Tokyo would have to surmount a lot of obstacles—not least Western sanctions—if it wanted to return Russian oil imports to even modest pre-2022 volumes.
Vladislav Pashchenko
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Implementing an agreement on the denuclearization of North Korea will require a creatively designed verification scheme. The probabilistic approach to verification could be a solution to the need to design a credible, implementable agreement to which the United States and North Korea could agree.
Source: Arms Control Today
Although U.S.-North Korean talks have stalled, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has abided by an apparent moratorium on nuclear testing, keeping alive hopes that an agreement can be reached to denuclearize North Korea. Implementing such an agreement with North Korea, if one can be negotiated, would constitute an unprecedented challenge for the international community.
Verifying such an agreement would require building a monitoring regime that goes well beyond traditional international safeguards and bilateral arms control approaches while accommodating legitimate North Korean concerns over intrusiveness, which would practically preclude “anytime, anywhere” inspections. Creativity will be needed to design a verification scheme to which the United States and North Korea could agree and that could be implemented in affordable and practical ways and that politicians would deem credible.
The full version of this article is available in the September 2019 edition of Arms Control Today.
Former Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow, Nuclear Policy Program
Mareena Robinson Snowden was a Stanton nuclear security fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
Tokyo would have to surmount a lot of obstacles—not least Western sanctions—if it wanted to return Russian oil imports to even modest pre-2022 volumes.
Vladislav Pashchenko
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For Putin, upgrading Russia’s nuclear forces was a secondary goal. The main aim was to gain an advantage over the West, including by strengthening the nuclear threat on all fronts. That made growth in missile arsenals and a new arms race inevitable.
Maxim Starchak
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