CNS News & Views: May 2019

Middlebury Institute of International Studies

James Martin Center for

Nonproliferation Studies

Options for a Verifiable Freeze on North Korea's Missile Program

Recent developments in US-North Korean diplomacy underscore the difficulty of achieving far-reaching disarmament objectives at a stroke. A verifiable freeze—a reversible halt to certain activities that the concerned parties are able to confirm—can serve as an initial step that promotes trust and creates space for patient, in-depth negotiations, while also providing concrete security benefits.

The newest CNS occasional paper identifies and evaluates options for freezing the testing, production, and deployment of North Korean missiles, among other potential steps. These options might be pursued singly, in combination, or sequentially. The paper identifies some of the precedents for these activities and describes both the verification requirements and the security benefits associated with each option.

Read CNS Occasional Paper #46

CNS at the 2019 NPT PrepCom

As in past years, CNS experts, students, and alumni participated in the preparatory committee (PrepCom) meeting of states parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which took place in New York from April 29–May 10.

From serving on country delegations and UN Secretariat staff, to presenting at key side events and live tweeting every twist and turn of the debates, the "MIIS Mafia"—led by CNS Director Bill Potter, IONP Program Director Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, and Eurasia Program Director Sarah Bidgood—had a visible impact at the PrepCom,

How NATO Could Solve the Suwalki Gap Challenge

The Sulwaki Gap, a corridor between Russia and Belarus, is regarded by some as a chokepoint by which Russia could potentially occupy the Baltic states, presenting challenges for NATO. Writing in the National Interest, Senior Fellow Nikolai Sokov takes a closer look at these challenges and outlines three possible approaches, all of them uncomfortable, but only one "that holds any hope of avoiding conflict."

The Winners of the 2018

McElvany Award

It's a tie!

The dual winners of the 2018 Doreen and Jim McElvany Nonproliferation Challenge, a award recognizing outstanding scholarship published in the Nonproliferation Review, are:

John Krige and Jayita Sarkar's article, "US technological collaboration for nonproliferation: key evidence from the Cold War," which presented outstanding historical research that makes a direct intervention into a hot topic in scholarly quantitative literature with clear policy relevance.
Hassan Elbahtimy's article, "Missing the mark: Dimona and Egypt's slide into the 1967 Arab-Israeli War," which offered important new primary research, including in Arabic, on an important historical case, shedding new light on the debate over the importance of Israeli's nuclear capabilities in Egyptian thinking.

The honorable mention prize is awarded to Rebecca Davis Gibbons for her article, " The humanitarian turn in nuclear disarmament and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons," which offers original primary source research into a compelling historical narrative and the causal process that led to the treaty's creation.

Grand prize winners will receive $4,000. The honorable mention prize winner will receive $1,000. All three articles are now available free of charge through the end of 2020, courtesy of the publisher, Taylor & Francis.

Judge Juche 3

Judge Juche is back, this time with a look at the Wise Honest , the North Korean cargo ship accused of illegally transporting almost $3 million worth of coal in violation of US and United Nations sanctions.

Originally seized by Indonesia last year, the Wise Honest was subjected to a civil asset forfeiture complaint filed by the United States, days after North Korea test fired new missiles.

Research Associate Cameron Trainer discusses the implications of the Wise Honest forfeiture, both for the future of US-DPRK relations as well as for US and global counterproliferation activities writ large.

Learn more about the Wise Honest case

Training Young Female Professionals

VCDNP Executive Director Laura Rockwood participated as an instructor in a training course, jointly organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA). During the course, which took place in Vienna from May 6–10, 2019, 50 young female professionals studied arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament issues from some of the most highly regarded experts in the field.

Ms. Rockwood provided a lecture focused on the history of IAEA safeguards and, more broadly, the nuclear era. Her presentation began with the 1938 discovery of uranium fission by Austrian scientists Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn, and ended with an accent on modern challenges, not the least of which include nuclear black markets and the recent chill in US-Russian relations.

CANDU nuclear power plant at Zhejiang China Courtesy of Wikimedia

China's Big Plans for Nuclear Energy

"China's voracious appetite for new nuclear power plants has helped to slow the decline in recent years of an ailing nuclear industry long dominated by the United States and Europe," writes Miles Pomper in the World Politics Review. But, "according to Chinese government projections, within the next decade China may surpass the United States as the world's leading nuclear energy producer."

But will China's hopes pan out?

Find out

In Memoriam

In the past four weeks, the arms control and nonproliferation community lost three champions.

Senator Richard Lugar was a visionary legislator, coauthoring with Sam Nunn the monumental Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and leading the ratification of many of the most consequential arms control treaties. "No one," wrote CNS Director Bill Potter, "did more to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction."

Days later, Dr. David Hamburg, a founding member of the CNS International Advisory Board (IAB), also passed. As head of the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1982 to 1997, Dr. Hamburg was instrumental in the development and success of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

And finally, CNS mourned the loss of Ellen Tauscher, a master of nuclear weapons and arms control policy in the Congress and IAB member, who eventually served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security under President Barack Obama. "Her warmth and enthusiasm made her an especially appreciated friend of the Center," wrote Deputy Director Sandy Spector, "and we will miss her greatly."