What might the next arms race look like? Assuming current nuclear trends continue, the next two decades will test America’s security and that of its closest allies as they never have been tested before. Well before 2030, the United Kingdom could find its nuclear forces eclipsed not only by those of Pakistan, but of Israel, North Korea, and India. France may share the same fate. Meanwhile, China could conceivably achieve nuclear parity in deployed nuclear weapons with the United States. Finally, highly accurate conventional missiles and drones, as well as the space-based systems and services needed to guide and defend against them are spreading both to rogue states and proxy forces. As a result, the next arms race, will be quite different than what we experienced during the Cold War.
On Friday, February 5th from 12:30pm to 2:00pm EST via Zoom, Brookings Institution hosted a Congressional Study Group focussing on the major subject of policy discussions over the next several years: the export and proliferation of civilian nuclear technology. Over the course of the Biden administration’s first term, the...
With Saudi Arabia secretly pursuing nuclear technology and Turkey and Egypt pushing nuclear programs as well, Washington should ponder why states tied to Washington or NATO for their security may go nuclear anyway. The short answer is, they increasingly believe America will abandon the region or already...
Next June, Iran will select a new president to replace Hassan Rouhani. Soon, the 81-year-old cancer survivor Ayatollah Khamenei will pass from the scene as well. What does this suggest about how the US should approach Iran’s nuclear program? Rather than rushing for a deal that...
Seventy five years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, one wonders what the next 75 might bring. As I note in The American Interest piece, “A Peek into Our Nuclear Future,” the good news is military science has made massively indiscriminate city busting less attractive. Instead, modern warfare is focused...
Turkey’s successful military intervention in Libya has raised eyebrows in the West. No other Middle Eastern state would dare deploy conventional forces hundreds of miles from its borders, with no international coalition backing it, to defeat the dominant Libyan force backed by nuclear powers Russia...
Monday, the Trump Administration’s special envoy for arms control announced he will be meeting this month with his Russian counterpart to discuss whether and how to extend the New START agreement. One reported option is to agree to extend New START (if Russia agrees to...
Late last week, the State Department caused a stir raising suspicions that the Chinese have been violating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). There were two immediate responses: Some wanted to unsign the treaty, which would clear the way to resume nuclear testing, others pushed...
Now that the President’s nuclear disarmament talks with Pyongyang are on the back burner, it’s worth reviewing how well Washington has generally faired in gauging the North Korean nuclear threat. Attached is such an excellent start covering the period from 1984 through 2002 by Torrey...
Iran threatened to pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) if Germany, France, and the UK refer Tehran to the United Nations (UN) Security Council for violating the Iran nuclear deal. This announcement came on the heels of Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s complaint September 24th to the UN...
In all competitions there are winners and losers but in some competitions who benefits most and least can get hazy as the risks that the competition forces on both parties rise. A case in point is the slow nuclear race that China has begun to...
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