| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Prague Agenda outlined by the U.S. President Barack Obama four years ago appears marginal at best to the emerging nonproliferation challenges. This is especially true in the world's most important strategic theaters-East Asia and the Middle East. Obama's speech was indeed an inflection point in the U.S. foreign policy debate on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.
At its heart, the debate is about the nature and relevance of the arms control framework that emerged in the late 1960s and reached its apogee in the 1970s. This framework mainly aimed at stabilizing the nuclear relationship between the two superpowers-the United States and the Soviet Union-by laying down mutually acceptable rules of nuclear deterrence and regulating their competition. It also had a regional focus in managing the atomic dynamic in post-War Europe by getting most advanced European nations, especially the divided Germany, to renounce the nuclear weapon option. In Asia, the main regional focus was convincing Japan to accept a non-nuclear weapons status.
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