Can Biden Revive the Iran Nuclear Deal?
George Perkovich and Megan DuBois | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
After one hundred days, it is fair to say that the Biden administration, with the help of European and Russian counterparts, has prudently reinvigorated prospects of an agreement to restore verifiable constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. It remains unclear whether a new or restored arrangement will be better for all parties than would have been the case had the Trump administration maintained the JCPOA. The challenge now is to avoid letting the perfect (for the United States and its allies) be the enemy of the good (for everyone).
Conventional Missiles, Missile Defense, and Strategic Stability: Chinese Perspective
Tong Zhao | United States Institute of Peace
As strategic competition between the United States and China intensifies, the danger of a US-China military confrontation is no longer a far-fetched scenario. Despite recognition in both capitals of the growing risks of major power conflict, the United States and China have few, if any, effective mechanisms to resolve their differences peacefully. Enhancing strategic stability by lowering the risks of military, and especially nuclear, conflict; managing emerging technologies and new frontiers of conflict such as those in space and cyberspace; and preventing a destabilizing arms race are now more critical than ever to ensure that the United States and China can compete without disastrous consequences.
Iran Nuclear Talks Resume in Vienna Amid New Complications
David Rising | Associated Press
World powers resumed high-level talks in Vienna on Tuesday focused on bringing the United States back into the nuclear deal with Iran, in their first session since comments surfaced from the Iranian foreign minister alleging that Russia once tried to scupper the pact. The Russian Foreign Ministry has not responded to requests for comment on the remarks from Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, made in a seven-hour interview with a think tank associated with the Iranian presidency that leaked over the weekend. Ahead of the main talks, Russia’s top representative Mikhail Ulyanov said he’d met on the side together with officials from Iran and China, but did not mention anything about Zarif’s comments.
35 Years Since Nuclear Disaster, Chernobyl Warns, Inspires
Yuras Karmanau | Associated Press
The vast and empty Chernobyl Exclusion Zone around the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident is a baleful monument to human mistakes. Yet 35 years after a power plant reactor exploded, Ukrainians also look to it for inspiration, solace and income. Reactor No. 4 at the power plant 110 kilometers (65 miles) north of the capital Kyiv exploded and caught fire deep in the night on April 26, 1986, shattering the building and spewing radioactive material high into the sky.
We Don’t Need a Better Nuclear Arsenal to Take on China
Fred Kaplan | Slate
This week, top military officers launched their big push on Capitol Hill for a total overhaul of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, at an estimated cost of $1.3 trillion over the next 30 years, and their top rationale—the go-to rationale for just about every large federal program these days—was the threat from China. Their case was less than compelling. Yes, China is displaying some bellicose behavior these days, economically, politically, and militarily. But a new generation of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers, cruise missiles, and submarines would do nothing to deal with the problem.
Warnings Posted for a Peculiar French Ballistic Missile Test in the Atlantic
Joseph Trevithick | The Drive
Warnings to mariners to stay clear of certain areas of the Atlantic Ocean, spanning from the coast of France to an area just north of Bermuda, due to upcoming “missile operations,” indicate that the French military will carry out a long-range ballistic missile test sometime in the next month or so. The exact locations of the four off-limits zones have raised questions about whether this launch will be a test of a new variant of France’s M51 submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, a key component of the country’s nuclear deterrent capabilities, or even a hypersonic weapon.