Journal of International Studies

The U.S. needs to rethink its current position on reopening negotiations with Pyongyang.

Sanctions, centrifuges and personalities aren’t the only forces pushing Iran and the U.S. toward a détente.

Does Congress have the ability to scuttle a potential nuclear deal with Iran? White House Spokesman Jay Carney thinks so. During Tuesday’s press briefing, he declared  that, if Congress acts in such a way that a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue is “disallowed or ruled out”, it could create “a march to war.” Many Iran hawks have   taken issue  with Carney’s remarks, with John Bolton   saying that "Neville Chamberlain would be proud.” However, a common feature of these critiques is that they mischaracterize Carney’s argument, by asserting that Carney believes that the imposition of  any  new sanctions on Iran would derail negotiations and prompt a march to war. Elliot Abrams, for example,   wrote  that Carney “called any effort to adopt additional sanctions against Iran ‘a march to war.’” Carney did no such thing. Carney was not necessarily arguing against the imposition of any new sanctions; rather, he was taking issue with...

This article is based on a speech given by Alexei Arbatov at the international conference “Russia in the 21st-Century World of Power” held to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and the tenth anniversary of  Russia in Global Affairs . The “power of arms,” in other words, the role of military force in politics and war is mostly determined by the nature of potential and real arms conflicts; by military-technical progress and available economic resources needed for defense; and by ambitions and phobias of state leaders, military-industrial complexes and their contractors at research centers and in the media. PREMONITION OF WAR Contrary to the widespread belief among the Russian military-political elite, all objective parameters indicate that the threat of a major war is now (and in the future) less than ever in modern history. And the reason is not the stockpiles of nuclear weapons possessed by the leading powers: during the Cold War the...

The 1972 Shanghai Communique’s language on Taiwan can help solve a thorny P5+1–Iran issue.

John Kerry, U.S. secretary of state, Catherine Ashton, European Union high representative for foreign affairs, and Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran foreign minister, during the third day of nuclear talks in Geneva on November 9, 2013 (Jean-Christophe Bott/Courtesy Reuters). “ Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran ,” International Atomic Energy Agency, November 14, 2013. Since Iran began enriching uranium at its declared facilities, it has produced at those facilities: 10   356 kg  (+653 kg since the Director General’s previous report) of UF 6  enriched up to 5% U-235, of which 7154.3 kg (+380.3 kg since the Director General’s previous report) remain in the form of UF 6  enriched up to 5% U-235 and the rest has been further processed (as detailed in paragraphs 22,28 and 41 below) Hon. Matthew G. Olsen, “ The Homeland Threat Landscape and U.S. Response ,” Senate Comm...

Author:  Sheila A. Smith , Senior Fellow for Japan Studies September - October 2013 Vol.1, No.2

Iran's past covert enrichment activities—especially the revelation of Natanz in 2002 and Fordow in 2009—have raised concerns about whether other covert enrichment facilities exist in Iran today. In August 2010, then (and current) Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi claimed that the construction of an additional enrichment facility had started. However, operating a covert enrichment program is not an easy task. Several important decisions must be made which could have severe consequences for the program's survivability. For an external actor, there are three main tasks that would need to be undertaken in order to destroy a nuclear facility: detecting the facility, characterizing the facility and neutralizing it. Each of these tasks can be obstructed by different means. Detecting and characterizing a nuclear facility can be done in several ways: with satellite surveillance; utilizing technologies that can detect radiation, heat concentrations, sound or vibrations associ...