India’s Nonproliferation History and Trajectory: Posturing at Home and Abroad
Benjamin Silverstein | Center for Strategic and International Studies
Core aspects of India’s decisions to develop antisatellite (ASAT) weapons parallel New Delhi’s historic pursuit of nuclear arms. Based on these similarities, India’s nuclear proliferation rationale can be translated and applied to their more recent efforts to develop strategic space capabilities. States interested in restraining applications of space arms, whether through normative or legally binding constructs, should note India’s motivations to develop and test strategic space weapons and tailor negotiations based on these incentives. India’s development of nuclear weapons is a valuable case study and reveals potential guardrails for states as they aim to effectively design prospective multilateral negotiations to restrain applications of ASAT missiles.
Stemming an Inter-Korean Spiral and Arms Race
Ankit Panda | Korean Journal on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Energy
The security dilemma on the Korean Peninsula is intensifying. North Korea’s remarkable qualitative successes in the realm of nuclear and missile technology in the ten years since Kim Jong Un’s assumption of power have been met with a commensurate push for new conventional capabilities in South Korea. More specifically, following the more-than-modest success of North Korea’s decades-long quest for a credible nuclear deterrent to assure the survival of its regime in the face of perceived threats from a conventionally superior South Korea and its superpower ally, the United States, Seoul has seen little recourse but to invest in its own capabilities in the pursuit of improved security. In pursuit of mutual deterrence, the two Koreas have instead found themselves in a boundless asymmetric arms race, with growing risks to stability in future crises.
Finland’s Leaders Seek to Join NATO ‘Without Delay’ After Ukraine Invasion
Annabelle Timsit and Amy Cheng | Washington Post
Finland’s leaders announced Thursday that they would seek NATO membership for the Nordic nation as soon as possible — an extraordinary move that demonstrates the far-ranging effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay,” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said in a statement after weeks of discussions about whether the traditionally nonaligned nation should aim to join, which would be a tectonic shift for the military alliance and Europe’s security order.
North Korea Fires 3 Ballistic Missiles After Reporting COVID Outbreak
Hyonhee Shin | Reuters
North Korea fired three ballistic missiles towards the sea off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea and Japan said, in the latest such move as the isolated country races to advance its weapons programs on the day it first reported a COVID-19 outbreak. Three short-range ballistic missiles were fired at around 18:30 p.m. (0930 GMT) from the Sunan area of the North’s capital, Pyongyang, where an international airport is located and where the North had said it fired its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-17, on March 24, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.
Canada Taking ‘Comprehensive Look’ at Joining U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense
Andy Blatchford | POLITICO
Defense Minister Anita Anand says Canada is examining the possibility of joining the United States’ ballistic missile defense system, an openness that comes nearly two decades after Ottawa first rejected an invitation to participate. “We are certainly taking a full and comprehensive look at that question as well as what it takes to defend the continent across the board,” Anand said Tuesday in response to an audience question that followed her speech in Ottawa to the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. “We are leaving no stone unturned in this major review of continental defense,” she said, promising there will be more to say “in the months to come.”
Forgetting the Apocalypse: Why Our Nuclear Fears Faded – and Why That’s Dangerous
Daniel Immerwahr | The Guardian
On an August morning in 1945, 600 meters over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, a small sun came briefly into existence. Few remember a sound, but the flash printed shadows on the pavements and sent buildings thrashing. The explosion – 2,000 times greater than that of any bomb yet used – announced not only a new weapon but a new era. It was a stunning military victory for the United States. Yet jubilation there was undercut by “uncertainty and fear”, the newsman Edward R Murrow observed. It took only a moment’s reflection on the bomb’s existence to see the harrowing implication: what had happened in Hiroshima, and three days later in Nagasaki, could happen anywhere.