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Begin New Search Topic Arms Control and Proliferation Publication Year within 10 Years

21. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and Asia’s major power defiance

Author:
Marc Finaud and Gaurav Sharma
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Despite worldwide support of 130 states, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has failed to attract membership from countries in Asia, one of the largest arms importing regions. One set of explanations for this reluctance to join an international regime of conventional arms trade regulation is related to the fear of restrictions on the imports of weapons seen as necessary in a context of protracted conflicts and rising tensions among key states in Asia. Another argument is the interpretation of the ATT as not directly prohibiting arms transfers to non-state actors, such as terrorist groups. Another reason is the efforts of some Asian states to develop their own arms industry and exports to reduce dependency on external suppliers and project influence in the region. One of the main criticisms from the Asian states about the ATT relates to the criteria of export risk assessment (Article 7), which, in their view, gives undue advantages to exporting countries. It would be desirable to promote some dialogue between State Parties and Asian non-parties and signatories to assess the benefits from and the difficulties in implementing the Treaty and address the objections of nonparties. Amending the Treaty will be easier if Asian countries accede to it.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Treaties and Agreements, Weapons, and Arms Trade
Political Geography:
Pakistan, China, South Asia, Indonesia, India, Asia, and Southeast Asia

22. Synergies between the Arms Trade Treaty and the Wassenaar Arrangement

Author:
Tobias Vestner
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The Arms Trade Treaty and the Wassenaar Arrangement both seek to address the challenge posed by unconstrained transfer of conventional arms but differ in structure and approach. There are opportunities for synergies furthering the regimes’ common purpose. States members to both regimes can accentuate and interweave the strengths of the Arms Trade Treaty and the Wassenaar Arrangement. Transferring cutting-edge standards on export controls from the Wassenaar Arrangement to the Arms Trade Treaty would bolster the Arms Trade Treaty and foster global harmonization between exporting and importing countries. Political momentum on certain issues within the Arms Trade Treaty process may benefit the Wassenaar Arrangement’s further development. A derivative of the Wassenaar Arrangement’s regular ‘General Information Exchange’ on regions, transfers, and risky actors could be institutionalized within an Arms Trade Treaty working group. Sharing within the Wassenaar Arrangement information, concerns and practical challenges of states parties to the Arms Trade Treaty could make the Wassenaar Arrangement’s work more effective. Coordinating both regimes’ outreach activities, mentioning each other’s work and using each other’s documents for capacity building could mainstream arms transfer controls, prevent perceptions of conflicting standards as well as enable efficiencies regarding national efforts for compliance with international standards.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Treaties and Agreements, Arms Trade, and Exports
Political Geography:
Global Focus

23. Improving the Role of Intelligence in Counterproliferation Policymaking: Report of the "Speaking Truth to Nonproliferation Project," 2018

Author:
Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
This report is the culmination of a two-year project sponsored by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, which engaged more than 50 senior, retired and serving policymakers, intelligence officers, and top academic national security analysts. Its findings are based on hours of group discussions and private conversations that helped develop new primary histories of eight nuclear proliferation cases: India, Pakistan, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Libya, and an Argentine and a separate South African nuclear rocket case. Each history was prepared by an academic historian and was based on open sources. Former officials who had direct roles in these cases then critiqued these accounts. Additional private interviews were conducted with participants to fill in historical gaps. The purpose of the case studies was to identify when and how intelligence shaped or prompted nonproliferation policy actions and, if it did not, why. This set of historical conclusions prompted a more general discussion of how policy and intelligence officials might improve their collaboration to prevent and curb further nuclear proliferation and how academics might contribute by enhancing their treatment of such issues. The project addressed three broad, related questions: How can the role of intelligencein the making of nonproliferation policy be improved? How can the nonproliferation agenda get the priority it deserves? How can the nonproliferation community be sustained and strengthened?
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Intelligence, Nuclear Weapons, History, Nuclear Power, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Africa, South Asia, Middle East, India, Israel, Taiwan, Asia, South Korea, Libya, South Africa, Argentina, South America, and North Africa

24. The Importance of Verification and Transparency in the Nuclear-Arms Control

Author:
Miroslav Tuma
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Relations Prague
Abstract:
Miroslav Tůma in his new Policy Paper titled "The Importance of Verification and Transparency in the Nuclear-Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Process" explained how monitoring and verification procedure associated with the nuclear-arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament process is nowadays important, especially in the sphere between US and Russia, which posses 90% of nuclear weapons all over the world. The author also analysed the development of the verification procedure in this field and its future curse. Should be the engagement of verification activity in a straight line with international law? What attitude should the Czech Republic take towards this problem in the near future?
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Disarmament
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America

25. Challenges Technologies Pose to U.S.-Russia Arms Control: A Conversation with Dr. Heather Williams

Author:
Fletcher Security Review Staff and Heather Williams
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Dr. Heather Williams is a lecturer in the Defence Studies Department and Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College London. She also does research for the Institute for Defense Analyses on Strategy, Forces, and Resources, and previously was a Research Fellow at Chatham House. Williams received her doctorate from King’s College London for her dissertation on U.S.-Russia arms control from 1968-2010.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Science and Technology, Weapons, and Interview
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, North America, and United States of America

26. Dangerous Confidence? Chinese Views on Nuclear Escalation

Author:
Fiona S. Cunningham and M. Taylor Fravel
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Chinese views of nuclear escalation are key to assessing the potential for nuclear escalation in a crisis or armed conflict between the United States and China, but they have not been examined systematically. A review of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with members of China's strategic community suggest that China is skeptical that nuclear escalation could be controlled once nuclear weapons are used and, thus, leaders would be restrained from pursuing even limited use. These views are reflected in China's nuclear operational doctrine (which outlines plans for retaliatory strikes only and lacks any clear plans for limited nuclear use) and its force structure (which lacks tactical nuclear weapons). The long-standing decoupling of Chinese nuclear and conventional strategy, organizational biases within China's strategic community, and the availability of space, cyber, and conventional missile weapons as alternative sources of strategic leverage best explain Chinese views toward nuclear escalation. China's confidence that a U.S.-China conflict would not escalate to the use of nuclear weapons may hamper its ability to identify nuclear escalation risks in such a scenario. Meanwhile, U.S. scholars and policymakers emphasize the risk of inadvertent escalation in a conflict with China, but they are more confident than their Chinese counterparts that the use of nuclear weapons could remain limited. When combined, these contrasting views could create pressure for a U.S.-China conflict to escalate rapidly into an unlimited nuclear war.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, International Security, Nuclear Power, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

27. The Domestic Politics of Nuclear Choices

Author:
Elizabeth N. Saunders
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
When and how do domestic politics influence a state's nuclear choices? Recent scholarship on nuclear security develops many domestic-political explanations for different nuclear decisions. These explanations are partly the result of two welcome trends: first, scholars have expanded the nuclear timeline, examining state behavior before and after nuclear proliferation; and second, scholars have moved beyond blunt distinctions between democracies and autocracies to more fine-grained understandings of domestic constraints. But without linkages between them, new domestic-political findings could be dismissed as a laundry list of factors that do not explain significant variation in nuclear decisions. This review essay assesses recent research on domestic politics and nuclear security, and develops a framework that illuminates when and how domestic-political mechanisms are likely to affect nuclear choices. In contrast to most previous domestic arguments, many of the newer domestic-political mechanisms posited in the literature are in some way top-down; that is, they show leaders deliberately maintaining or loosening control over nuclear choices. Two dimensions govern the extent and nature of domestic-political influence on nuclear choices: the degree of threat uncertainty and the costs and benefits to leaders of expanding the circle of domestic actors involved in a nuclear decision. The framework developed in this review essay helps make sense of several cases explored in the recent nuclear security literature. It also has implications for understanding when and how domestic-political arguments might diverge from the predictions of security-based analyses.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, International Security, Domestic politics, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Iran, and North Korea

28. Proliferation and the Logic of the Nuclear Market

Author:
Eliza Gheorghe
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The evolution of the nuclear market explains why there are only nine members of the nuclear club, not twenty-five or more, as some analysts predicted. In the absence of a supplier cartel that can regulate nuclear transfers, the more suppliers there are, the more intense their competition will be, as they vie for market share. This commercial rivalry makes it easier for nuclear technology to spread, because buyers can play suppliers off against each other. The ensuing transfers help countries either acquire nuclear weapons or become hedgers. The great powers (China, Russia, and the United States) seek to thwart proliferation by limiting transfers and putting safeguards on potentially dangerous nuclear technologies. Their success depends on two structural factors: the global distribution of power and the intensity of the security rivalry among them. Thwarters are most likely to stem proliferation when the system is unipolar and least likely when it is multipolar. In bipolarity, their prospects fall somewhere in between. In addition, the more intense the rivalry among the great powers in bipolarity and multipolarity, the less effective they will be at curbing proliferation. Given the potential for intense security rivalry among today's great powers, the shift from unipolarity to multipolarity does not portend well for checking proliferation.
Topic:
International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Power, Nonproliferation, and International Relations Theory
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and China

29. How U.S.-Soviet Scientific and Technical Exchanges Helped End the Cold War

Author:
Olga Krasnyak
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Given the ambiguity of the rapidly changing world order, scholars and practitioners are paying more attention to the Cold War period, with its growing relevance for contemporary world politics. Issues such as the NATO alliance, human rights, arms control, and environment impact international relations at large and U.S.-Russia relations in particular. The need to re-emphasize the value of scientists as a channel of communication between governments and their research communities is urgent.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Russia, Canada, Soviet Union, North America, and United States of America

30. A New Cold War: Personal Reflections Regarding Russia’s Missed Opportunities with NATO, Ukraine and Its Western Neighbors

Author:
Keith C. Smith
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
President Boris Yeltsin’s imperial views on the “near abroad,” and President Vladimir Putin’s regarding Russia’s alleged “sphere of influence” has left Russia considerably weaker than it would have been otherwise, and the world much more endangered.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Cold War, Diplomacy, Economics, Politics, Armed Forces, Reform, and Gas
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Soviet Union, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, United States of America, and Baltic States