CNS News & Views: July 2020

Middlebury Institute of International Studies

James Martin Center for

Nonproliferation Studies

July 2020

Summer School for Diplomats

The 2020 Summer School brought together more than 70 participants from 25 Latin American and Caribbean countries and close to 30 expert speakers, including senior diplomats and heads of international organizations, a hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor), two Nobel laureates, and many world-renowned experts in nuclear weapons and associated materials, nuclear diplomacy, and international law.

This year's novel online format, developed by the Instituto Matias Romero, allowed for a much larger group of participants than ever before. The school ran for two weeks and was organized in conjunction with the Mexican Foreign Ministry, the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Instituto Matias Romero (Diplomatic Academy in Mexico City).

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No Value in Resuming Nuclear Testing

Writing for The Conversation on the 75th anniversary of the detonation of the first nuclear bomb, physicist Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress and arms control expert Miles Pomper argue that a return to US nuclear explosive testing would have "no value, from either the scientific or diplomatic perspective ... . In fact, all the evidence suggests that such a move would threaten US national security."

Beyond matters of science and domestic politics, the authors contend that it would be a geopolitical error as well. "If the US were to resume nuclear testing, it would be a green light for all other nations to start their own testing," creating an opportunity for lesser-established nuclear powers like Iran, India, Pakistan, and China "to gather huge amounts of information and improve their weapons while the US would gain next to nothing."

The article is free to reproduce

COVID-19 in Egypt and Mali

Since no country is safe from COVID-19 until all countries are safe, CNS hosted a webinar featuring two former Visiting Fellows— Dr. Mona El Shokry and Ms. Kadiatao Dao —discussing the effects and response to the pandemic in their respective countries, Egypt and Mali.

Both experts were Visiting Fellows and Robin Copeland Memorial Fellows during the fall of 2015.

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Winners of the 2019 McElvany Nonproliferation Award

The editors of the Nonproliferation Review announced Dr. Covell Meyskens as the Grand Prize winner of this year's Doreen and Jim McElvany Nonproliferation Award for his article, “ Chinese views of the nuclear endgame in North Korea .”

Three articles tied for 2nd place:

Emmanuelle Maitre and Pauline Lévy’s “Becoming a disarmament champion: the Austrian crusade against nuclear weapons”
Sayaka Shingu’s “Wooing Kampala: a case study in implementing the nonproliferation sanctions against North Korea”
Nicholas Seltzer’s “Baekgom : the development of South Korea’s first ballistic missile.”

All four articles are now available free of charge until July 2021, courtesy of the publisher, Taylor & Francis.

Submit your research to the Nonproliferation Review for your chance to win!

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A Shared Powerful Experience

The COVID-19 pandemic upended almost all of the plans of the Critical Issues Forum (CIF) for the year. As the Spring 2020 conference moved into an online format, it also inspired CIF Program Director Masako Toki to think about how the virtual format could be used to strengthen the network of young people committed to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

Thus spawned the idea to host a wider, CIF alumni meeting, the first of its kind. In this way, adversity proved to be an opportunity. In total, more than 40 alumni students and teachers from Japan, Russia, and around the United States joined the meeting.