Impact of the Economic Crisis
The drop in Russian state revenues has affected Russian military modernization to some extent, though the Russian government has made an effort to insulate the military from budget cuts. Although the...
View ArticleRussia's Record on Arms Compliance: Getting Worse
With the conclusion of the final Nuclear Security Summit, Russia and the United States - the possesors of the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals – are both in the midst of comprehensive nuclear...
View ArticleNorth Korean Sanctions: Only Time Will Tell
North Korea watchers knew what to expect following Pyongyang’s 4th nuclear test on January 6th, 2016: a new round of United Nations sanctions. Known as UNSC Resolution 2270, this latest group of...
View ArticleNation States
President Barack Obama spent much of his last State of the Union address dwelling on domestic issues, but he also pointedly reminded Americans that the United States is the most powerful nation on...
View ArticleHomegrown Terrorists
With the recent rise in domestic homegrown terrorist attacks, the fear of a domestic WMD attack is also rising. John Cohen, former Acting Under Secretary for Intelligence and the Counterterrorism...
View ArticleFinding Common Solutions
The Cipher Brief: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have the technical ability to pursue nuclear weapons, but all three have refrained. What conditions would have to exist for these countries to consider...
View ArticleNew Approach Needed to Alter Iran’s Missile Program
Constraining Iran’s missile program is a worthwhile objective, but the muddled U.S. approach of sanctions and name-calling appears less likely to contain than to promote it. In the face of recent U.S....
View ArticleNorth Korea’s Party Congress: What was all the fuss about?
The 7th North Korean Workers’ Party (WPK) Congress --the first event of its kind in 36 years-- began and ended with the flair for the dramatic we have come to expect from the reclusive communist state....
View ArticleAn Opportunity Missed
North Korea’s first Party Congress in three decades, a grand spectacle at which Kim Jong-un’s greatest achievement seems to have been giving himself the newly-created title of the chairman of the...
View ArticleChina's Unbecoming Ally
North Korea held its Seventh Workers’ Party Congress last week. The primary focus of the Congress was to consolidate Kim Jong-un’s domestic power base and clarify the policy direction for the country’s...
View ArticleA Need to Rebalance U.S. Nonproliferation Policy
South Asia is the region of the world at highest risk of suffering a nuclear crisis due to an explosive mixture of unresolved territorial disputes, cross-border terrorism, and growing nuclear arsenals....
View ArticleNuclear Standoff in South Asia
A May 15 test of India’s anti-ballistic missile system fanned the flames of a nuclear standoff 45 years in the making. Pakistan voiced “serious concern” over the test that it believes could nullify its...
View ArticleDeterrence vs. Coercion
The adversarial history between India and Pakistan is compounded by each nation’s firm stance on the possession of nuclear weapons. As each country moves to expand its capabilities, it has become more...
View ArticleComing Full Circle?
Seventy-one years ago, on August 6, 1945, a U.S. B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 140 thousand people. The bombing came at the end of a long and bloody war in which...
View ArticleReinforcing Substantial Momentum
Against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive China and a highly-provocative North Korea, President Barack Obama attended the G-7 summit in Ise-Shima, followed by a personal trip to Hiroshima,...
View ArticleA New Era in the U.S.-Japan Security Partnership
Last Friday, Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima after the city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb on August 6 1945. Although the President did not apologize...
View ArticleEconomic Cooperation as Political Insurance
Since Iran signed the nuclear deal with world powers in July 2015, Tehran has seen a flood of foreign visitors. Nine heads of state, 16 foreign ministers and dozens of other senior-level officials from...
View ArticleIt's a Matter of Time
Although the implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in January lifted some international sanctions on Iran, many non-nuclear sanctions...
View ArticleRoadblocks on the Path to Normality in Iran
On May 10, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry prepared to discuss Iranian sanctions with leading members of the European banking industry in London. However, this time Kerry came, not to urge sanctions...
View ArticleThe Affordability Challenge of Nuclear Modernization
The White House and some Republicans in Congress are taking a second look at the need for, and the $1 trillion cost of, the planned, decades-long program to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile...
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