Seventy Years Without an A-Bombing
As numbers-based arms control wanes, norms become even more important. Norms can be clarified in Codes of Conduct or established by customary practice. The most important norm in our field is the non-use of nuclear weapons in combat. Few expected this norm to exist after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – let […]
Iran Deal: Reading the Fine Print
The text of the nuclear limitation agreement with Iran (AKA “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”) has been released and can be found here [link fixed]. Several key provisions are reprinted below. I’ll post key verification provisions separately, with my assessment of their utility. Iran will begin phasing out its IR-1 centrifuges in 10 years. During this period, […]
Monitoring Provisions of the Iran Agreement
This assessment of the core monitoring provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is necessarily hurried and preliminary. I invite ACW readers to weigh in with their comments. The text of key provisions follows my first-cut assessment. The agreement’s provisions are extremely complex and detailed. Reading the fine print brings flashbacks of the most […]
Iran: The Punditariat Weighs In
Now that the negotiating endgame for a nuclear limitation agreement with Iran has been extended to July 7th, critics and kibitzers have had an extra seven days to push, prod and excoriate the Obama administration. It’s far easier to criticize an agreement-in-progress for not being good enough than to defend it – even when the […]
Arms and Influence
Aspiring Wonks: Time once again to whet your appetite by dipping into a classic text waiting for you online or at the library – one that applies to the P-5+ 1 negotiations with Iran. These passages are from the first chapter of Nobel Laureate Thomas C. Schelling’s Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966). “Diplomacy is bargaining; […]
Help! The Stimson Connector Initiative Pilot Project On Trade Controls
Can civil society be engaged to help address international security issues? Governmental organizations have insufficient resources in funding and skills to address today’s complex problems; people and institutions want to help, if they can be well directed. That belief led to the Strategic Trade Controls Pilot Project that sought over the past year to engage lawyers, law […]
Deterrence Instability in South Asia
The United States wants to pivot to Asia, but the Middle East keeps getting in the way. Likewise, India wants to pivot to China, but Pakistan keeps getting in the way. Pakistan matters to India for two primary, interconnected reasons: its home-grown terrorists and its nuclear-weapon programs. The pathway to crisis and war on the Subcontinent […]
Opportunities of the Obama Visit
When President Obama visits with Caribbean leaders April 9 in Jamaica, broad trade and security issues should top his agenda. Trade growth in the Americas can drive jobs and development – a good thing for everyone. But security issues in one country can haunt its trading partners and damage not just their security but also […]