All Publications by Michael Krepon

• The Battle Within Pakistan

  The February 16 bombing in Quetta targeting the Hazara community was the latest in a long, sad, and intensifying series of incidents of sectarian violence. Death tolls within

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• Presidential Inbox 2013: Cooperate with China on Space

  From now through the January 2013 Inauguration, Stimson experts will offer their views on key international security challenges and pragmatic steps the Obama Administration can take

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• Michael Krepon on Pakistan’s Nuclear Posture

  The Stimson Center is releasing today an essay by Michael Krepon on “Pakistan’s Nuclear Strategy and Deterrence Stability.” Krepon argues that it will be hard to dampen the growth of

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• Addressing US-Pakistan Ties

  Negotiations over the cost of hauling freight from Karachi port to Afghanistan and the wording of a statement of regret or apology over Pakistani deaths at a border clash last

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• Increased Trade to Spur Growth

  Pakistan and India have not fared well over the past two decades in negotiating confidence-building and nuclear risk-reduction measures.

  Existing measures, such as prior

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• Krepon and Romberg on North Korea’s Planned Satellite Launch

  The "leap day" agreement between the DPRK and the Obama administration may not last more than one month if Pyongyang follows through with its announced plans to place a satellite in

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• New Publication: The Unfinished Crisis

  A terrorist incident of extraordinary scale and duration occurred in Mumbai, India's largest city and commercial hub in late November 2008. Over three days at multiple Mumbai

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• The Unfinished Crisis: US Crisis Management after the 2008 Mumbai Attacks

  This case study is the first detailed account of US crisis management after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, one that will no doubt be amplified by future first-person accounts and the

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• Weak Arguments Against a Space Code of Conduct

  Major diplomatic accomplishments for space are as rare as triple crown winners in baseball. The last year both occurred was in 1967, when the Outer Space Treaty was finalized and

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• Arms crawl that wasn’t

  ASHLEY Tellis`s comprehensive assessment of India`s nuclear weapon programmes, , was published 10 years ago. Tellis, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, predicted an

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• Blunt Talk

  Admiral Mike Mullen, the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke unusually bluntly about Pakistan's military and intelligence services during his last appearance

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• Making the CTBT’s Valuable Benefits Permanent

  Fifteen years ago, world leaders gathered at the United Nations to join in a celebratory signing ceremony for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).  First in line was President

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• Crises in South Asia: Trends and Consequences

  To paraphrase Raymond Aron, crises have become the substitute of wars between nuclear-armed states. This corollary to nuclear deterrence applies to South Asia, where Pakistan and

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• The False Promise of the Civil Nuclear Deal

  Six years ago, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced their commitment to a civil nuclear energy cooperation agreement at the White House. The Bush

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• Pakistan - US Relations

  The US - Pakistan relationship could not have survived this long without the presence of vital common interests.  But we are now close to another divorce.

  It would be a serious

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• Pakistan

  PAKISTAN

  TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL KREPON

  CO-FOUNDER, THE STIMSON CENTER

  BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

  MAY 5, 2011

  MR. CHAIRMAN, MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE: THANK YOU

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• Osama and U.S.-Pakistan Relations

  Abbottabad is a quiet, lovely city.  The Stimson Center convened a Track II workshop there for rising Pakistani strategic analysts.  The city’s most prominent feature remains

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• Stimson Experts React to Death of Osama bin Laden

  Osama bin Laden was killed early Monday (Sunday afternoon in Washington), in a raid by U.S. Navy SEALs on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr., Ellen

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• Pakistan’s Decline

  It has become difficult to identify positive trend lines in Pakistan, where growing nuclear stockpiles provide no protection against bad governance and great misfortune. Two

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• India and Pakistan Resume Structured Dialogue

   

  There is no better place than Wagah to look for evidence of how badly India-Pakistan relations have eroded.  Wagah is the only legally permissible place where, between

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• A New Year of Familiar Surprises in South Asia

  Every new year has its share of modest surprises, but it takes big shocks to generate significant changes in national security policy.  "Familiar" surprise comes with the

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• Space Norms Matrix

  The Stimson Center, with the help of Nancy Gallagher at the University of Maryland, Victoria Samson and Brian Weedon at the Secure World Foundation, Theresa Hitchens at UNIDIR, and

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• A Code of Conduct for Responsible Space-Faring Nations

  Since 2002, the Stimson Center's Space Security Project has worked to increase public awareness of the dangerous consequences of flight testing and deploying space weapons, while

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• Verifying Nuclear Arms Reduction

  Many of New START's harshest critics argue that the Treaty's monitoring provisions are deficient. Shelving the Treaty will not improve verification.  On the contrary, doing so will

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• A Code of Conduct for Responsible Space-Faring Nations

  Since 2002, the Stimson Center’s Space Security Project has worked to increase public awareness of the dangerous consequences of flight testing and deploying space weapons, while

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• Scare Tactics

  Money is the mother's milk of politics; motivation is the mother's milk of the politics of treaty ratification.  Arms control battles in the United States tend to be uneven fights

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• The Flood

  The Soviet Union was dying long before its collapse, but few took serious notice. Sovietologists in the United States were too threat-oriented to recognize grave weaknesses.  And

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• Nuclear Risk Reduction Redux in South Asia

  Although New Delhi and Islamabad are resuming official talks after the nineteen-month hiatus resulting from the Mumbai attacks, the impulse to promote bilateral nuclear

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• The Gift that Keeps on Taking

  On July 18, 2005, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stoof on the White House grounds to announce their intention to implement a civil nuclear cooperation

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• India and the Nuclear Future

  In the 1950s, when the Soviet Union and the United States were regularly conducting atmospheric nuclear tests and spreading radioactive debris, India took the lead in seeking to end

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• Treaty Signings

  To oversell or underplay - that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer slings and arrows by acknowledging modest gains, or to claim immodest accomplishments in

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• The NPT at Age Forty

  As the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty approaches middle age, treaty supporters confront two paradoxes: while the utility of nuclear weapons for major powers is declining, it is

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• The NPT at Age Forty

  As the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty approaches middle age, treaty supporters confront two paradoxes: while the utility of nuclear weapons for major powers is declining, it is

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• Increasing Pakistan’s Sense of Security

  The Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, where negotiations on fissile material production for nuclear weapons are supposed to get underway, remains moribund.  Each of the 65

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• The Fallacy of the Last Move in Pakistan

  This would be a good time for Pakistan and India to negotiate new nuclear risk reduction measures, as both countries may well be in the lull between crises sparked by extremists with

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• Stabilizing India-Pakistan Relations

  Israeli-Palestinian relations have become an object lesson of missed opportunities, failed leadership, and wretched score settling.  After decades of painstaking U.S. efforts to

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• Whose Hand is on the Nuclear Button in South Asia?

  On November 28, 2009 the Pakistani media reported that President Asif Ali Zardari “divested himself” of his “powers” as Chairman of the National Command Authority, transferring them

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• When the Gift Becomes an Insult

  You know when US-Pakistan relations are in bad shape when what is perceived as a generous gift in one country is widely received as an insult in the other.  Such is the case with the

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• Iran’s Nuclear Future

  The academic Grinch of proliferation studies, Kenneth Waltz, asserts that no country that wants the Bomb has been dissuaded from having one.  But most states with serious security

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• Getting to Work on Fissile Material Production and Space Security

  The 65-nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is tied up in knots because it operates by consensus and because it proceeds as if the Cold War never ended.  Its last substantive

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• Avoiding One Pitfall in US-India Relations

  The L’Aquila Statement on Non-Proliferation, released at the end of the G-8 Summit in Italy, received little notice -- except in India. Some in New Delhi took exception to one

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• Complexities of Risk Reduction in South Asia

  The Indian electorate has now voted into office a very strong coalition government led, once again, by the Congress party. Pakistani domestic politics, on the other hand, have

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• Presidential Inbox 2009: The First 100 Days

  The first 100 days of any administration are filled with tough choices and breaks from past policies. This administration is no different. In the lead-up to the election, Stimson

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• Pakistan’s Future and US Assistance

  News reports of the Taliban’s mostly uncontested advances in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province have prompted panicky assessments and remedies.  The situation in Pakistan

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• A Greater Kashmir Development Authority

  The ultimate nuclear risk reduction measure between India and Pakistan would be a settlement of the Kashmir dispute. The Government of India has stated that maps cannot be redrawn

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• The Search for Nuclear Stabilization in Southern Asia

  With support from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Stimson Center seeks to analyze the sources of nuclear

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• Better Safe than Sorry: The Ironies of Living with the Bomb

  In 2008, the iconic doomsday clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was set at five minutes to midnight - two minutes closer to Armageddon than in 1962, when John F. Kennedy

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• Terrorism in India

  Once again, India has experienced the pain of another 9/11-type event. In 1993, the Mumbai stock exchange and other targets in the city were struck, resulting in over 250 killed and

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• Space: A Code of Conduct

  Space: A Code of Conduct

  The Challenge

  Satellites are indispensable and vulnerable. Satellites perform essential military functions. They provide early warning of missile launches

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• US-India Nuclear Deal Now Done, Reckoning to Come Later

  The global system designed to prevent and reverse proliferation was built on bedrock conservative principles. In designing this structure, U.S. presidents have methodically sought to

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• Likely Consequences of the Nuclear Suppliers Group Decision

  The Bush administration has once again rubbished its conservative credentials by strong-arming the Nuclear Suppliers Group to waive longstanding rules designed to prevent

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• Faits Accomplis, Complicity, and Nuclear Nonproliferation

  The Bush administration has often been accused of leaping before looking.  This charge is unfair, since the President and his inner circle know precisely what they want.  When bold

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• How Safe and Secure are Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons?

  These weapons are the nation’s most closely guarded man-made objects, its “crown jewels,” so to speak.  I do not place much credence in scenarios that project a takeover of the

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• Ten Years Later

  Ten years ago, the governments of India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices, prompting a global uproar, a united front by the five permanent members (P-5) of the UN Security

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• After the ASAT Tests

  Destructive ASAT tests are rare. The Pentagon's destructive anti-satellite test in February 2008 followed thirteen months after China used one of its aging satellites for target

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• Bush’s ASAT Test

  Difficult national security decisions involve hard trade-offs between benefit and risk.  On the merits, the Bush administration's decision about what to do with a failing satellite

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• Pakistan With or Without Musharraf

  Pakistan’s sorrows continue to mount. The “good news” talking points of recent Pakistani visitors to Washington linked to the government – a vibrant media, a vigorous judiciary, a

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• Model Code of Conduct for Space-Faring Nations

   Central Objective of this Code of Conduct

  To preserve and advance the peaceful exploration and use of outer space.

  Preamble

  We the undersigned;   Recognizing the common interest of

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• Seeking a Safe Landing in Pakistan

  Nawaz Sharif’s dramatic return to Pakistan was short-lived.  His deportation to Saudi Arabia accelerates the political drama now unfolding in Pakistan, which is now at a critical

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• The US-India 123 Agreement: From Bad to Worse

  By Michael Krepon and Alex Stolar

  Bad agreements usually only get worse when implemented, and the US-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement appears headed in this unfortunate

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• Nuclear Abolition: Then and Now

  There have been three waves of public interest in seeking nuclear disarmament; each wave has been successively less powerful.  The first wave was strongest because it was generated

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• Don’t Let RRW Undermine Nonproliferation

  We are now at the front end of what is likely to be a contentious domestic debate over replacing existing nuclear warheads with simpler designs that may never need to be tested.

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• What Legacy Will Musharraf Leave?

  The longer most leaders stay in power, the more their record is likely to become tarnished. But it is extremely hard to walk away from power when it is possible to stay longer,

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• Will the Bush Administration Endorse a Space Code of Conduct?

  Space News
  March 5, 2007

  US President George W. Bush is not interested in winning a popularity contest on multilateral agreements dealing with space. To the contrary, the most recent

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• Why We Need a Code of Conduct for Space

  The Chinese anti-satellite test will provide added fuel for a military space competition. This competition will not rise to the level of an arms race, at least measured in Cold War

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• Geo-Strategic Partners or Partners of Convenience?

  This week, the Senate may try to take up the US-India nuclear cooperation agreement while Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will be making the rounds in Washington.  Boosters of

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• Negating American Power

  President George W. Bush and his most powerful advisers are fueled by a rare, high-octane mix of hyper-realism and transformational zeal forged in the aftermath of surprise

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• Update on the US-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement

  In response to harsh domestic criticism, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh delivered a speech to the upper house of the Indian Parliament on August 17th defending the US-India

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• The Meaning of the Mumbai Blasts

  In the wake of the Mumbai blasts, the governments of India, Pakistan and the United States acted in familiar ways.  New Delhi expressed its outrage and struggled with poor choices in

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• Upholding Nonproliferation

  Picture the global structure of treaties, norms, export controls, and sanctions that helps prevent proliferation as a big tent.  The tent is only as sturdy as the common resolve of

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• The Bush Administration Tables a Draft “Cutoff” Treaty Analysis of Key Elements

  1. Tabling a draft treaty now is a smart idea politically to improve chances that the Congress will approve the Bush administration’s proposed nuclear deal with India.   A treaty

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• The US-India Nuclear Deal: Another Wrong Turn in the War on Terror

   

  The Bush administration is making another costly detour on the road to keeping the most dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands.  At a time when the administration needs to work

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• A Guide to the Perplexed: Q&A on the US-India Nuclear Deal

   

  Q.  What is the biggest problem with this deal?

  A.  It’s another dangerous detour in the war on terror.   Job #1 is to prevent the worst weapons from getting into the wrong

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• Are the Basic Assumptions Behind the Bush Administration’s Nuclear Deal with India Sound?

  The Washington Post has recently published two op-eds in support of the nuclear deal with India by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Robert Kagan. Both op-eds frame the right

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• In Pursuit of a Nuclear Deal with India

  Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of lentils.  During the Cold War, a variation of this Biblical tale was played out whenever a president was about to engage in summitry with the

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• No Exemption For India: Nuclear Deal Undermines Non-Proliferation Regime

  This op-ed appeared in the Times of India on February 7, 2006 (Editorial, p.28)
  
  While trying to contain and reverse the nuclear programme of Iran and North Korea, President Bush has

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• Negotiating the US-India Nuclear Cooperation Deal

  While trying to contain and reverse the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, President Bush has launched a bold initiative to change the rules of nuclear commerce to benefit

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• Proliferation: Then and Now

  A rogue state has recently tested its first nuclear weapon and the administration is deeply divided about how to react. No - the state in question isn’t North Korea. The year is 1965

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• Proliferation: Then and Now

  A rogue state has recently tested its first nuclear weapon and the administration is deeply divided about how to react. No – the state in question isn’t North Korea. The year is 1965

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• Is the US-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement Good or Bad for Proliferation?

  The nuclear cooperation agreement announced between President George Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House on July 18th marks a major shift in decades-long

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• Changing the Rules of Nuclear Commerce: Will More Commerce Equal More Proliferation?

  Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets with President Bush on July 18 to demonstrate and accelerate the new strategic partnership between New Delhi and Washington. High on the

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• Betting the Ranch on the US-India Nuclear Deal

  The Bush administration, which has bet the ranch on a war in Iraq based on wildly unrealistic assumptions, has, in effect, doubled this bet on the nuclear deal with India.  This time

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• A Pipeline for Peace?

  Tehran, New Delhi and Islamabad are negotiating seriously over a pipeline originating at the South Pars field in Iran, crossing Pakistan, delivering much needed natural gas to

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• The Stability-Instability Paradox in South Asia

  The United States and the Soviet Union managed to avoid nuclear and conventional warfare during the Cold War, while jockeying for advantage in a myriad of ways, including proxy wars

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• From Confrontation to Cooperation

  It is not surprising that India and Pakistan have gone through a rough stretch. When nations with deep grievances acquire nuclear weapons, cross-border tensions usually increase and

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• Trading Militancy for Peace in South Asia

  Another effort to normalize India-Pakistan relations begins this week, when diplomats meet to discuss the structure of a substantive dialogue likely to follow the Indian elections in

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• NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: “Pardon in Pakistan”

  Michael Krepon appeared on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer discussing the recent Pakistani pardon of nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.  A transcript of his comments and a video are available

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• Evaluating the Vajpayee-Musharraf Meeting in Islamabad

  India’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf are the oddest pair to tackle issues of war, peace and the bomb since Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan.

  Prime Minister

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• The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: “Talking Peace”

  Interview with Michael Krepon on India-Pakistan peace prospects following their decision to hold bilateral talks next month.  The video of the interview can be downloaded from the

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• Ties Improve as Vajpayee Visits Pakistan and Musharraf Escapes Assassination Attempts

  Something refreshingly different is happening in South Asia.  India and Pakistan are beginning to stitch together ties that were severed two years ago when Islamic extremists linked

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• US-Pakistan Relations: Preventing a Second Divorce

  Ties between the United States and Pakistan over the past quarter century have alternated between close partnership and divorce. Adversity has pulled our two countries together, but

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• India-Pakistan: Small steps, but long road ahead

  Risk takers can make big messes or big successes, especially when they lead nuclear-armed rivals and when they have little in common except their fondness for bold maneuvers and

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• Space Assurance or Space Dominance? The Case Against Weaponizing Space

  While space has long been utilized to assist military operations, it has not been weaponized. A new report by the Stimson Center—Space Assurance or Space Dominance? The Case Against

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• Cooperative Threat Reduction, Missile Defense, and the Nuclear Future

  In this Stimson Center Book, Michael Krepon calls on the United States to replace the Cold War era strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction with a balanced approach combining

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• The Impact of US Ballistic Missile Defenses on Southern Asia

  Michael Krepon and Chris Gagne, eds.

  This Stimson Center report provides the first serious analytical effort by a group of Indian, Pakistani, and US analysts to weigh the possible

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• Missile Defense and Asian Security

  Presented to the Stimson Center/CNA NMD-China Project on February 20, 2002

  During the Cold War, Europe was the region most likely to be affected - for better or for worse - by US

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• Moving from MAD to Cooperative Threat Reduction: Life after the ABM Treaty

  This report issued by The Henry L. Stimson Center calls on the Bush administration to replace Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, with Cooperative Threat Reduction. The void created

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• The Stability-Instability Paradox: Nuclear Weapons and Brinksmanship in South Asia

  Michael Krepon and Chris Gagne, eds.

  The five essays contained in the report focus on the complex triangular nuclear interaction among India, Pakistan, and China. These essays

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• Economic Cooperation and Regional Security

  Michael Krepon and Chris Gagne, eds.

  Three commissioned essays investigate the linkages between cross-border economic interactions and regional security, focusing on India-Pakistan,

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