Search

Begin New Search Topic Nuclear Weapons Publishing Institution Center for International Security and Cooperation

21. Verifying the Agreed Framework

Author:
Michael May, Nancy Suski, Robert Schock, William Sailor, Wayne Ruhter, Ronald Lehman, James Hassberger, Zachary Davis, George Bunn, and Chaim Braun
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The Agreed Framework (AF) between the United States of America and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), signed in Geneva on October 21, 1994, has become the centerpiece of recent US efforts to reduce the threat of conflict with North Korea. In particular, it seeks to bring the DPRK into compliance with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) not to acquire nuclear weapons. The AF document sets goals, outlines programs, initiates a US-led nuclear-power consortium, and notes linkages. The AF refers to a wider range of diplomatic and international security initiatives, such as the NPT and the agreement on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and is meant to reinforce others, including those related to the reconciliation of the two Koreas.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, East Asia, and Korea

22. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Next Steps

Author:
Thomas Jr. Graham and Christopher Chyba
Publication Date:
07-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
Dr. Sid Drell: With the end of the Cold War there's been a major change in the U.S. nuclear weapons program, because the continuous cycle of developing and testing and deploying new warheads has ended. President George Bush announced in 1992 that we have no need for new nuclear weapons designs for deployment. It was this decision that, of course, opened the possibility of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is why we now have a Stockpile Stewardship Program with the three requirements: we must maintain an enduring stockpile that's reliable, effective and safe for the indefinite future without nuclear explosive testing; we must maintain competence in nuclear weapons; and we must retain a technical capability and a manufacturing infrastructure in order to respond if required to any change in strategic circumstances. This will be one of the factors in our net assessment of whether to enter a CTBT.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, International Cooperation, International Law, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States

23. The U.S. Enlargement Strategy and Nuclear Weapons

Author:
Michael M. May
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The United States is often accused of lacking a global security strategy. The United States, so the accusation goes, makes foreign policy and security decisions on an ad-hoc basis, prompted by the demands of politics and pressure groups, and in alternating bursts of idealism and realpolitik. Since none of these factors can safely be dismissed, there has to be something to the accusation. In an unpredictable world, a certain respect for the ad hoc may even be a good thing: a global strategy, carried out without regard to circumstances, would confine the United States to a conceptual straitjacket, depriving it of needed flexibility.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States

24. A Verification Regime for Warhead Control

Author:
Liu Suping
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
After a brief period of progress, the U.S.-Russian nuclear reduction process has reached a stalemate. This situation causes us to rethink the following issues: What is the motivation for the two nuclear superpowers to conduct nuclear reductions? How can the focus of the nuclear arms reduction process be changed from verification of reduction of delivery vehicles to verification of reduction of warheads and nuclear materials? What is the objective for future nuclear reductions? What kind of verification regime will be required for future nuclear reductions?
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia

25. An Alternative Framework for the Control of Nuclear Materials

Author:
Robert L Rinne
Publication Date:
07-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The decade of the 1990s has seen renewed concerns over nuclear proliferation, both horizontal and vertical. While many in the arms control community focus on numbers, it is control that is the most important factor—the detonation of just one nuclear weapon would be an international catastrophe. Rather than concentrating on numbers, the regime defined herein centers on enhancing the safety and security being provided nuclear weapons and weapons-usable fissile materials. The proposal in the paper is called the Nuclear Weapons Control Treaty (NWCT) and referred to as New Court. The emphasis is on control rather than disarmament, protection from unintended or unauthorized use rather than elimination. New Court, once in place, would provide an environment in which the necessary audits and accountability for undertaking dramatic reductions in the numbers of weapons and the quantities of weapons-usable materials could be made with much greater confidence than exists today. However, it will be decades (if ever) before the number of nuclear weapons goes to zero. In the meantime, it is paramount that comprehensive safety and security be established and maintained.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons

26. The Cox Committee Report: An Assessment

Author:
Michael M. May, Alastair Iain Johnston, W.K.H. Panofsky, Marco Di Capua, and Lewis R. Franklin
Publication Date:
12-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The Cox Commission of the U.S. Congress was established in June 1998 to investigate concerns over Chinese acquisition of sensitive U.S. missile and space technology in connection with the launching of U.S. civilian satellites using Chinese launchers on Chinese territory. The investigations were broadened in October 1998 to include alleged security problems and possible espionage at the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories. Some conclusions were released in January 1999 by the White House together with the administration's response. The full declassified (redacted) version of the report of the Cox Commission was released on May 25, 1999.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

27. The Nonproliferation Regime under Siege

Author:
George Bunn
Publication Date:
09-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The nuclear nonproliferation regime was challenged in 1998 by nuclear-weapon tests in India and Pakistan, by medium-range missile tests in those countries and in Iran and North Korea, by Iraq's defiance of UN Security Council resolutions requiring it to complete its disclosure of efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and by the combination of “loose nukes” and economic collapse in Russia. Additional threats to the regime's vitality came in 1999 from the erosion of American relations with both China and Russia that resulted from NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia—with additional harm to relations with China resulting from U.S. accusations of Chinese nuclear espionage and Taiwan's announcement that it was a state separate from China despite its earlier acceptance of a U.S.-Chinese “one China” agreement. Major threats to the regime also came from the continued stalemate on arms-control treaties in the Russian Duma and the U.S. Senate, from a change in U.S. policy to favor building a national defense against missile attack, and from a Russian decision to develop a new generation of small tactical nuclear weapons for defense against conventional attack.
Topic:
International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, Economics, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, United States, China, Europe, Iran, South Asia, Middle East, Israel, East Asia, Asia, and Korea

28. The Airborne Laser: Shooting Down What's Going Up

Author:
Geoffrey E. Forden
Publication Date:
09-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
Future regional conflicts will almost certainly involve politically less stable nations or other regional actors using theater ballistic missiles armed with either nuclear, biological, or chemical warheads. The United States Air Force is attempting to deal with this threat by developing the Airborne Laser (ABL) with the goal of shooting down missiles while they are still under power and before they can release submunitions possibly containing highly toxic biological agents. This paper presents the results of an analysis of this system. It is based solely on information found in the open literature and using the basic physics and engineering involved in transmitting intense laser beams through the atmosphere. The ABL's potential capabilities and possible theaters of operation are discussed at a non-technical level.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States

29. Implications of a Comprehensive Test Ban for China's Security Policy

Author:
Xiangli Sun
Publication Date:
06-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the impact of a comprehensive test ban on China's nuclear program and security policy. After a general review of China's nuclear doctrine and development, the study analyzes the relationship between China's nuclear strategy and its desire for testing, and explores the reasons China decided to join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. By comparing the maturity of the nuclear programs of the nuclear states and the degree of their preparations for a cessation of nuclear tests, this paper concludes that a comprehensive test ban would place greater constraints on China's nuclear program than on those of the others. Efforts such as a deeper reduction of the nuclear arsenals of the principal nuclear powers, a no-first-use commitment by all nuclear states, and the adherence to the ABM treaty by its signatories would be critical to reducing China's concerns. The progress of international arms control negotiations in the above directions would further encourage China to make even greater contributions in the field of global arms control in the post–comprehensive test ban era.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Cooperation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
China and Asia