Emerging Technologies and Southern Asian Nuclear Deterrence
by Rabia Akhtar and Manpreet Sethi
Although every emerging technology may not necessarily disrupt strategic stability among Southern Asia’s three nuclear states, dialogues are needed to better understand each other’s threat perceptions and capability developments while collaboratively using relevant ETs to deal with shared security challenges like climate change, food security, and public health.
Emerging Tech and the Israel-Iran Nuclear Relationship
by Doreen Horschig
Emerging technologies have both enhanced Iran’s threat to Israel but also improved Israel’s counterproliferation capabilities, delaying Iran’s nuclear weapons acquisition without necessitating a preemptive strike. If Iran eventually acquires nuclear capabilities, however, the deterrent effect of ET could shift, potentially destabilizing the relationship further.
Russia's Drive for AI: Do Deeds Match the Words?
by Anna Nadibaidze
Russia has declared its objective of becoming an AI leader by 2030, but various social, economic, and technological challenges even before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine mean a clear gap has appeared between its rhetoric and capabilities. This gap, however, increases risks of misperceptions and threats to strategic stability.
Recalibrating Arms Control for Emerging Technologies
by Anna Péczeli
Arms control’s utility is highly contested today, but it includes a rich variety of mechanisms which can be recalibrated to help manage competition in emerging technologies. Conceiving of arms control today as a competitive process, seeking not to limit the development of emerging technologies but constraining their most destabilizing applications, is a more useful framework.
Arms Control Lessons from Latin America
by J. Luis Rodriguez
Latin American countries have a tradition, refined in nuclear governance, of using international humanitarian law to regulate arsenals to protect civilians and try to limit armed conflicts. Yet despite this general regional consensus, different countries have different views about the appropriate fora and partners with whom to craft arms control for emerging technologies.
Provocations
History's Revenge: NATO's Nuclear-Conventional Debate Returns
by Sara Moller
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, facing questions about US security assurances before and after Trump’s election, and unable to meet the requirements of a forward defense strategy on their own in the near term, Alliance strategists are likely to embrace nuclear deterrence, at least rhetorically. Yet, such a state of affairs could potentially lead to escalation risks and deteriorating security for all.
Burden Sharing for What? NATO Implications of Three US Visions
by Linde Desmaele
With Trump’s reelection to the US presidency, burden sharing once again promises to become a prominent issue for NATO. Yet, there are three distinct US visions for burden sharing competing for political influence today. Each vision has different costs, benefits, and risks for European allies, promising varying effects for the transatlantic alliance and European security more broadly.
Will Japan Have the Political Resolve to Use Counterstrike?
by Rintaro Inoue
In December 2022, then-Prime Minister Kishida made a groundbreaking decision to introduce counterstrike capabilities, but under what circumstances would Tokyo use them against China or any other actor? This article analyzes the decision-making process and four potential obstacles that would be involved to assess Tokyo’s political resolve to conduct potential counterstrike missions.
Remote Sanctions-Busting: A Post-COVID New Normal?
by Aaron Arnold and Daniel Salisbury
New technologies sped up by the COVID-19 pandemic have created opportunities for sanctions evaders to essentially “work from home” without a geographic location. While this “remote sanctions-busting” may seem like just another adaptation, its implications may actually be quite significant. How should sanctions which are increasingly unenforceable be calibrated?
Social Media and Diplomacy's Evolution
by Juan Luis Manfredi, Ricardo Arredondo, and Leesa Danzek
The diplomatic world is learning in real time to converse with new online influencers who are activists as well as sources of both open-source intelligence but also misinformation. So how does diplomacy function in this new world?
Behind the Headlines
Insights from previous issues
The Predictable Hazards of Unpredictability: Why Madman Behavior Doesn't Work
by Samuel Seitz and Caitlin Talmadge
Do “madman” tactics yield foreign policy success? The historical record, both before Trump’s presidency and during it, demonstrates that madman tactics fail to strengthen deterrence or generate bargaining leverage with either peer competitors or “rogue states” for three reasons. From our Fall 2020 issue.
Eyes Wide Open: Strategic Elite Views of South Korea’s Nuclear Options
by Victor D. Cha
Does South Korea sit on the nuclear precipice? An echo chamber in Washington and Seoul about South Korea’s nuclear ambitions has been informed by a handful of recent public opinion polls. The author both analyzes a wider set of these polls and presents the findings from the first American multi-question polling of South Korean strategic elites on the nuclear question, finding far more caution, and resistance, to South Korea going nuclear…but not unconditionally. From our Summer 2024 issue.
America's Role in a Post-American Middle East
by Dalia Dassa Kaye
Perceptions of whether the United States is “staying or going” in the Middle East are
increasingly divorced from realities on the ground. The US is both engaged in the region and seeking to reduce its direct commitments, but American regional predominance, if it ever really existed, is certainly now over. So, what is the American role in a post-American Middle East? From our Spring 2022 issue.
Upsetting the Balance: Why Russia Chose Hamas Over Israel
by Kimberly Marten
Immediately after the horrific Hamas terrorist onslaught against Israel, Putin’s Russia seemed to abandon Israel in favor of Hamas, bringing Russia’s relationship with Israel to a post-Cold War low. Why? There are at least three possibilities, including one that is frequently overlooked: that Putin recognizes the power balance between Russia and Iran has shifted in Tehran’s favor. From our Fall 2024 issue.
Managing the Dilemmas of Alliance Burden Sharing
by Brian Blankenship
Burden sharing is a double-edged sword; allies that become more self-reliant also become more capable of spurning Washington. Although US allies in Western Europe might be better positioned to fend for themselves than those in the Indo-Pacific, successfully encouraging burden sharing in Europe also poses a greater risk of alliance decoupling. To manage these dilemmas, the US has three policy options. From our Spring 2024 issue.
China’s America Policy: Back to the Future
by Thomas Fingar and David M. Lampton
US-China ties are worse than they have been since the early 1950s, and will likely deteriorate further unless both sides take steps neither is yet willing or able to. To achieve wary coexistence and productive cooperation requires a deeper understanding of China’s goals, fears and behavior. A good place to begin is by acknowledging that much of China’s American policy harkens back to earlier eras—an old mindset sacrificing growth to reduce vulnerability to external interference. From our Winter 2024 issue.
