Rumors are abounding that after 10 months of almost no diplomatic activity, the United States and Iran are close to reaching an informal agreement that will prevent a further escalation between the two. What is on the table is not the renewal of the 2015 nuclear agreement—which remains in a comatose state—but rather an unwritten understanding that neither side will pull the plug on the respirator.
Diplomacy between the United States and Iran has steadily degraded over the years. From the intense and, at times, weekslong direct negotiations that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—a more than 100-page written agreement embodied in a unanimously approved U.N.… Seguir leyendo »
When two UN atomic watchdog inspectors set off for Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant in January, they gave their Iranian counterparts virtually no notice of the impending visit.
It was what the International Atomic Energy Agency terms a routine unscheduled inspection, designed to give staff at one of the Islamic republic’s most secretive facilities as little time as possible to make any alterations to equipment.
On this occasion, they would make an alarming discovery. After the inspectors donned laboratory coats and descended into Fordow, built deep beneath a mountain to protect against US or Israeli bombs, they were immediately given cause for concern.… Seguir leyendo »
With Russia’s war against Ukraine in its second year and tensions growing in the U.S.-Chinese relationship, nuclear weapons are back on the global political agenda. At a summit in Hiroshima on May 19, G-7 leaders committed to promoting “responsible nuclear behavior”, including risk reduction measures and greater transparency about states’ nuclear arsenals. Despite this renewed attention to the danger of nuclear weapons, traditional arms control—in which nuclear powers formally agree to take steps to reduce their arsenals—has broken down altogether.
There are a host of reasons for this failure. Washington and Moscow are again competing in the nuclear domain. China has meanwhile entered the arms race, making the competition tripolar.… Seguir leyendo »
On April 26, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to a “Washington Declaration”. The declaration reconfirms South Korea’s participation in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a nonnuclear weapons state, following a spike of discussion in South Korea (formally called the Republic of Korea, or ROK) about going nuclear. This declaration ends, for the moment, any ROK effort to push further.
In exchange, the United States pledged to consult South Korea more closely over nuclear contingencies, including through a new “Nuclear Consultative Group”. It is unclear just how much ‘nuclear sharing’—regarding planning, deployment, or command decisions—this group will permit.… Seguir leyendo »
On May 18, U.S. President Joe Biden traveled to Hiroshima, Japan, planning to meet with G-7 leaders—as well as survivors of the nuclear bombs—to discuss, among other things, reducing the risk of nuclear war. He followed in the footsteps of former U.S. President Barack Obama, who visited Hiroshima in his final year as president. In a short speech, Obama mourned the dead—but he did not express regret and, his advisors insisted, he did not apologize. Instead, Obama looked forward to a future that would come to see Hiroshima and Nagasaki “as the start of our own moral awakening”.
Biden and his administration have proven to be uncommonly committed to atoning for past domestic acts of violence and racism that still weaken the moral foundations of the United States.… Seguir leyendo »
Rusia amenaza periódicamente con usar armas nucleares, ya sea contra Ucrania o contra sus aliados, si cruzan las "líneas rojas" trazadas por el Kremlin. Otra manifestación del chantaje nuclear ruso fue la decisión en marzo de 2023 de colocar armas nucleares tácticas en Bielorrusia.
A principios de mayo, la directora de Inteligencia estadounidense, Avril Haines, afirmó en las audiencias del Senado que, en opinión de su Departamento, "es extremadamente improbable" que Rusia use armas nucleares. Sin embargo, para comprender si las amenazas del Kremlin deben tomarse en serio, vale la pena analizar sus motivos.
La Rusia de Putin busca restaurar su condición de superpotencia, pero hay una serie de obstáculos en el camino hacia ese objetivo.… Seguir leyendo »
In the summer of 2021, the world learned that China was dramatically expanding its nuclear arsenal. Satellite imagery showed Beijing building as many as 300 new ballistic missile silos. The Pentagon now projects that China’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, which had for years rested in the low hundreds, could spike to 1,500 warheads by 2035, confirming suspicions that Beijing has decided to join Russia and the United States in the front rank of nuclear powers.
Security experts are only beginning to sort through the implications of China’s nuclear breakout. They would do well to consider Ashley Tellis’s new book, Striking Asymmetries, which assesses the implications of Beijing’s actions from the vantage point of the rivalries between South Asia’s three nuclear powers: China, India, and Pakistan.… Seguir leyendo »
It’s no accident that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida selected Hiroshima as the site for the 2023 G7 meeting. Shortly after announcing his choice, he pointed out that, “[a]s prime minister of Japan, the only country to have suffered atomic bombings, there is no better place than Hiroshima to show our commitment to peace”.
Although many issues will be discussed at the G7 meeting, including climate change, the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic and issues of economic security, Kishida sees the meeting’s location as an opportunity to reflect on the legacy of Hiroshima and reaffirm Japan’s commitment to nuclear disarmament.… Seguir leyendo »
Del 19 al 21 de mayo, los líderes de los países del G7 (Alemania, Canadá, Estados Unidos, Francia, Italia, Japón y el Reino Unido), junto con altos representantes de la Unión Europea, mantendrán una reunión cumbre en Hiroshima (Japón). Para muchos de ellos será la primera visita a la ciudad, una de las dos donde en agosto de 1945 se usaron armas nucleares. Y puesto que desde el final de la Guerra Fría nunca hubo tanto riesgo nuclear como hoy, no es esta una ocasión para tratar de pasar como nuevas las mismas políticas de no proliferación de las últimas décadas, sino que los líderes del G7 deben comprometerse con medidas de desarme concretas y creíbles, basadas en la prohibición de las armas nucleares.… Seguir leyendo »
It has been exactly five years since former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and more than two years since current U.S. President Joe Biden launched his drive to restore it. But despite high hopes, Biden has been unable to resurrect the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the JCPOA. In part, this is the administration’s failure; in early negotiations, Biden was hesitant to push Congress to back a controversial foreign policy initiative when he needed its support for his domestic agenda. The failure is also a consequence of Iranian obstinacy. As talks dragged on, Tehran threw up roadblocks and made multiple demands—including a guarantee that the next U.S.… Seguir leyendo »
Five years ago on Monday, then-U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 multilateral agreement that imposed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program. Although both the Trump and Biden administrations promised to find a better solution, the Iran nuclear crisis has only gotten worse. Economic pressure and external sabotage have not stopped Tehran from steadily increasing its uranium enrichment capabilities. Today, the regime is only weeks, if not days, away from the ability to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, should it choose to take that step.
Although restoring the JCPOA has become increasingly implausible, understanding how it worked—and what has been lost—is essential for future global nonproliferation efforts.… Seguir leyendo »
North Korea’s test of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is just the latest incident at a time of heightened nuclear risk across the globe, coming alongside Iran’s near weapons-grade uranium enrichment and Russia’s plans to station nuclear weapons in Belarus.
The US has also announced plans to deploy nuclear-armed submarines in the Pacific after requests for security assurances from the Republic of Korea which is increasingly concerned about the threat from North Korea. This announcement comes just weeks after Russia announced the deployment of its own nuclear-armed submarines in the Pacific.
Such an alarming uptick in nuclear-related activities highlights the increasing salience of nuclear weapons in global politics and the problems in nuclear diplomacy, but the multilateral toolkit can still provide effective responses.… Seguir leyendo »
In January, the U.S.–South Korean alliance was rocked by President Yoon Suk-yeol’s surprising suggestion: his country, a law-abiding member of the international system and a key U.S. ally, might need its own nuclear deterrent. In the United States, many foreign policy experts were aghast. A South Korean nuclear arsenal was unnecessary, they argued, because Seoul enjoys U.S. protection. Moreover, a South Korean nuclear program would violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), destabilize East Asia, and expose South Korea to crippling economic sanctions. A few days later, Yoon backpedaled, declaring that the country did not need nuclear weapons after all. The furor appeared to have subsided.… Seguir leyendo »
Las reiteradas amenazas de Vladimir Putin sobre el posible uso de misiles nucleares y, más recientemente, sobre su eventual despliegue en Bielorrusia han venido a recordarnos el terrible peligro que entraña la utilización de este tipo de armamento. Según numerosos observadores, desde la crisis de Cuba de 1962 el mundo nunca ha estado tan cerca de emprender una guerra nuclear, con la peculiaridad de que el arsenal disponible en el planeta es hoy mucho mayor que el existente durante la Guerra Fría.
Recordemos que la energía liberada en una explosión nuclear puede superar miles a millones de veces a la que se produce en las mayores detonaciones convencionales.… Seguir leyendo »
En 2022 volvió al mundo el fantasma del uso de armas nucleares en el marco de la invasión rusa de Ucrania. Desde entonces, Vladimir Putin ha blandido la espada nuclear de su país sobre Ucrania y Occidente.
Con ello, el presidente ruso trata de obligar a Ucrania a ceder a las demandas de Rusia y de disuadir a la OTAN de intervenir en el conflicto.
En un paso más allá de la amenaza, Putin anunció el pasado 25 de marzo el acuerdo con Bielorrusia para desplegar en este país armas nucleares tácticas, una nueva amenaza en la escalada de tensiones.
Ante esta situación, parece que el Tratado de No Proliferación Nuclear, un intento de salvaguardar al mundo de una catástrofe, se ve amenazado de nuevo.… Seguir leyendo »
In late March, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia intends to return short-range tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, underlining yet again the terrifying prospect of the use of such weapons in the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, North Korea is pursuing an accelerated program of missile tests, including of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can strike the United States. China appears committed to a significant expansion of its nuclear weapons program. And the future of nuclear arms control looks bleak, following Russia’s announcement earlier this year that it was suspending implementation of certain obligations under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the United States.… Seguir leyendo »
There aren’t enough palm trees, the Soviet general thought to himself. It was July 1962, and Igor Statsenko, the 43-year-old Ukrainian-born commander of the Red Army’s missile division, found himself inside a helicopter, flying over central and western Cuba. Below him lay a rugged landscape, with few roads and little forest. Seven weeks earlier, his superior—Sergei Biryuzov, the commander of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces—had traveled to Cuba disguised as an agricultural expert. Biryuzov had met with the country’s prime minister, Fidel Castro, and shared with him an extraordinary proposal from the Soviet Union’s leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to station ballistic nuclear missiles on Cuban soil.… Seguir leyendo »
Vladimir Putin last week gave details of Russia’s stated intent to base tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. The flurry of alarmist reporting on what this meant highlights much of what is wrong with Western responses to Russian nuclear intimidation.
How Putin’s words have been spun in the West may be a surprise to Moscow — but there’s no doubt it will be a highly gratifying one. Because Russia has already “used” nuclear weapons. It’s used them highly successfully without firing them, by trading on empty threats about potential nuclear strikes to very effectively deter the West from fully supporting Ukraine against Russia’s imperialist war.… Seguir leyendo »
When U.S. President Joe Biden assumed office, he was determined to resuscitate the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), from which his predecessor, Donald Trump, had unilaterally withdrawn the United States in 2018. Biden quickly appointed a special envoy to begin negotiations with Tehran and the five great powers that remain party to the agreement: China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom. In his first speech before the United Nations, he declared that his administration was “prepared to return to full compliance” and was engaged in diplomacy to persuade Iran to do the same.… Seguir leyendo »
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent decision to suspend Russia’s participation in the New START pact on nuclear weapons could be a blessing. If it prompts the United States to acknowledge that the bipolar world of U.S.-Russia nuclear arms agreements is a thing of the past, and that China must now be reckoned with as a third major nuclear power, then Putin will have done the United States a favor.
His intent, of course, was to try to intimidate the United States and its allies aiding Ukraine against Russia’s aggressions. Putin was playing another of his nuclear cards, just as he had with implicit threats to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine or to escalate the ongoing conventional war.… Seguir leyendo »
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