Nuclear proliferation

Quanteda is an R package built to analyze textual data, and is applied in this experimental research paper to the study of political speech in the UNGD text corpus created by Mikhaylov, Baturo, and Dasandi (2017). This assignment, submitted in partial fulfilment of the MSc Security Studies programme at University College London (UCL), applies some of the tools of the Quanteda package to the issue of nuclear proliferation and policy sentiment between China and North Korea, providing some insights about topic divergence between the two nation's addresses to the United Nations General Debate since the growth of North Korea's nuclear weapons arsenal. This experimental paper provides some insight into the efficacy of Quanteda as a way of analysing policy preference and lexical clusters for early researchers and International Relations students.

Wenn ein Unterzeichnerland des Vertrages selbst vor einem der fünf Garanten des Sperrabkommens nicht sicher sein kann: Welchen Sinn hat dann das Verbot der Nichtweiterverbreitung von Kernwaffen? Im Austausch gegen einen Abbau von Nuklearwaffen erteilen drei atomwaffenbesitzende UNO-Sicherheitsratsmitglieder dem abrüstenden Land kollektive, ausdrückliche und schriftlich fixierte Sicherheitszusagen. Eines dieser Großmächte erklärt jedoch 20 Jahre später diese Vereinbarung für nichtig: Welches Land ohne eigene Atomwaffen oder enges Bündnis mit einer Nuklearmacht kann sich nun der Unverletzlichkeit seiner Grenzen noch sicher sein? Wenn selbst eine mit Ausnahmerechten ausgestattete Vetomacht im UNO-Sicherheitsrat sich auf Kosten eines Nachbarstaates territorial ausdehnen kann, dann wird das internationale Atomwaffensperrregime zum Selbstbedienungsladen der offiziellen Nuklearmächte.

In 2009, after US president Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for, amongst others, his commitment to long-term nuclear disarmament (BBC,2009), Time Magazine published an article titled “Want Peace? Give the Nuke a Nobel”. This reflects the long-standing claim that, far from a threat to world peace, nuclear weapons--or the fear of them--can actually be instrumental in reducing the incidence of violent conflict, by deterring not merely their own use, but also any conventional war that could trigger a nuclear exchange. Though the fear of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' has long been a well-established concept in (nuclear) deterrence theory, few have taken this argument to its logical conclusion--the idea, developed most famously by Kenneth N. Waltz in his controversial ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better’ (1981), that if the mutual fear of nuclear war can deter states from conventional war, and if such deterrence is stable, then perhaps measured nuclear proliferation to other countries could be the best stabilizer of regional and global conflict, ultimately creating zones of 'Nuclear Peace'.

The suggestions that nuclear weapons might be ‘the best [and] only peacekeeping weapon that the world has ever known’ [Sagan & Waltz,2010: 92], and that their ‘horizontal’ proliferation to other states might constitute ‘an international good’ [Waltz, 2009, 431], are remarkable and highly controversial, as they fly in the face of both the Non-Proliferation Treaty (‘NPT’), as well as dominant attitudes in the West towards many nuclear-threshold states, such as Iran and North Korea.

Driven by the question "would the world be safer if more nations had nuclear weapons?", this article examines the chief arguments presented against and in favor of broad nuclear proliferation, and their counterarguments. To answer this question, I briefly theorize the positive or negative impact, on deterrence
stability and military-organizational safety, of conditions such as asymmetrical strategic force strengths or -postures (counterforce / countervalue); novel technologies (cost-effective missile shields), operational protocols
(‘launch-on-warning’) and finally several ‘deterrence-breaking’ strategies ('Hamburg grab'; 'madman strategy').

In terms of structure, this essay will present the general architecture of deterrence theory; common arguments against Waltz's 'laissez-faire' nuclear proliferation--and their validity. It will be considered if the ‘nuclear peace’-model, even if valid for the Cold War, is sufficiently applicable and transposable to other contexts to warrant Waltz’ advocacy of ‘total proliferation’—or whether proliferation should be ‘limited’ because the safety and stability of nuclear deterrence are not assured, either because its strategic logic can be subverted in ‘rogue states’ who lack rationality and restraint, or because the 'vulnerability' of 'poor’ nations small arsenals invites a decapitation strike. I will argue that this is not the case, and that Waltz’s ‘total’ form of proliferation optimism is indeed the most, or even the only legitimate ‘pro-proliferation’—or indeed, non-disarmament—argument.

Nevertheless, I conclude that even Waltz's cogent formulation fails to make the case for a ‘nuclear world’ being meaningfully safer, as it does not come to terms with how instability, irrationality, and most importantly organizational accidents are not mere imperfections of nuclear deterrence, but rather irreducible, essential, and inevitable to it, making systemic breakdown inevitable, cataclysmic, and in the long-term terminal.

Zusammenfassung:Das Memorandum über Sicherheitszusagen für die Ukraine, das im Dezember 1994 auf dem KSZE-Gipfeltreffen in Budapest unterzeichnet wurde, schuf eine Verbindung zwischen dem Nuklearen Nichtverbreitungsvertrag (NVV) von 1968 sowie der ukrainischen politischen Souveränität und territorialen Integrität. Kiew hatte sich erst dann bereit erklärt, sein damals in der Welt drittgrößtes Atomwaffenarsenal abzubauen, nachdem die Vereinigten Staaten, Großbritannien und Russland, als die Depositarstaaten des NVV, im Budapester Memorandum sowie Frankreich und China in separaten Regierungsdeklarationen der Ukraine ihren Respekt für ihre Unabhängigkeit und Grenzen versichert hatten. Dies ist einer der Gründe, weshalb mögliche Pläne der Trump-Administration für einen Neustart der Beziehungen zum Kreml weder eine explizite noch implizite Aufweichung der US-amerikanischen Position gegenüber der fortgesetzten russischen Bekämpfung des ukrainischen Staates einschließen sollte.

Les Etats adoptent-ils une posture plus ambitieuse, plus agressive ou plus provocante une fois qu'ils disposent d'un nombre minimal d'armes nucléaires ? Cette question, longtemps éclipsée par celle de "l'équilibre de la terreur", s'avère d'une pertinence croissante.

For nearly fifty years after the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an ideological standoff that at times seemed to threaten the very future of the planet. This volume not only looks at the political and military strategies used by both sides during this lengthy confrontation but also at the after-effects that these strategies had on the culture of the world as a whole.

North Korea is perilously close to developing strategic nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States and its East Asian allies. Since their first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea has struggled to perfect the required delivery systems. Kim Jong-un's regime now appears to be close, however. Sung Chull Kim, Michael D. Cohen, and the volume contributors contend that the time to prevent North Korea from achieving this capability is virtually over; scholars and policymakers must turn their attention to how to deter a nuclear North Korea. The United States, South Korea, and Japan must also come to terms with the fact that North Korea will be able to deter them with its nuclear arsenal. How will the erratic Kim Jong-un behave when North Korea develops the capability to hit medium- and long-range targets with nuclear weapons? How will and should the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China respond, and what will this mean for regional stability in the short term and long term? The international group of authors in this volume address these questions and offer a timely analysis of the consequences of an operational North Korean nuclear capability for international security.

"Kim and Cohen's volume on North Korea offers a 360 degree view of one of the most vexing problems for US foreign policy and national security. The authors each bring a unique analytic angle to the problem ranging from deterrence theory to the foreign policies of key protagonists like the United States, South Korea, and China. There is something here for both the expert and the general reader who want to make sense of this enigmatic regime and its increasingly risk-acceptant behavior." ― Victor Cha, D.S. Song-Korea Foundation Professor of Government and International Affairs and Director of Asian Studies, Georgetown University. Former White House NSC director for Asia and US deputy head of delegation for the Six Party Talks, and author of The Impossible State: North Korea Past and Future

"A set of first rate papers address the enduring North Korean nuclear saga and its strategic and political implications. The contributors capture the complexity of deterrence and compellence in Korea and the emerging strategic scenarios while providing fresh light on the choices the regional and international players are making. A must read for all interested in nuclear proliferation and East Asian security." ― T.V. Paul, James McGill Professor of International Relations, McGill University

In this presentation I underline the importance of analyzing the illicit trade activities which the North Korean state employees had organized prior to their defection. Their supply chains are not targetted by the control measures which the United Nations Security Council has implemented to counter the state-organized trade activities that have their origins in North Korea. Hence, in case of a system collapse the supply chains of the state employee-organized trade could serve for the purpose of a WMD proliferation. The latter risk neither has been resarched nor openly discussed among scholars yet. My research shall facilitate further research and an open discussion for an adjustment of the UNSC´s sanctions to better tackle the risk of a WMD proliferation in case of a regime instability or a system collapse.

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the consequences of nuclear proliferation by critically elaborating the current literature over the Iranian nuclear crisis. Nuclear weapons have always been a significant source of debate in international security literature due to their enormous impacts on the interstate relations and geopolitical rivalries. This thesis investigates whether the proliferation of nuclear weapons engenders cumulative effects or whether proliferation has mixed consequences. The current literature mostly deals with the issue either with utilizing proliferation optimism or proliferation pessimism which unfolded a simple binary that causes to overlook important consequences of proliferation. This study discusses the two major schools of thought on nuclear proliferation, namely proliferation optimism and proliferation pessimism, examines their hypotheses in detail and elaborate on their arguements over the Iranian nuclear crisis. From this point of view, the relation of nuclear weapons with the important concepts and variables such as the causes of wars, deterrence and defense, offense-defense balance, regime type and civil-military relations were analyzed. Finally, the study proposes that the possible consequences of the proliferation of nuclear weapons will be more coherently and accurately explained by the stability-instability paradox rather than the optimistic-pessimistic binary. The thesis, which takes the Iranian nuclear crisis as a case study, argues that despite cumulative approaches of the optimist and pessimist schools in the current literature, if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, the likely results will be more sophisticated. Based on the stability-instability paradox, the thesis argues that Iran's acquiescence of nuclear weapons would enhance strategic stability but would undermine sub-strategic stability. By reaching that conclusion, the thesis also argues that stability-instability paradox has more explanatory power than both Waltz's neorealist international relations theory as well as Sagan's organizational theory on the issue of nuclear proliferation where the latter two are providing partial explanations.

With Russia’s military and nonmilitary attacks on Ukraine since 2014, the seizure and annexation of Ukrainian territory, and the ongoing invasion, the Kremlin has put the logic of the nonproliferation regime on its head. With the nuclear-weapon states’ security guarantee to Ukraine so obviously worthless, it looks now as if the NPT’s purpose is to provide the five official nuclear-weapon states—which happen to be the world’s strongest conventional military powers as well—with an opportunity to extend, at relatively low cost, their territories. They can do so at the expense of smaller nations naive enough to believe in the rule of international law, which have signed the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states.

Given the destabilising effects of a new nuclear power, the risks of reactive proliferation and the reduction of its freedom of actions, the United States has always been concerned about nuclear proliferation and has always tried to curb the spread of nuclear weapons both among its allies and its enemies. With the end of the Cold War, the demand for nuclear weapons has seen a renewed increase. Countries previously under the Soviet nuclear umbrella or those already entangled in regional conflicts with the US, found themselves in a new precarious security situation. At the same time, the United States - as the sole remaining superpower - together with the international community, acquired the capacity to intervene and actively constrain proliferation (both militarily and diplomatically) even in hostile countries previously under Soviet influence. This evolution of the international system put proliferation and counterproliferation in a whole new dimension, centred around the complicated relations between the new proliferators, their neighbouring countries, the US and the other Great Powers of the international community. Consequently, the very interactions between these actors’ conflicting domestic politics and geopolitical interests became crucial.
This work analyses the evolution of the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, two countries traditionally hostile toward the United States, and the various counterproliferation strategies that the different American administrations have implemented, since the end of the Cold War to constrain them. The main focus will be on the Obama presidency in order to understand the reasons that motivated two opposite counterproliferation strategies toward the two regimes and to compare the consequent different outcomes.


The impact of international economic sanctions on Iran’s economy and whether economic sanctions can stop Iran’s suspected nuclear program are currently the subject of vigorous discussion among economists and policymakers alike. As sanctions against Iran have intensified, so has the debate over the effectiveness of economic sanctions as stand-alone policies in halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. While some argue that sanctions on Iran have made good headway, others claim that they have been futile. Using a case study approach, this study examines the impact of the sanctions on Iran’s economy and the extent to which the sanctions have influenced the country’s nuclear policy. A major finding of this study is that although the international sanctions have burdened Iran’s economy, they have not pushed it to the verge of collapse. Also, the sanctions have only partially contributed to the country’s economic woes. The present work also analyzes historical episodes where sanctions were used to halt nuclear proliferation and, based on this analysis, discusses the future prospects of the sanctions campaign against Iran. This historical analysis, coupled with the analysis of the effect of the sanctions on Iran’s economy, shows that economic sanctions as stand-alone policies are unlikely to stop Iran from eventually becoming a nuclear power.

proliferation instead of nuclear proliferation in it. The purpose of this work is to explore the relation between (1) the gradual increase of international cooperation in nuclear arms control and nuclear deterrence; and (2) the actual level of global nuclear armament, that which already exists and that which is still being pursued. This study assumes that there is a strong correlation between the strengthening and the persistence of the non-proliferation regime, which celebrates its seventieth anniversary this year, and the non-use of nuclear weapons.
To explore this question, this study aims to explore the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime in the frame of two methodological approaches: a qualitative and a quantitative one. Indeed, this study assumes that the two approaches are complementary to fully grasp the implications of the question. They can resolve an academic debate by answering epistemological considerations on the determination of which approach is the most accurate to investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of the non-proliferation and disarmament regime on the improvement of international peace and security.
The qualitative approach emphasizes the context in which States are proliferating. The quantitative approach on the other side, provides simple statistical raw data determining the relations between proliferation, its monitoring mechanisms, and the actual level of conflict States are facing. In the light of those explanations, this study answers its research question with the following: international monitoring of nuclear proliferation and disarmament has an indirect effect over the outbreak of violent conflicts. Indeed, compliance with the NPT and IAEA safeguard agreements does not stop States from seeking nuclear weapons – such as historical experience has shown with the cases of Iraq, or Argentina and Brazil. However, the regime provides a legal basis to counter proliferation when it occurs. However, as shown by the quantitative approach of this study, compliance with the non-proliferation and disarmament regime has no direct relations with the outbreak of violent conflicts, thus validating the null hypothesis exposed previously. Consequently, disarmament and abolition of nuclear weapons can be achieved by a strategic control of States over vectors of proliferation in addition of legal constraints.

This chapter introduces the history of Iran’s nuclear program by breaking it down into three separable historical phases. The preliminary phase of Iran’s nuclear activities started during the early Shah period where the administra- tion reached several nuclear contracts with French and Canadian companies, dealt with a friendly Washington, and sent its first batch of students to uni- versities in the United States, such as MIT, to become the future nuclear scientists of Iran. The second phase of Iran’s nuclear program can be referred to as a period of stagnation, where after the Islamic revolution the regime was isolated, lost its access to international funds and technology, and was dead- locked in a bitter war of attrition with Iraq. The third phase of Iran’s nuclear program is with the renewed interest of Tehran in constructing clandestine nuclear sites that were exposed to the international community by a group of Iranian dissidents in 2002. This chapter serves as a historical introduction and background to Iran’s nuclear program with emphasis on key turning points, actors, and events.

In this chapter,  I first review the history of Pakistan’s program, focusing upon the early years of inception, in hopes of persuading scholars to re-examine Pakistan’s nuclearization timeline as an independent variable to explain Pakistan’s increasing risk acceptance with respect to initiating conflict with India (Tellis, Fair and Medby 2001). Second, I briefly survey the progress that Pakistan made between 1990 and 2016 with respect to the development of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles. Third, I review doctrinal evolution and the ways in which Pakistan uses its nuclear weapons to deter India from responding to Pakistan’s various terrorist and other outrages; to avert the international community from enforcing punitive measures; and to extract economic rents from the United States and other bilateral and multilateral actors. I conclude with a summary of the arguments advanced here and the implications that they afford.

O delicado equilíbrio de poder mundial multipolar atual pode fazer com que a ideia de que seria possível um Estado vencer uma guerra nuclear volte à mente de estrategistas e políticos. Não existe ideia mais perigosa para a humanidade do que a de uma “guerra nuclear limitada” que possa ser vencida por uma das partes em contenda. Essa ideia parece estar ressurgindo nas potências nucleares atuais e potenciais. Interromper essa “marcha da insensatez” é tão vital para o futuro da humanidade como reverter a marcha das mudanças climáticas, ameaça de mais longo prazo, porém muito mais mediatizada.

During the 1970s, under the last shah, Iran’s nuclear program seemed to be gearing up so that nation could gain the option of declaring weapons capability if deemed necessary and at a point when the international community could no longer forestall it. So re-examining activities during the Pahlavi dynasty and using them as a context for the Islamic Republic’s more recent actions casts light upon motivations for pursuing weaponization and intransigence in reaching accommodation with the West after the rise of the ayatollahs, despite differences between the two Iranian regimes.

Sixteen years after stepping out of the nuclear closet, India’s nuclear posture, some of its operational practices, and hardware developments are beginning to mimic those of the original five nuclear weapon states. Several proliferation scholars in the United States contend that India’s national security managers are poised to repeat the worst mistakes of the superpowers’ Cold War nuclear competition, with negative consequences for deterrence, crisis, and stability in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific. This article takes a contrarian view. It dissects the best available data to show why the alarmist view is overstated. It argues that not only are the alarmists’ claims unsupported by evidence, their interpretation of the skeletal and often contradictory data threatens to construct the very threat they prophesize.

North Korea had always desire to have nuclear weapons since its establishment and the United States nuclear missiles deployment in South Korea had established ground to begun the nuclear program during the Cold War period.  North Korea utilized the competition between the Soviets and Americans by taking the support of the Soviet Union for the nuclear energy program and training of nuclear scientists. The common security perceptions against the U.S. were a good chance for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) regime but the collapse of the Soviet Union would concern North Korea by catalyzing its nuclear ambitions.
      United States administration tried to stop its nuclear program via peaceful cooperation starting with the 1990s. There were held more than 100 negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea until 2000.  All these bilateral efforts yield no result for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The last solution was the multilateral organization with the Six-Party Talks in 2003. The talks ended in 2009 with the North Korean foreign minister statement: ‘’We will never again take part in such talks  ... We have no choice but to further strengthen our nuclear deterrent  ... The DPRK will bolster its nuclear deterrence for self-defense in every way ’’ Afterwards, North Korea rapidly augmented its nuclear activities by improving its technologies. While there were 21 nuclear missiles provocations during the Six-Party Talks era, these provocations increased to 93 between 2010 and 2020 as it continues today. 
        The history and process demonstrate how the DPRK regime bent upon its nuclear program and its nuclearization not prevented despite many negotiation efforts and pressures. In this context, the paper will argue that the denuclearization of North Korea is highly unlikely. The argument will support under four main topics: (1) the concentration of DPRK’s military power on the nuclear warheads; (2) unpreventable economic and technical sources of North Korea and ineffectiveness of the international sanctions; (3) the increasing of the U.S. and China competition in the East Asia region; (4) their different solutions for the denuclearization and the Chinese security dilemma. Therefore, the essay will analyze the argument from the domestic, regional, and international perspectives.

In this essay, I mobilize an argument that has been advanced by writers such as Ashley Tellis and George Perkovich. Because this argumentation is fundamental to this essay, I will detail its components at length here. First, due to inadequacies in the 1974 test, the scientists
and others within the strategic enclave increasingly sought approval from the government to resume testing. Until 1998, these entreaties were ultimately declined by the civilian leadership – despite several bouts of high degrees of readiness for resumed testing that were often (but not always) observed by the United States. In 1998, the BJP returned to power and fulfilled its often stated intent to resume nuclear tests. Therefore, the 1998 blasts at Pokhran should have been at best a tactical – not strategic – surprise.

Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction
Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program: Work in Progress?

by Anthony H. Cordesman and Adam C. Seitz

November 6, 2008

The Burke Chair has prepared a new set of briefs, prepared by Anthony H. Cordesman and Adam C. Seitz, which summarize Iran’s actions, current and potential capabilities, and the possible outcome of a nuclear exchange. This briefing draws on official statements, US intelligence judgments, work by the IAEA, and material provided by a number of other research centers, including the Nuclear Threat Initiative, ISIS, the Federation of American Scientists, Global Security, and the Brooking Institution among others.

The Burke Chair is releasing these documents in a series of working drafts in an effort to obtain outside views, comments, criticisms, and additions. We hope to use such comments to provide a more comprehensive and more accurate picture of Iran’s controversial and destabilizing WMD programs despite the uncertainty surrounding these foreign policy nightmares.

The fourth working draft in this series is available on the CSIS web site at:
http://www.csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/081106_iranwmdnuclear.pdf
This draft covers multiple aspects of Iran’s nuclear programs, including an assessment of Iran’s current nuclear status and possible future nuclear capabilities. In this draft is a history of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the progress in the different sectors of Iran’s nuclear programs, the declared and possible functions of Iran’s nuclear facilities, and issues posed by Iranian ambiguity regarding its nuclear program, among other aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.

The paper outlines modern trends in the formation of the regional nuclear non-proliferation regime in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on its challenges as well as recent accomplishments. International regimes theory (seen from different angles in major schools of thought in International Relations) forms the methodological basis of the research.

This paper describes how the Bush administration’s "war on terror" has been waged using a diverse array of military and non-military policy instruments. The author details how the administration also determined the preventive war in Iraq to be a part of the global anti-terror operations. The paper explains that because the US could not rally the world behind a preventive attack against Iraq, and could not after the fact produce evidence of the grave dangers it had cited, it will not likely be able to convince many other states to help attack Iran, North Korea, Syria or some other potential adversary.

Targeting the North Korean state-organized illicit trade the  presentation discusses the approach of transforming the state´s elite families into businesspeople. This approach is based on the rational choice theory and on interviews with former North Korean security staff. Moreover, the approach proposes border partnership missions with China and Russia as well as an UN security council draft resolution to target the possible scenario of a North Korean system breakdown with a customs approach to prevent the proliferation of WMD across the state´s insecure borders by all kind of supply chains.                                                                                                                        Disclaimer:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            1. This presentation was a result of my research in the year 2014. It does nor reflect my then and my current critical political opinion regarding the politics of The Peoples Republic of China, which I understand as brutal and repressive, and those of the Russian Federation, which I understand as similarly criminal. 2. Moreover,  I hereby declare that I understand the state crime committed against the Uighurs by Chinese authorities and the Communist Party as - at minimum - a crime against humanity and that I stand for a military defense support of Taiwan by Western states, including the US. Moreovrer, in my opinion, the Russian attack on Ukraine is a criminal war that should trigger a criminal prosecution of those responsible for it and of the war crimes commitred by the Russian occupationists. Finally, I understand communist China as a brutal and repressive dictatorship that is based on a comprehensive system of virtual surveillance and formal social control.

Presentation at the Engelsberg Seminar 2017, 8-10 June, held at Engelsbergs Bruk (Ängelsberg, Fagersta Municipality, Västmanland, Sweden), organized by the Ac:son Johnson Foundation.
I argue that the international system has an incipiently hierarchical structure based on differentiated roles: rule-makers, rule-takers and rogue states. Real rule-makers are states with world-destroying capacities that have a de facto veto capability vis-à-vis demands of the interstate community that run counter to their vital interests.
Clearly, the United Nations cannot tell the United States, China or Russia what to do, and this is the reason why the UN Charter wisely awards them, and other legal nuclear powers, a de jure veto capability which runs parallel to their de facto veto capability. Moreover, rule-makers not only make the rules; they also often break their own rules, and when this happens rules are frequently redrafted. Whether we are comfortable with the idea or not, double-standards are inevitable.
I also argue that, for the citizens of weaker states without rule-making capabilities, the costs of defying the order established by the stronger, rule-making actors of the interstate system are ruinous, and hence incompatible with a democratic spirit centered on citizen welfare. Moreover, the weaker a country is, the lower the threshold beyond which the exercise of external autonomy demands imposing limits on the wealth and freedom of its citizens.
France, for example, can intervene in some of its former African colonies without having to impose an unacceptable toll on its own people, but that is more or less its limit. It could not have the United States’ presence in the Middle East without oppressing the French. Due to differences in wealth and military power, the White House can do democratically what the Elysium could only do dictatorially.
Going down on the scale, it is only because its people are muzzled that Iran can afford a nuclear program. Its underdevelopment is such that it lacks the capacity to refine its own oil. Its citizenry, which by all accounts is relatively moderate, would probably never vote for a nuclear program that entails extravagant costs and sanctions. The Teheran regime can take pride in defying the West on this score only because it is a dictatorship.
Going down further in the international totem, North Korea can exercise its sovereign right to have nuclear weapons only because it subjects its own people to an extreme totalitarianism. Only thus can a pauper state concentrate its minute resources in the development of such an expensive weapon, absorbing extreme international sanctions.
Summarizing, especially in the realm of peace and security, in order to increase a state’s margin of international maneuver it is necessary to invest great human and material resources. The poorer a country is, the lower that margin of maneuver will be unless its state subjects its citizens to increasing degrees of authoritarianism.
As a consequence, the interstate order can never be egalitarian. In the absence of a global cosmopolitan order with a single government and electorate, the world order is of necessity hierarchical.
Moreover, waging war in order to preserve this legitimate interstate order is, in itself, legitimate.

Roughly one year after the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, security structures in the Middle East are collapsing due to weak states and overlapping revolutions. The current driver of the region's instability remains the Syrian Civil War, which in addition to attracting the involvement of outside powers such as Russia, is the latest regional conflict involving the proxy struggle for regional dominance between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This Iran-Saudi dynamic, and the role played by the United States within it, will likely determine the prospects for bringing stability to the region and for establishing a more proliferation-resistant multinational arrangement to replace Iran's temporarily restricted national nuclear program. This chapter discusses how historical and current dynamics between the US, Iran, and Saudi Arabia will affect the possibility of such an arrangement, and why the three states must agree upon a concept of stability for the region. The evolution of these dynamics may not only determine the future of Iran's nuclear program, but may also affect whether other states seek a nuclear weapons option in their own national enrichment programs. An argument is advanced for multinational over national enrichment as a more proliferation-resistant arrangement, and the conditions for regional stability to advance this arrangement are presented at the end.

The IAEA is one of the most important international organizations within the United Nations system, with a relevant mandate in the field of international peace, security, and the transfer of nuclear technology for its use with peaceful purposes only.
The Peace Nobel Prize won by the organization in 2005 in recognition of its work in the promotion of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy is the confirmation of what has been said before. To accomplish its mandate, the IAEA should carry out its activities in the most efficient and effective manner, taking into account the limited human and financial resources now available in the Secretariat, and the level of the resources that could be available during the coming years. For this reason, the IAEA should periodically revise its internal organizational structure, the management process used by the Secretariat to carry out the supervision of the activities to be implemented, the contents of its programs, the working procedures used to implement the approved programs, enhance the training of its staff, among other things. If an organization wants to succeed in achieving the mission for which was established in the most efficient and effective manner, then it should choose adequately its goals, identify the correct course of actions or the best strategies to fulfil the adopted goals, adopt the most efficient internal organizational structure, and allocate the necessary resources to ensure the full implementation of the approved programs. To make sure that the adopted strategies are working, the organization needs to adopt the correct internal organizational structure. Choosing the correct internal organizational structure entails allocating tasks, responsibilities, and decision-making authority within the organization in the most effective manner. One of the main changes that the Secretariat should introduce in its working procedures during the coming years is the establishment of multidisciplinary working teams. These teams will have the responsibility to implement all IAEA technical programs, including all technical cooperation projects approved by the policy making organs of the organization, in the most effective and economical manner.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution saw the forceful departure of the US backed Shah of Iran
Mohammed Reza Pahlevi on 16th January. After two weeks the Islamic religious leader Ayatollah
Khomeini returns from exile and the Islamic Republic of Iran was proclaimed on 1 st April. With
the US Embassy hostage crisis from 1979 to 1981 relations between Iran and US were severed
permanently. The deterioration of the bilateral relations speeded up when in 1988 an Iranian
passenger plane was shot down and also when President George Bush denounces Iran as part of
the axis of evil along with Iraq and North Korea. The questionable use of Nuclear Energy by Iran
and the role of US and UN in curbing Iran’s nuclear program posses a major concern for global
nuclear proliferation.

Can an insecure regime use nuclear diversion to address its eroding domestic legitimacy? This article argues that facing a domestic legitimacy crisis, a regime might opt to “rally round the nuclear flag” to survive. Theoretically, I argue that, compared with conventional diversion, nuclear diversion is less susceptible to structural restraints, has a unique symbolic value that could aid in coping with an acute legitimacy crisis, and spans a host of diversionary strategies as it ascends the escalation ladder, both before and after acquiring the bomb. The theory is examined empirically via Iranian nuclear policy. I argue that facing a deepening legitimacy crisis, the Iranian regime, throughout Ahmadinejad's tenure, has been increasingly drawing on nuclear diversion to boost public support and that, if the legitimacy crisis lingers, the regime may opt to further employ diversionary nuclear strategies, most of which require a viable “nuclear latency,” rather than actual military nuclear capability.

The world witnessed a major historical event in 1947 when subcontinent, which was governed as a one unit from Khyber to Burma since almost last one thousand years, partitioned by the ruling British Empire resulting into two states namely India and Pakistan. The major reason behind partition of the subcontinent was the religious and cultural differences between the Hindus and Muslims. This difference made them hostile towards each other and India having superiority in all aspects, compelled Pakistan to become a security state right after its inception. To expand its superiority over the whole region, the Indian nuclear program started in 1944, even before its independence. India conducted first nuclear tests in 1974 and continued expanding its nuclear program. This forced Pakistan to work seriously on its nuclear program with a fast pace. India announced its formal entry to the nuclear weapons club in May 1998 with 5 nuclear tests at Pokhran, Pakistan, having nuclear capability at that time, replied back in merely two weeks with 6 nuclear tests and became the 7 th nation in the world and first Islamic country to join the nuclear countries club. The lives of over a billion people are at mercy of the two nuclear powers state heads, especially India having an extremist government poses a serious threat to the peace of subcontinent which needs great attention especially from the global community otherwise a nuclear armageddon could be expected.