Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell traveled to South Asia, at least in part "to lower the temperature," over Kashmir. On October 15 the urgency of his mission was dramatized by the Indian shelling across the Line of Control at Pakistani positions. There is fear that heightened tensions and heated rhetoric might spill over into unintended military escalation in the mountains of Kashmir.
The Bush-Putin arms control roller-coaster took another turn for the worse last Thursday when President Bush stated in no uncertain terms that he will continue to press his Russian counterpart on the need to scrap the 1972 ABM Treaty. In one fell swoop, the administration hopes not only to implement its 'new strategic relationship' with Russia sans the ABM Treaty, but also speed development and deployment of its missile defense program at home. Such a move, however, makes achieving the Administration's near term goal of deploying a missile defense with Russia's blessing harder, and could result in long-term damage to the U.S.- Russian relationship.
This book examines the forces—political, strategic, technological, and ideational—that led to India's dramatic nuclear policy shift and describes how New Delhi's force-in-being will be fashioned, particularly in light of the threat India faces from its two most salient adversaries, China, and Pakistan.
An internal government report, obtained by an outside watch-dog group, reveals that America's 10 nuclear weapons research and production facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack and have failed about half of recent security drills. In several cases, commando squads were able to capture enough nuclear materials to make nuclear weapons. If this report scares you, then just imagine how much worse things are in Russia, with its huge and under-funded nuclear weapons complex.
Lost amid the commotion surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks were alarming comments made earlier in the month by former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu urging Israel to openly deploy nuclear weapons and abandon its policy of strategic ambiguity. How the world deals with the Israeli "bomb in the basement" at this critical point in time could have lasting affects on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and beyond.
Military operations appear imminent as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld takes a swing through the Middle East and Central Asia. But this will not be like previous wars. Don't expect to see explosions behind CNN reporters. The targets will be select, precise and far from telephoto lenses.
Closer than expected cooperation between Moscow and Washington opens the door to a genuine improvement of the relationship between the two former cold war adversaries in ways not seen since the early days of Russian reform in the 1990s. There is a broad belief in Moscow that a genuine opportunity to build trust, confidence and a true security partnership has developed out of the rubble in New York and Washington.
A stray remark by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld caused confusion and concern in parts of Europe on Monday, September 24. When he would not explicitly rule out the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror, headlines and television featured stories on a new "Rischio Atomica," (Atomic Risk) Joseph Cirincione reports from Italy. While support for America is strong, there is concern that the U.S. might go too far in its new war.