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• Related Materials

  • Academic Module: Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism
    By Charles D. Ferguson, Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology
    Academic Module
    March 2006

  • U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation
    By Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change and Charles D. Ferguson, Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology
    Council Special Report
    June 2006

  • What really matters about North Korea's nuke
    By Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change
    Op-Ed
    October 12, 2006

  • Responding to Pyongyang With an Eye Toward Tehran
    By Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change
    Op-Ed
    October 12, 2006

  • Levi: North Korea Nuclear Test Could Lead to Military Response from U.S.
    Interview
    October 3, 2006

  See Also

  North Korea, Defense/Homeland Security

  Washington's Latest Missile-Defense Blunder: Let's hope North Korea backs down soon

  Author:	Michael A. Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change

  June 28, 2006
  Slate

  There is a peculiar symmetry to Washington’s decision last week to activate its ground-based missile-defense system and North Korea’s threat to launch a long-range missile. While research, development, and even limited deployment of the U.S. system make sense, it will be years before it is dependable. Fortunately, it will also be years before North Korea will be able to nuke the United States.

  There are four ways this crisis can end. If North Korea launches a missile, the United States can shoot it down, hold fire, or try to shoot it down and miss. Pyongyang can also back down and not test its missile. The first outcome would be a mixed blessing; the second would be embarrassing; the third would be a disaster. Whatever happens now, though, given the lack of an immediate threat to American cities, Washington's decision to activate the ground-based missile defense was probably a mistake.

  Michael A. Levi is fellow for science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is co-author, with Michael E. O'Hanlon, of The Future of Arms Control.

  View full text of article

• 

  New CFR Books

  

  In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.

  

  America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.

  

  In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.

  Complete list of CFR Books.

  

  

  New Independent Task Force Reports

  Confronting Climate Change

  This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.

  U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality

  This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.

  About Independent Task Forces at the Council.

  

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