Togzhan Kassenova | The Diplomat
Kazakhstan’s energy needs, geopolitics, the Soviet nuclear legacy, and tensions in government-civil society relations feed a heated debate on the country’s nuclear future. Whether and how Kazakhstan builds a nuclear power plant will impact the country’s future beyond the narrow issue of nuclear energy. It will demonstrate how Kazakhstan will deal with its energy security challenges, manage its complicated geopolitical situation and relationship with Russia, and whether the government will live up to its promise of being a “listening state.”
Laurence Norman and Sune Engel Rasmussen | The Wall Street Journal
Israel has shown Iran’s two most important deterrents against an attack—its ballistic missiles and allied militia Hezbollah—are less powerful than previously thought. Now attention is turning to whether Iran will accelerate its nuclear program to deter its biggest regional foe. For months, Iranian officials have said that Tehran has accumulated most of the knowledge needed to build a weapon and that it might reconsider Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s two-decade-old pledge not to procure weapons of mass destruction.
David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt, and Ronen Bergman | The New York Times
In interviews, former and current senior Israeli officials acknowledged doubts about whether the country has the capability to do significant damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nonetheless, for the past few days, Pentagon officials have been wondering quietly whether the Israelis are preparing to go it alone, after concluding that they may never again have a moment like this one
HYUNG-JIN KIM | Associated Press
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the United States, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported Tuesday…In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong Un University of National Defense, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack capabilities against its enemies” if they attempt to use armed forces” against North Korea, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. “The use of nuclear weapons is not ruled out in this case,” he said.
Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly | Reuters
Russia said on Tuesday that it still had an emergency hotline with the United States and the NATO military alliance to deflate crises as nuclear risks rise amid the gravest confrontation between Moscow and West since the depths of the Cold War…A so-called hotline between Moscow and Washington was established in 1963 to reduce the misperceptions that stoked the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 by allowing direct communication between the U.S. and Russian leaders.The U.S.-Russian hotline, now a secure computer communication system, has been used during major crises such as the Six Day War of 1967, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
John Mecklin | The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
If Israel or the United States tries to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, my belief is that that will harden Iranian resolve to acquire nuclear weapons without eliminating Iran’s capability to do so. Israel would be motivated, in part, to punish Iran for its recent attack on Israel, using that as an opportunity to try and destroy Iran’s nuclear program, so the Israelis didn’t have to worry about it in the future. I think if they decide to attack Iran’s nuclear program, they will find themselves worrying much more about Iran’s nuclear program in the future. We’ll elaborate on this, but an attack would, I believe, simultaneously harden Iranian resolve to acquire nuclear weapons while also not destroying permanently their capability to achieve that goal.