June 12, 2024

Arms Control Monitoring Regimes

The successful negotiation of arms control agreements generally requires each participant’s implementation of, and compliance with, the terms of the agreement. Various types of monitoring are often directly codified within the agreement; for example, a number of past and present agreements include monitoring regimes featuring carefully regulated,

Sept. 13, 2023

The Role of Special Operations Forces in Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction

With their global presence, reach, and capabilities, U.S. special operations forces (SOF) are critical for competing and winning in the WMD-infected security environment. Core SOF capabilities work to shape the operating environment in the current “steady state” landscape in a manner that serves to deter, dissuade, and frustrate adversaries from pursuing or acquiring WMD.

July 23, 2019

Book Review: Biosecurity in Putin's Russia

The extensive research and sober discussion and analysis presented in Zilinskas and Mauger’s work may shed enough light to illuminate a path toward effective action.

July 23, 2019

Book Review: The End of Strategic Stability?: Nuclear Weapons and the Challenge of Regional Rivalries

In this book review, published in Strategic Studies Quarterly, Dr. Justin Anderson argues that Rubin and Stulberg's volume will leave readers better informed about how Great Powers and regional actors believe nuclear weapons either undergird or undermine strategic stability.

July 30, 2018

Alternative North Korean Nuclear Futures

Dr. Shane Smith takes stock of what we know about North Korea's nuclear motivations, capabilities, and ambitions.

July 30, 2018

North Korea's Strategic Culture and Its Evolving Nuclear Strategy

Dr. Shane Smith assesses how North Korea's peculiar strategic culture might impact its decisions over nuclear doctrine and command and control arrangements.

May 10, 2018

Iran's Strategic Culture: Implications for Nuclear Policy

Fort Lesley J McNair — This book chapter, published in Crossing Nuclear Thresholds: Leveraging Sociocultural Insights into Nuclear Decisionmaking assesses the principal drivers of Iran's strategic culture and their broader implications for the country's nuclear decisionmaking processes.

Feb. 1, 2014

Leadership Divided? The Domestic Politics of Iran's Nuclear Debate

The implementation of the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) between Iran and the P5+1 has raised hopes that the agreement will mark a first step toward a long-term, comprehensive solution to international concerns about Iran's nuclear program. Although Ayatollah Khamenei has publicly endorsed the efforts of President Hassan Rouhani's nuclear negotiating

June 1, 2009

Are We Prepared? Four WMD Crises That Could Transform U.S. Security

This report, written by the staff of the National Defense University Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the fall of 2008 and the early winter of 2009, was conceived initially as a transition paper for the new administration following the 2008 American Presidential election. This report presents four weapons of mass destruction

Jan. 1, 2008

Combating WMD Threats

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—and the specter of these weapons falling into the hands of terrorists—defines what may well be America’s gravest strategic challenge in the years ahead. At a time when partisan debate over national security has become more commonplace, no one seriously disputes the stakes in this case.1While