Navigating Responsible Stewardship of Nuclear-Powered Submarines 

Edited by Jamie Kwong and Toby Dalton | Carnegie Endowment  

Whether for civilian reactors or military applications, demonstrating that nuclear technology is being handled responsibly and safely is critical for public support and international peace and security alike. As geopolitical and technological shifts spur new nuclear projects, both the difficulty and importance of effective assurances will only increase. The pursuit of naval nuclear propulsion by states without nuclear weapons presents a host of new assurance challenges. ... This compilation identifies and unpacks key issues Australia and Brazil are navigating in trying to meet these confidence-building requirements and establish their credentials as responsible stewards of naval nuclear propulsion. Drawing on a range of expertise and perspectives from Australia, Brazil, and beyond, it considers various strategic, legal, normative, regulatory, and social dimensions of these issues. 

The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules 

Geoff Brumfiel | NPR 

The Trump administration has overhauled a set of nuclear safety directives and shared them with the companies it is charged with regulating, without making the new rules available to the public, according to documents obtained exclusively by NPR. The sweeping changes were made to accelerate development of a new generation of nuclear reactor designs. They occurred over the fall and winter at the Department of Energy, which is currently overseeing a program to build at least three new experimental commercial nuclear reactors by July 4 of this year. 

Trump warns Iran to make nuclear deal or next attack will be 'far worse' 

Reuters 

U.S. President Donald Trump urged Iran on Wednesday to come to the table and make a deal on nuclear weapons or the next U.S. attack would be far worse. Tehran responded with a threat to strike back against the United States, Israel and those who support them. "Hopefully Iran will quickly 'Come to the Table' and negotiate a fair and equitable deal - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS - one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!" Trump wrote on social media. Amid a buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East, the Republican president ... noted that his last warning to Iran was followed by a military strike in June. "The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again," Trump wrote. He repeated that a U.S. "armada" was heading toward the Islamic Republic.  

Nato without America: Europe ‘thinks the unthinkable’ 

Ben Hall and Henry Foy | Financial Times 

Since its founding nearly eight decades ago, Nato, the world’s mightiest military alliance, has rested on a confidence trick — an assumption that every member, and above all its pre-eminent one, the US, would defend an ally under attack. That confidence had already been severely dented by Donald Trump’s repeated questioning of Nato’s usefulness and disavowal of America’s mutual defence obligations. This month it was shattered by Trump’s to seize Greenland from Denmark, a close Nato partner. It is a seismic change that will force America’s bereft allies reluctantly to reimagine how they organise their own security.  

Department of Energy announces new efforts to boost nuclear fuel supply chain 

Pippa Stevens and Spencer Kimball | CNBC  

The Department of Energy announced Wednesday an initiative aimed at building out the nation’s nuclear fuel supply chain as interest in the emissions-free power source grows. The DOE is asking states to express interest in hosting “Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses,” which would support activities across the nuclear fuel lifecycle – including recycling used fuel. ... Ultimately, one of the proposed campuses could house the entire fuel cycle from enrichment all the way to recycling. The sites could also potentially have advanced reactors, power generation and co-located data centers, since it’s easier to do everything under one roof rather than having to transport fuel. 

Rethinking the Deterrence-Disarmament Dichotomy: The Complex Landscape of Global Nuclear Weapons Preferences 

Lauren Sukin, J. Luis Rodriguez and Stephen Herzog | Cambridge University Press 

Backers of nuclear deterrence are thought to use strategic logic, while nuclear disarmament advocates are believed to embrace moral reasoning. Yet policy makers and diverse publics may hold both—ostensibly contradictory—preferences. Recent studies find that publics in Western democratic countries support the nuclear strikes underpinning long-standing conceptions of deterrence policy. But other scholarship indicates that these very same publics want to abolish nuclear arsenals. Does a categorical dichotomy between nuclear deterrence and disarmament really reflect global public views on the bomb? What explains a multitude of seemingly inconsistent scholarly results? In this reflection essay, we argue that deterrence and disarmament are not necessarily incompatible tools for reducing nuclear dangers.