Among the potentially contentious issues requiring focused attention and innovative thinking by the Obama administration are those relating to the future of U.S. deterrence planning. Members of the administration are already on record as favoring a significant unilateral reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons. Some are calling for the ratification of a Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty; others are questioning proposals to update the U.S. nuclear infrastructure and modernize the U.S. nuclear warhead inventory to make American deterrent forces better able to meet and counter legacy and emerging deterrence threats and challenges. This paper provides an assessment of the future of U.S. nuclear planning and offers new ideas about deterrence in the dramatically changed twenty-first-century security planning environment.

North Korea's recent nuclear test is only the latest in a series of moves by Pyongyang that seem directed at “shaping a new diplomatic framework” for the Korean Peninsula, rejecting the Six-Party process and returning to its traditional insistence on bilateral talks with the United States to end the Korean War. These developments illustrate the strong linkages between North Korean denuclearization and peace regime building on the Korean Peninsula (i.e., trying to institute a political solution to the Korean War beyond just a military armistice). Working with partners in South Korea, the United States, and China, IFPA is in the middle of a three-year project exploring peace regime building on the Korean Peninsula in ways that support and facilitate the denuclearization objectives of the Six-Party Talks; this interim report describes the results of over a year’s worth of interviews, research, and a U.S.-South Korea bilateral workshop, up to and including North Korea’s May 2009 nuclear test.

Report of an October 2008 conference sponsored by the Stanley Foundation, the National Committee on North Korea, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Chinese Arms Control and Disarmament Association, March 2009

We need only ponder the problems posed by an Iran without nuclear weapons to begin to assess the challenges of an Iran in possession of an operational nuclear weapons capability. Considering the issue from the perspective of three different heuristic models of Iran’s proliferation—a defensive Iran, an aggressive Iran, and an unstable Iran—this report assesses the political, strategic, and operational implications of Iran’s attainment of a nuclear weapons capability. It assumes that absent strong, unified, multilateral action to impose a strict sanctions regime, a United Nations Security Council-approved embargo, or other tightly enforced trade and financial restrictions, current policies will not suffice to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state.

This 2008 monograph presents the findings of a three-year multilateral research project that explores ways to bridge differences among the parties and to develop a common approach to North Korean nuclearization. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of the six-party process and offers practical solutions to the numerous implementation challenges regarding nuclear dismantlement and verification, and coordinated economic assistance and investment.

A bilateral workshop to help develop an allied consensus with regard to peace regime development on the Korean Peninsula and for broader U.S.-ROK policy coordination vis-à-vis North Korea.

A multilateral dialogue looking beyond the immediate challenges associated with North Korean denuclearization to begin to chart a course for managing that country’s re-entry into the NPT in ways that strengthen regional and global nonproliferation and disarmament norms.

Government officials and foreign-policy experts from the United States, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Australia gathered for a one-day workshop to discuss the six-party talks and to explore options for building regional capacity to implement a denuclearization agreement with North Korea, if and when one is concluded.