In the West, Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy is often described as one of “escalate to deescalate”. The thinking goes that Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons at an early stage in a conflict in order to “deescalate” and terminate the confrontation quickly in its favour....

As diplomatic initiatives have thus far failed to achieve the objective of a complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), and given that a military solution is generally considered to be unfeasible, sanctions have become the central...

A close reading of Russia’s nuclear statements and actions during the first seven months of its war against Ukraine reveals a threefold approach. Moscow is walking a fine line between a well-crafted and successful deterrence strategy to prevent foreign military intervention; a more modest and...

While the world’s attention is focused on Russia’s war against Ukraine and the inten­sifying conflict between the US and China, the security situation on the Korean Peninsula has continued to deteriorate. North Korea is steadily advancing the expansion of its military capabilities and...

Originally scheduled for 2020, the 10th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) had to be deferred four times. It was not until August 2022 that the 191 NPT states finally met. At least since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, observers had expected that...

From the late 1970s into the early 1990s, U.S. federal law mandated the executive branch to prepare annual analytical documents known as Arms Control Impact Statements (ACIS). These instruments – obviously patterned after the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), which had been inaugurated...

Eindrücklich wie nie zuvor klärt Chomsky über die existenziellen Bedrohungen durch Atomwaffen und den Klimawandel auf. Er stellt diese Bedrohungen in den Kontext einer nie dagewesenen Macht der Konzerne und einer zunehmend global vernetzten rechten Elite von der Republikanischen Partei bis...

The administration of President Donald J. Trump has consistently used fear of China to undermine nearly five decades of bipartisan consensus on US–Russian nuclear arms control. The negative consequences of these actions may last far beyond the Trump presidency. If generations of agreement...

The paper analyses the determinants of ratification of international treaties concerning arms control. It theorizes that the ratification of an arms control treaty serves as a signal of a country's intention to avoid arms races and wars. I argue that fast growing countries have a special...

This article examines the effect of leaders' foreign policy preferences on their ability to pursue and ratify arms control agreements. Does it take a “Nixon to go to China,” with hawks more effective than doves when it comes to the domestic politics of treaty ratification? We observe that...

Reviews the prominent works in recent years on the relative merits of total nuclear disarmament, and argue that while nuclear weapons have not become irrelevant, they have become less relevant as a result of the processes of globalization

Natural law principles played an important role in the early development of international legal theory, but were subsequently displaced by positivist ideals. Within the past half-century, fundamental changes in international society have revealed the limitations of a purely positivist approach...

In this energy-constrained world, it is often the politics and not the economics that defines access to energy resources. Growing energy demand of the Asian countries, and in particular, countries where conventional fuel choices are inadequate, are prompting them to look for newer energy options...

Satellites, missiles and the geopolitics of East Asia / Tim Beal, Retired -- An emergent path of the six-party talks : toward institutional multilateralism in Northeast Asia / Ki-Joon Hong -- Domestic propaganda and press support : examining the Obama administration's handling of the 2009 North...

As the polar ice-cap melts, human and economic activity increases in the Arctic region. Thus, the risk of conflict in the area also increases. This has made it more urgent to establish non-military, cooperative mechanisms for environmental protection and security in the Arctic. On August 10,...

Providing assurances about security to another state or states is a potentially useful technique for achieving defense and foreign policy goals. Security assurances play an especially prominent role in the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Empirical research remains limited, however, on the...

This volume presents a range of views on the current state of global nuclear disarmament from eminent scholars from India, Israel and France. Chapters present and analyse the relationships between India, Pakistan and the USA, Russia and the USA, the position of the EU and of Israel

This volume presents a range of views on the current state of global nuclear disarmament from eminent scholars from India, Israel and France. Chapters present and analyse the relationships between India, Pakistan and the USA, Russia and the USA, the position of the EU and of Israel. The...

Forecasts pressure on the fragile nuclear nonproliferation regime because of expected increases in civilian nuclear power nationwide due to global demand and concerns over energy security and greenhouse gas emissions and addresses how the nuclear industry can act as a responsible partner in...

This critical review of the new political science literature on the causes of nuclear weapons proliferation consists of seven parts. The first section briefly presents what we know about which states developed nuclear weapons and which states started but abandoned weapons development programs. I...