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712. Defense Monitor: Montenegro: Looking War In The Face
- Author:
- Tomas Valasek
- Publication Date:
- 07-2000
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Few other places in the world seem as close to war as Montenegro, Serbia s smaller partner in the all-but defunct Yugoslav Federation. Montenegro is poised to clash with troops carrying the federal flag of Yugoslavia but in reality serving only the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic. The two republics fell out over the nature of the political system: Serbia s government is turning increasingly dictatorial and autocratic while Montenegro is a fledgling democracy. Unlike all previous conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, ethnic differences — which in the case of Serbia and Montenegro are blurry to the point of nonexistent — do not play a major role.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and War
- Political Geography:
- Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Montenegro
713. Defense Monitor: Landmines Remain Issue in Korea
- Author:
- Rachel Stohl
- Publication Date:
- 05-2000
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Three years ago the international community joined forces to ban landmines. While the majority of the countries of the world worked to reach an agreement, several countries remained opposed to the effort. Nonetheless, today the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines has been signed by 137 countries and ratified by 95. The Treaty entered into force in March 1999, becoming binding international law more quickly than any treaty in history.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Economics, and Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- Ottawa
714. 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
715. 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
716. 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
717. 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
718. Syria and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Author:
- Anthony H. Cordesman
- Publication Date:
- 10-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- The Middle East is the scene of an ongoing process of proliferation. Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, and Syria all have significant capabilities to deliver weapons of mass destruction Israel, and Syria has made considerable progress in acquiring weapons of mass destruction since the mid-1970s. Syria has never shown a serious interest in nuclear weapons, although it did seek to buy two small research reactors from the PRC in 1992, including a 24-megawatt reactor, and purchased a small 30-kilowatt research reactor from the PRC in 1991. It allowed inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency for the first time in February 1992. Syria does, however, deploy sheltered missiles, armed with chemical warheads, as a means of both countering Israel's nuclear forces and maintaining its rivalry with Iraq. As the attached article Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Mustafa Tlas shows, Syria has a major interest in biological warfare, and the fact his article first appeared in public in an Iranian journal may not entirely be a coincidence.
- Topic:
- Security, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Libya, Syria, and Egypt
719. Defending America: Redefining the Conceptual Borders of Homeland Defense
- Author:
- Anthony H. Cordesman
- Publication Date:
- 09-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- There is a wide spectrum of potential threats to the American homeland that do not involve the threat of overt attacks by states using long-range missiles or conventional military forces. Such threats include covert attacks by state actors, state use of proxies, independent terrorist and extremist attacks by foreign groups or individuals, and independent terrorist and extremist attacks by residents of the US. These threats are currently limited in scope and frequency. No pattern of actual attacks on US territory has yet emerged that provides a clear basis for predicting how serious any given form of attack will be in the future, what means of attack will be used, or how lethal new forms of attack will be if they are successful.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
720. Managing the Global Nuclear Materials Threat: Policy Recommendations
- Author:
- Sam Nunn and Robert E. Ebel
- Publication Date:
- 01-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- Despite the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons continue to pose the most devastating security threat to Americans. Although the risk of a nuclear war destroying civilization has virtually disappeared, the risk that a single nuclear weapon might be used to destroy a major city has increased, particularly given the erosion of control over nuclear material with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nothing could be more central to international security than ensuring that the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons do not fall into the hands of terrorists or proliferant states. Effective controls over nuclear warheads and the nuclear materials needed to make them are essential to the future of the entire global effort to reduce nuclear arms and stem their spread. At the same time, ensuring protection of public health and the environment in the management of all nuclear materials—from nuclear weapons to nuclear wastes—remains a critical priority. Appropriate management of both safety and security worldwide will be essential to maintaining nuclear fission as an expandable option for supplying the world's greenhouse-constrained energy needs in the twenty-first century.
- Topic:
- Security, Energy Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States and Soviet Union