• Event

Foreign Perspectives on U.S. Nuclear Policy and Posture

• George Perkovich, Lewis Dunn
• March 20, 2007
• Washington, D.C.

On March 20, 2007, Dr. Dunn presented the findings of the SAIC report, Foreign Perspectives on U.S Nuclear Policy and Posture: Insights, Issues and Implications. report was sponsored by the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office (ASCO) of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The report covers foreign perceptions of U.S. nuclear posture and policy since the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

• TV/Radio Broadcast

Four Years Later

• Jessica Tuchman Mathews
• March 19, 2007
• The Newshour with Jim Lehrer

• Op-Ed

Policy Chops

• John Judis
• March 14, 2007
• The New Republic Online
• • 中文

• Op-Ed

All is Not Lost

• Michele Dunne, Amr Hamzawy
• March 09, 2007
• Al Ahram Weekly

Facing an urgent need to defuse crises in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine, the United States is now focusing primarily on Arab states' foreign policy behavior and relegating democracy promotion to the background. But despite the risks of encouraging political change in an already chaotic region, abandoning Middle East democracy as a strategic goal would be a tragic and unnecessary mistake.

• Proliferation Analysis

Replacement Warheads and the Nuclear Test Ban

• Daryl Kimball
• March 08, 2007

(The following op-ed by Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, first appeared in Defense News on March 5, 2007.)

Following the end of U.S. nuclear testing a decade and a half ago, some scientists and policy-makers worried that the reliability of U.S. nuclear warheads could diminish as their plutonium cores age. They claimed it would take a decade or more to see if the nation’s weapon laboratories could maintain the existing stockpile of well-tested but aging weapons without further nuclear blasts.

Such concerns led many senators to withhold their support for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1999.

Time has addressed the skeptics’ concerns. For more than a decade, a multibillion-dollar Stockpile Stewardship program has successfully maintained the existing U.S. nuclear arsenal in the absence of testing. As the importance of nuclear weapons in U.S. military strategy has diminished, there has been no need to test new types of nukes.

But now, the Bush administration is asking Congress to fund an ambitious effort to build new replacement warheads, which it claims is needed to avoid plutonium aging problems that could reduce weapon reliability. (Read More)

• Op-Ed

The Medium Is the Message

• Josh Kurlantzick
• March 08, 2007
• The New Republic Online

• Event

The Changing Role of National Oil Companies in International Energy Markets

• Martha Brill Olcott, Amy Jaffe, Steve Lewis, Daniel Brumberg, Isabel Gorst, Sumit Ganguly
• March 08, 2007
• Washington, D.C.

The so-called Seven Sisters—the major western oil firms that divided up world oil after WWII—now control only a small proportion of international reserves. Rather, state monopolies and emerging partially privatized firms now control the lion’s share of world oil. The Baker institute’s study is the first to look at how national oil companies affect the development of the global oil market.

• Proliferation Analysis

The INF Conundrum

• Rose Gottemoeller
• March 06, 2007

Russia's decision to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty - an important and successful component of the arms control regime - threatens nonproliferation goals. Rather than unilaterally withdrawing, Russia should request exceptions to accomodate its concerns.

• Op-Ed

The INF Conundrum

• Rose Gottemoeller
• March 05, 2007
• Nezavisimaya Gazeta

• TV/Radio Broadcast

Troop Surge in Iraq

• Robert Kagan
• March 04, 2007
• CSPAN