the ultra-modern second-floor control room. Read more »

January 3rd, 2011

Thomas Fingar: The view from Beijing

In the January/February issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Thomas Fingar, the former deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, examines Chinese President Hu Jintao's assessment of the economic and political challenges his nation faces. China's "growth has bolstered national pride and earned the respect of people around the world," Fingar writes in an imagined memo from Hu. "But it has also raised expectations at home and reinforced foreign concerns about China's rise. Our successes have made it even more important to make progress on corruption, perceived injustice, and other long-standing problems." Read more »

December 10th, 2010

Siegfried Hecker: What the U.S. should do about North Korea

CISAC scholars made international news in November after North Korean scientists revealed to them that they had started construction on a small light-water reactor and completed a new uranium enrichment facility. The revelation dramatically changes the security calculus in Northeast Asia. In a Foreign Affairs article, Siegfried Hecker argues that denuclearization remains the goal. But that will take time. Now Washington should pursue a policy that begins with what he calls "the three no's -- no more bombs, no better bombs, and no exports -- in return for one yes: Washington's willingness to seriously address North Korea's fundamental insecurity." In a piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Hecker said "this approach may just be enough to get Beijing to take a much more aggressive stance to help shut down Pyongyang's nuclear import and export networks."

• » Foreign Affairs: "What I Found in North Korea"
• » Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: "Redefining denuclearization in North Korea"

November 30th, 2010

Review U.S. policy toward North Korea

"Review U.S. Policy Toward North Korea" by Robert Carlin and John Lewis.

• » Washington Post: "Review U.S. Policy Toward North Korea"

November 10th, 2010

The G20 meeting was 'A Missed Opportunity'

At this week’s G20 meeting in Seoul, world leaders are gathering to discuss economic and financial issues, leaving pressing security issues to be managed at bilateral talks or at the U.N. Security Council. Bruce Jones, a CISAC visiting scholar, says this is a missed opportunity. “If the G-20 continues to exclude diplomatic and security issues,” he argues, “the leaders who attend it may conclude that it doesn’t reflect their hard political priorities.” What’s needed is a new model for international cooperation, which “lets leaders discuss their overlapping security and economic interests, rather than keeping them artificially apart.”

• » Brookings Institution: "New Threats Demand a New Global Security Forum"

November 5th, 2010

Why the India-U.S. relationship is failing to live up to its potential

As President Obama travels to India this week, CISAC Visiting Scholar Anja Manuel explores in Foreign Policy why the economic relationship between the United States and India is failing to live up to its potential. "On the surface, all the elements are in place for an economic love affair between the United States and India," she writes. "India's economy is growing at a very healthy 8 percent clip, and its democratic political system and rule of law, not to mention its widespread English fluency, should make it relatively easy for U.S. companies to sell into India and to invest there." So why do the numbers tell a different story?

• » Foreign Policy.com: "Weak Ties"

May 4th, 2010

Gimme Shelter: The need for a contemporary civil defense program

Of the 15 terrorism and natural disaster scenarios used by DHS for planning purposes, the first is the most feared: Terrorists detonate a 10-kiloton improvised nuclear device at ground level in the National Mall in Washington at 10 a.m. on a weekday, Lawrence Wein writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Read more »

April 30th, 2010

Five years later, a stronger intelligence community, Tom Fingar argues

Those noting the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have paid more attention to shortcomings than to what has been achieved and why the achievements are important, Fingar argues in a Washington Post op-ed. Read more »

April 27th, 2010

Xue Litai weighs in on Sino-U.S. relations

Xue, a CISAC research associate, writes about Chinese leader Hu Jintao's visit to the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., and its implications for Sino-U.S. relations in an op-ed published in the China Daily. Read more »

April 14th, 2010

Nuclear review shows bipartisanship

The release last week of the Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review brings long overdue attention to the vital issue of U.S. strategic posture. Issues raised in the NPR and START have reinvigorated a crucial national nuclear dialogue that has been missing, William Perry and James Schlesinger write in Politico, the influential web site and newspaper. Read more »

April 12th, 2010

How to build on the START Treaty

This has been a remarkable time for the Obama administration, William Perry and George Shultz write in an op-ed in the New York Times. In addition to issuing a new nuclear strategy and signing the new START treaty, on April 12-13 the President will host a nuclear security summit meeting whose goal is to find ways of gaining control of the loose fissile material around the globe. Read more »

April 5th, 2010

Some Nukes

CISAC Affiliate Leonard Weiss responds to an article titled, 'Some Nukes,' by New Yorker Senior Editor Hendrik Hertzberg. Read more »

March 17th, 2010

The Six-Party Talks: Outlining a true restart

CISAC's Robert Carlin, John Lewis argue in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that the U.S. needs a 'serious reality check' when it comes to dealing with North Korea Read more »

February 10th, 2010

Activating a North Korea policy

It is routine in U.S. foreign policy for a pot not boiling over to be moved to the back burner. Precisely because the North Korean issue is not boiling, however, might offer an all-too-rare chance to make progress with Pyongyang, CISAC's John Lewis and Robert Carlin argue in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Read more »

January 19th, 2010

How to protect our nuclear deterrent

In their latest op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal," William Perry, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn argue that maintaining confidence in the U.S. nuclear arsenal is necessary as the number of weapons decreases. Read more »

December 16th, 2009

Reducing the nuclear threat: The argument for public safety

In this op-ed, CISAC's Richard Rhodes argues that public health, a discipline that organizes science-based systems of surveillance and prevention, has been primarily responsible for controlling the effects of infectious disease. A similar campaign around public safety could help end the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons. Such a push would help create unity in common security and a fundamental transformation in relationships between nations, Rhodes argues. Read more »

October 5th, 2009

Op-Ed: Exchange we can believe in

J.P. Schnapper-Casteras, a recent CISAC fellow, argues in the Washington Post that despite the potential long-term benefits, only a few dozen Iraqis are able to study in the United States each year. By comparison, during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union exchanged 50,000 citizens over 30 years, producing more educated students and some of the most pro-Western and pro-democracy Soviet scholars and scientists. Read more »

July 22nd, 2009

Hillary, India and 'The New York Times'

Sumit Ganguly, a former CISAC fellow currently at CDDRL, criticizes a New York Times editorial on India's nonproliferation efforts in a op-ed in Forbes magazine. Read more »