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372. International Support for State-building: Flawed Consensus
- Author:
- Stephen Krasner
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- State-building—external efforts to influence the domestic authority structures of other states— is arguably the central foreign policy challenge of the contemporary era. The principal security threat of the last several centuries—war among the major powers—is gone, primarily because of nuclear weapons. At the same time, the relationship between underlying capacity and the ability to do harm has become attenuated because of the actual and potential proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. North Korea, with a fraction of the gross domestic product of any one of its neighbors, could kill millions of people in China, Japan, or Russia. Biological or nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of transnational terrorist organizations. Anxiety about the relationship between failed or malevolent states and transnational terrorism will not disappear despite the recognition that there can be training camps in Oregon as well as Kandahar. Perhaps more than at any point in the several-hundred-year history of the modern state system, policymakers are confronted with the uncertainty—not a specific known risk—of the small probability of a bad outcome. It is an uncertainty that they cannot ignore, and state-building will be part of the program.
- Topic:
- Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Japan, China, and North Korea
373. The Correlation Between Non-State Actors and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Author:
- Reshmi Kazi
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Connections
- Institution:
- Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
- Abstract:
- The probability of non-state actors acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction against vulnerable non-combatants has remained a worrisome threat since the turn of the century. How- ever, the watershed event of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on 11 September 2001 has significantly raised concerns regarding the availability of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and their probable usage. The reasons for increased concerns are varied. They include: Widespread perceptions that the events of 9/11 marked the crossing of a threshold in terrorist constraint and lethality . Open source accounts of interest in WMD technology by non-state actors . Increased availability of WMD technology . Greater media attention . Persistent Western military presence in global affairs and an upsurge of anti-Western sentiments The vital role played by Internet technology for Al Qaida in propagating its ideology and integrating its loose networks of affiliates and sympathizers.
- Topic:
- Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- New York and Washington
374. Low Numbers: A Practical Path to Deep Nuclear Reductions
- Author:
- James M. Acton
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- U.S. policy seeks to create the conditions that would allow for deep reductions in nuclear arsenals. This report offers a practical approach to reducing the U.S. and Russian stockpiles to 500 nuclear warheads each and those of other nuclear armed states to no more than about half that number. This target would require Washington and Moscow to reduce their arsenals by a factor of ten.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, Washington, and Moscow
375. The Future of the Nuclear Suppliers Group
- Author:
- Mark Hibbs
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- After the first Indian nuclear explosive test in 1974, seven nuclear supplier governments were convinced that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) alone would not halt the spread of nuclear weapons—a view that developments in Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and elsewhere would later underscore. The seven governments formed the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and over the course of more than three decades, it has become the world's leading multilateral nuclear export control arrangement, establishing guidelines that govern transfers of nuclear-related materials, equipment, and technology. Yet, as a voluntary and consensus- based organization of 46 participating governments, the NSG today faces a host of challenges ranging from questions about its credibility and future membership to its relationship to the NPT and other multilateral arrangements.
- Topic:
- International Cooperation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Nuclear Power
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Iran, India, Asia, and North Korea
376. Nuclear Issues for NATO After the Strategic Concept
- Author:
- Walt Slocombe
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- What Does the 2010 Strategic Concept Say (and Not Say) About Nuclear Weapons Issues? The Strategic Concept (SC) adopted at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010 includes a number of propositions that define NATO's future nuclear policy which, explicitly or otherwise, serve to highlight the questions that remain to be resolved. Most fundamentally, the SC, having enumerated NATO's "core tasks" as collective defense against attack, management of crises "that have the potential to affect Alliance security," and cooperation with others "to enhance international security," declares that "[d]eterrence, based on an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities, remains a core element of our overall strategy."
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and International Security
- Political Geography:
- Europe, North America, and Lisbon
377. Iran Sanctions: Preferable to War but No Silver Bullet
- Author:
- Barbara Slavin
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- The broadest and toughest sanctions regime imposed on any country except Libya has not convinced Iran's leaders to abandon a program that appears aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Instead of seeking even more crippling economic penalties—such as an oil embargo—that would fracture the international consensus on Iran, the United States should tighten implementation of measures already in force and enact more sanctions linked to human rights, which have a wide constituency in Europe and demonstrate to the Iranian people that international concerns extend beyond nuclear weapons. The U.S. should also work with its diplomatic partners to craft new proposals that would couple acceptance of limited uranium enrichment with rigorous international monitoring, and encourage China, Iran's major trading partner, to use its leverage in support of nonproliferation.
- Topic:
- Economics, Human Rights, Nuclear Weapons, Sanctions, and Nuclear Power
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and Iran
378. Future Options for NATO Nuclear Policy
- Author:
- Jeffrey A. Larsen
- Publication Date:
- 08-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- NATO released a new Strategic Concept in November 2010 that maintained its traditional call for continued reliance on nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantor of its security. But finalizing that document was not easy. Several compromises took place at the Lisbon Summit, including a decision by the Alliance to conduct a Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR) by 2012. In addition, the allies chose not to repeat some key wording that had remained unchanged since it was introduced in the 1991 Strategic Concept that the Alliance would "maintain adequate sub-strategic nuclear forces based in Europe." This may provide a political opening for the Alliance to eliminate forward-deployed US nuclear weapons in Europe, should it decide to do so. This brief examines options for NATO nuclear deterrence and assurance policy if that occurs.
- Topic:
- Security, NATO, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- Europe and North America
379. How Reliable is Intelligence on Iran's Nuclear Program?
- Author:
- Barbara Slavin
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- For a country that has been accumulating nuclear know-how since the Eisenhower administration, Iran has hardly been sprinting toward a bomb. Indeed, repeated prognostications that Tehran was on the verge of becoming a nuclear power have a Chicken Little quality: The sky did not fall over the past decade, and it seems unlikely to do so for the next year or two or three. Still, Iran has made steady progress accumulating the elements and expertise required to make nuclear weapons, and it would be naive and irresponsible to discount what appears to be a cottage industry of piecemeal proliferation.
- Topic:
- Security, Intelligence, Nuclear Weapons, and Nuclear Power
- Political Geography:
- Iran and Middle East
380. Iran Turns to China, Barter to Survive Sanctions
- Author:
- Barbara Slavin
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- Sanctions and China's growing economic clout have altered Iran's trading patterns in ways that are reducing Iran's access to hard currency but may also be insulating the Iranian government and political elite from further US unilateral pressures.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Bilateral Relations, Sanctions, and Nuclear Power
- Political Geography:
- China, Iran, Middle East, and Asia