Through its publications INSS provides cutting-edge research, analyses, and innovative solutions on critical national security issues in support of the joint warfighter and Department of War stakeholders.
Jan. 1, 2010
Avoiding a Crisis of Confidence in the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent
The United States needs to modernize and ensure the long-term reliability and responsiveness of its aging nuclear deterrent force and nuclear weapons infrastructure.
Oct. 1, 2009
Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
This Occasional Paper traces the general evolution of the countering WMD enterprise in the Clinton and Bush administrations and anticipates some of the major WMD challenges that lie ahead.
President Nixon’s Decision to Renounce the U.S. Offensive Biological Weapons Program
The nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was a prominent feature of the Cold War. A lesser known but equally dangerous element of the superpower competition involved biological weapons (BW), living microorganisms that cause fatal or incapacitating diseases in humans, animals, or plants. By the late 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had both acquired advanced BW capabilities. The U.S. biological weapons complex, operated by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, consisted of a research and development laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland, an open-air testing site at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and a production facility at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas that manufactured biological warfare agents and loaded them into bomblets, bombs, and spray tanks.
July 1, 2009
Aligning Disarmament to Nuclear Dangers: Off to a Hasty START?
Confronted by a daunting array of nuclear threats, and having pledged to reinvigorate the application of disarmament tools to address these dangers, the Obama administration has decided to focus its initial efforts on negotiating a new bilateral agreement with Russia to replace the Cold War–era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires at the end of this year.
June 1, 2009
Are We Prepared? Four WMD Crises That Could Transform U.S. Security
This report, written by the staff of the National Defense University Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the fall of 2008 and the early winter of 2009, was conceived initially as a transition paper for the new administration following the 2008 American Presidential election.
May 1, 2008
International Partnerships to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
This Occasional Paper examines the role, manifestations, and challenges of international cooperation to combat the weapons of mass destruction threat and poses important questions for future leaders to address in moving international cooperation forward in this area.
April 1, 2007
The Future Nuclear Landscape
This Occasional Paper examines aspects of the contemporary and emerging international security environment that the authors believe will define the future nuclear landscape and identifies some associated priorities for policymakers.
July 1, 2005
Can al Qaeda Be Deterred from Using Nuclear Weapons?
This occasional paper pursues four different but complementary approaches to dissect the issue of whether acquisition of NBC/R weapons will mean employment for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
May 1, 2005
Iraq and After: Taking the Right Lessons for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction
This paper primarily focuses on Iraq; however, it also seeks to draw lessons from experiences in libya and Iran to understand better how proliferators think about WMD; the challenges in assessing the status and sophistication of developing world WMD programs; the contours of the emerging international proliferation landscape; and the efficacy of various policy instruments available to the United States for dealing with these so-called ultimate weapons.
Feb. 1, 2005
Combating WMD: Challenges for the Next 10 Years
One need only glance at newspaper headlines each morning to appreciate that the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat environment is dynamic.