From Harvard University's Belfer Center, this study of artificial intelligence and its likely security implications is an outstanding one-stop primer on the subject.

"There will never be a 100 percent guarantee of security for our people, the economy, and our society. We must resist the urge to seek total security--it is not achievable and drains our attention from those things that can be accomplished." --Gilmore Commission, December 2003

'Oppenheimer' shows scientists cannot turn back to a world in which research is pure and unencumbered with its consequences. They need to take part in the public arena, a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine argues.

One of the many obstacles to reaching an arms-control agreement with North Korea revolves around the risk that undeclared, clandestine nuclear facilities might exist in that country, which—if they remain undetected—would allow the Kim Jong-un regime to maintain and continue its military nuclear ambitions. It is therefore very important that any agreed-upon denuclearization of the … Continued

Long-awaited talks between Iran and six major powers (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States) start on Thursday, October 1, in Geneva. Bolstered by last week's revelation of a enrichment facility hidden under a mountain near the Iranian city of Qom, Western officials reportedly will press Iran to commit to the Additional Protocol, an agreement that allows wide-ranging access for international inspectors.

During an April 2007 speech at a Princeton University colloquium titled, "From Passion to Politics: What Moves People to Take Action," New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer admitted that the world changes more by technology than by politics. He added that emotions can obscure facts and that political discourse requires an agreed-upon set of facts before policy can be rationally discussed. Unfortunately, politicizing scientific facts has never been more prevalent.

How can gift-basket diplomacy be preserved beyond the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit?

Harvard professor Graham Allison once helped secure nuclear missiles in the former Soviet Union, now he's grading states on how well they're vaccinating people against COVID-19. The famed analyst of great power competition is taking on a new (great) challenge.

The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the INF Treaty following years of Russian noncompliance is the most recent upset in a series of escalating tensions between the two superpowers. The political status of Ukraine and Crimea, Russian disinformation campaigns in the 2016 election cycle, and continued uncertainty surrounding the extension of New START have … Continued

“Father of the internet” Vinton Cerf and “father of public key cryptography” Martin Hellman agree that the US needs to understand the risk of nuclear war. However, they disagree about the best means for understanding that risk. In side-by-side opinion pieces, Cerf and Hellman present their opposing views.

Growing up in the post-Cold War era has some advantages: Millennials aren’t wedded to old theories about nuclear security, and are more engaged with their peers around the world.

"What will make a focus on nuclear security a permanent feature of what we do?" asked Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit held in Seoul in late March. Experts agree that the 2014 summit must go further in securing nuclear materials from disasters and, most important, terrorist threats -- but agreement on precisely how to do this is harder to come by. In this regard, Australia has much to offer.

Some Chinese policymakers question whether Japanese under-reporting of plutonium stocks was an honest mistake—or a deliberate effort at concealment

The harnessing of the atom to develop a nuclear bomb 70 years ago unleashed a magnitude of terrifying destruction the world had never witnessed before. The same atomic power also resulted in an "atoms for peace" program, which gave the world nuclear power as a clean source of energy and benefited humanity in the development of nuclear medicine, agriculture, and sciences.

The mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is to facilitate peaceful uses of the atom while ensuring that its nuclear assistance is not used for military purposes -- a challenging mandate that in its implementation introduces both significant benefits and risks to humankind. On one hand the agency helps member states gain access to peaceful nuclear technology; on the other, preventing nuclear proliferation remains one of its crucial activities.

In Part 1 of this article, the recent and historical budgets for securing vulnerable nuclear materials around the globe were analyzed. Recommendations were also made for increasing the budgets for the key National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) programs, including the International Nuclear Material Protection Cooperation (INMPC) and Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) programs, in fiscal year (FY) 2010 and then through 2014.

November 4 marks the centenary of the birth of Nobel laureate Joseph Rotblat, the only scientist to walk away from the Manhattan Project on moral grounds and a man who held determined views on the kind of world we should try to create. He was an ardent advocate for dialogue across political divides, the elimination of nuclear weapons, the need ultimately for a world without war, and the social responsibility of scientists.