Avoiding a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East
The likely responses of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey to Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon were considered in a new staff report (pdf) from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“How are these three countries responding today to the Iranian nuclear program? How would Riyadh, Cairo, and Ankara respond if Tehran were to cross the nuclear threshold and acquire nuclear weapons? Would they pursue nuclear weapons of their own? What factors would influence their decisions? What can the U.S. do now and over the coming years to discourage these countries from pursuing a nuclear weapon of their own?”
“Based on 5 months of research and interviews with hundreds of officials and scholars in the United States and seven Middle Eastern countries, this report attempts to answer these questions.”
See “Chain Reaction: Avoiding a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee print, February 2008.
The United States has the only proven and scalable tritium production supply chain, but it is largely reserved for nuclear weapons. Excess tritium production capacity should be leveraged to ensure the success of and U.S. leadership in fusion energy.
Despite an emerging awareness of the importance of state and local government innovation capacity, there is a shortage of plausible strategies to build that capacity.
Innovations in artificial intelligence and robotics will allow us to accelerate the search process using foundation AI models for science research and automate much of the experimentation with robotic, self-driving labs.
FAS commends the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for clearing a historic 75 pieces of legislation, including multiple crucial bills to confront the wildfire crisis.