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21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. The Geopolitics of Energy Development in the Caspian Region: Regional Cooperation or Conflict?

Author:
Vadim Rubin
Publication Date:
12-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The Caspian Basin has emerged in recent years as a major focus of international affairs for a combination of political, economic, and geostrategic reasons. In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union's dissolution in the early 1990s the region's newly independent states were overshadowed by Russia and attracted little Western and U.S. attention. But over the past several years this region has attracted growing attention from Western policymakers and scholars, as well as the media and the private sector. One of the main reasons for this new focus on the Caspian is its sizable energy reserves. In addition to its potential as a significant oil producer, however, it is also the Caspian's geostrategic location, its diverse mix of ethnic groups, and its unsettled intrastate and interstate conflicts that make it both an enticing and challenging region.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Democratization, Development, Energy Policy, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Caspian Sea

25. 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

26. The U.S. Military and Civil Infrastructure Protection: Restrictions and Discretion under the Posse Comitatus Act

Author:
Gregory D. Grove
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
This article sets out the constraints of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (the “Act”), which generally prohibits active enforcement of civilian laws by the military, and describes the discretion of the military commander to assist civilian law enforcement in protecting America's information infrastructure against computer—assisted attack. A primary purpose of this article is to help legal advisors to commanders and DoD civilian officials better understand the boundaries of command discretion so that commanders and officials can feel free to exercise proper command discretion to assist law enforcement according to military interests and their professional and personal ethics and ideals. Another primary purpose of the article is to appraise Congress of the Act, its prohibitions, and its application to assist in framing the policy debate about how to constrain or expand the discretion of commanders and other officials to most productively serve the American public.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States

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. Commercialization of Russian Technology in Cooperation with American Companies

Author:
David Bernstein
Publication Date:
06-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The Soviet Union placed a high priority on science and technology and built a huge assembly of research institutes, educational programs, design bureaus, and production enterprises embodying some measure of science and/or technology. This assembly concentrated over—whelmingly on military applications. Approximately three—quarters of this complex was located in Russia, but essential elements of many programs were located in other republics. The nature, structure, size, and operation of this military—industrial complex (MIC) as well as its decline and change during the Gorbachev and post—Soviet periods of economic transition have been documented in the literature.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

29. Review and Analysis of the Report of The President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection

Author:
Stephen J. Lukasik
Publication Date:
01-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The Commission's Report speaks to a wide range of physical and cyber attacks on the nation's critical infrastructure systems. It reaches six major conclusions: That while the potential for interference with critical infrastructure from cyber threats is growing, both by the proliferation of tools that attackers might employ and by the increasing electronic connectivity of infrastructure control systems, there is little immediate threat of severe national-level attack. There is, however, reason to believe that the threat in the longer term is significant. In view of the substantial private ownership of infrastructure systems, effective action to counter what is believed to be a growing threat requires a partnership between the public and private sectors. The basis for a public-private partnership is the sharing of information related to current infrastructure operations, threats, vulnerabilities of hardware, software, and communications, and risk management methodologies. The threat to infrastructure systems is exacerbated by the tendency for failures in one part of an infrastructure system to spread, thus impacting a greater part of the system than that initially attacked. The Report outlines in general terms the need for certain organizational actions by the federal government for all of the infrastructures to which its attention was directed in its implementing directive. These include: A coordinating office within the National Security Council structure A support office in the Department of Commerce A Presidentially-appointed National Infrastructure Assurance Council Seven lead agencies to structure public-private information sharing Sector coordinators for each of the identified infrastructures An Analysis Center to receive and analyze attack information A national attack warning capability Enhanced federal R expenditures in infrastructure assurance The Report calls for other long range programs to increase national awareness of the problem, to lead by example by improving the security of infrastructure systems under its direct control, and to review current legislation to determine where it is inadequate to deal with infrastructure threats from a law enforcement standpoint.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States

30. 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