Strategic Analysis

The threat of nuclear terrorism should not be underestimated because it can have catastrophic effects if and when realised. Nor should the subject matter be politicised beyond a certain point because of its strong espousal by the United States, which has raised suspicions about whether the issue could be used as yet another instrument for asserting American hegemony. Institutionalisation of multilateral actions must therefore be supported and nuclear summit meetings must become the forums for addressing the doubts and concerns relating to the international initiatives.

• Mustafa Kibaroglu
• March 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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The third Nuclear Security Summit will be held in The Hague, Netherlands in March 2014. This visionary nuclear diplomacy will be facing both old and new questions at its third meeting. The basic question relates to the future of the summit process, which has made a significant contribution to international security in a very short span of time. The summit process, however, may serve it better, and the strengthening of the regime must be continued through the next two summits. However, with or without the summit process, the nuclear security regime has to be strengthened.

• Rajiv Nayan
• March 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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The Nuclear Security Summits are at a midway point but have not yet reached their full potential of eliminating weak links in the global nuclear security system. The first two summits, in Washington and Seoul, have had a beneficial impact by identifying common objectives, galvanising international action and reducing stockpiles of vulnerable nuclear materials. However, improving nuclear security governance is an important new issue. It could be introduced at the 2014 summit in The Hague and be a springboard for action at the 2016 summit in the US.

• Kenneth N. Luongo
• March 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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This article attempts to make a realistic assessment of the danger of nuclear terrorism. While acknowledging the catastrophic consequences of an act of terrorism employing either an improvised nuclear device or a violent attack against a nuclear installation causing spread of lethal radioactivity, it also highlights the complexity of the challenges likely to be confronted by any would-be nuclear terrorist.

• Naeem Salik
• March 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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Security experts the world over agree that nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to international peace and security in the 21st century. Since the end of the Cold War, there have been more than 20 confirmed cases of the illicit or unauthorised trafficking of fissile materials. Fissile material for more than 100,000 additional nuclear weapons is spread across the globe.

• Alexandra I. Toma
• March 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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India has been dealing with terrorism for several decades, and is therefore constructively involved in all genuine exercises for countering the menace. As terror groups are expected to use weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), India fully supports the legal and other operational measures and mechanisms adopted by multilateral and international organisations to mitigate the risk of WMD terrorism. A resolution has been steered in the United Nations General Assembly to gain international support for fighting WMD terrorism.

• Arvind Gupta , Rajiv Nayan
• March 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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The issue of nuclear security has several dimensions including security of nuclear materials and facilities, export controls, security of technologies and development of technologies that are proliferation-resistant. Each of these dimensions needs examination from an applicable perspective. India looks at nuclear technology and nuclear materials primarily as a resource for meeting a part of its requirements for electricity.

• R.B. Grover
• March 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was the first to fall to the thundering protests in that country in early 2010. Within a month, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was forced out of office by masses of protesters chanting against an authoritarian government that had closed its people off from every possible political avenue available to push for greater democratisation. The slogans Irhal [Leave!] and Al-Shaab Yureed Isqat al-Nizam [The People Want to Overthrow the Regime] reverberated from a tiny town on the periphery of the Arab world in Tunisia, to as far away as Yemen.

• Princy Marin George
• January 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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The rise of Asia, particularly China and India, is a significant development in the early 21st century. In the last three decades, China has transformed itself from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy. While China’s growing economic power has lifted more than 500 million people out of poverty, it has also modernised its defence sector. China is now playing an increasingly assertive role on the world stage. During the same period, India also registered significant progress in the economic and defence sectors.

• Saroj Bishoyi
• January 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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Eminent nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy and his co-authors in the seminal volume Confronting the Bomb: Pakistani and Indian Scientists Speak Out have defied the age-old perspective that nuclear weapons are the ultimate armaments of security. While courting controversy, the authors have presented nuclear issues considered taboo and yet critical. This is a bold attempt by a group of eminent scientists who ‘reject nuclear patriotism’ (p. xxii) and have delved into issues of ‘nuclear weapons, war, strategy and politics’ (p.

• Reshmi Kazi
• January 2014 |
• Strategic Analysis
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