Oct. 1, 2009

President Nixon’s Decision to Renounce the U.S. Offensive Biological Weapons Program

The nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was a prominent feature of the Cold War. A lesser known but equally dangerous element of the superpower competition involved biological weapons (BW), living microorganisms that cause fatal or incapacitating diseases in humans, animals, or plants. By the late 1960s, the United

July 1, 2009

Aligning Disarmament to Nuclear Dangers: Off to a Hasty START?

Confronted by a daunting array of nuclear threats, and having pledged to reinvigorate the application of disarmament tools to address these dangers, the Obama administration has decided to focus its initial efforts on negotiating a new bilateral agreement with Russia to replace the Cold War–era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires

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

April 1, 2007

The Future Nuclear Landscape

This Occasional Paper examines aspects of the contemporary and emerging international security environment that the authors believe will define the future nuclear landscape and identifies some associated priorities for policymakers.

Nov. 1, 2001

The Counterproliferation Imperative: Meeting Tomorrow's Challenges

This monograph describes the current state of the field with respect to the intelligence, policy, operational, and programmatic issues related to counterproliferation. It seeks to present the counterproliferation imperative within the broader context of strategy and deterrence developing in the Bush administration and highlights key contemporary issues. Finally, the monograph suggests areas for future emphasis in improving our understanding of the NBC threat in further developing appropriate responses.

March 1, 2001

Beyond Nonproliferation: Secondary Supply, Proliferation Management, and U.S. Foreign Policy

This article addresses both the supply motivations and the behavior of the three most significant secondary suppliers of proliferation technology (Russia, China and North Korea) as well as various U.S. policy responses designed to mitigate these activities.