Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
New START’s expiration will undermine U.S. security by removing all limits on Russia’s modernizing nuclear arsenal, by reducing our visibility into that arsenal. Extending New START will not create any new problems; the Treaty will continue to support U.S. national security goals
The future risks of inadvertent escalation due to entangled conventional and nuclear systems will depend on broader geopolitical developments, advances in non-nuclear weapons, changes in states’ military doctrines, and whether states can implement risk mitigation measures.
Japan and South Korea appear poised to let thorny political disagreements torpedo intelligence swapping on North Korea’s nukes and missiles. That would leave both countries and the United States all worse off and have broader regional security implications.
New evidence from the Yom Kippur War shows how growing entanglement between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons could lead to dangerous escalation spirals to nuclear war.
North Korea is poised at the crossroads of history. Which direction will its leader take?
Current patterns of nuclearization in South Asia amply confirm the conclusion that although India and Pakistan have, at various points historically, supported the idea of abolishing nuclear weapons with various degrees of enthusiasm, that position has now been consigned to the dust heap of history.
Only the continuation of nuclear arms control can create the political and military conditions for eventual limitations of innovative weapons systems and technologies, as well as for a carefully thought through and phased shift to a multilateral format of nuclear disarmament.
Although Turkey is not likely to pursue a nuclear weapons program, it is expanding its nuclear industry by partnering with Russia.
It is time to put the hands back on the wheel of diplomacy and steer toward an off-ramp with Iran before it is too late.
Why have numerous states that embarked on the path of developing nuclear weapons, or at least seriously toyed with the idea, never ultimately acquired them?