Arms Control
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Robert Carlin
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Article Highlights * After a spring and summer filled with rocket and nuclear tests, relations with North Korea have calmed. * Washington should use this period of quiet to its advantage by abandoning its current hard-line strategy against Pyongyang in favor of a strategy of engagement. * Such a change will better help the United States reach its ultimate goal--a denuclearized North Korea.

It is routine in U.S. foreign policy for a pot not boiling over to be moved to the back burner. Precisely because the North Korean issue is not boiling, however, might offer an all-too-rare chance to make progress with Pyongyang. Over the past several months, the North has signaled publicly and privately that it is in engagement mode. In Washington, arguments abound about whether or not this is a stall tactic or a trick, but we'll never know if we don't move ahead with serious and sustained probing of the North's position. So long as our government sticks to an all-or-nothing approach in terms of Pyongyang, the opportunity to advance vital U.S. security interests in northeast Asia could be lost.

Underlying Washington's current position are two beliefs, so firmly held that they approach dogma. The first is that we should wait until the situation with North Korea breaks in our favor or sanctions force North Korean leadership to reassess its attachment to nuclear weapons. A year into the Obama administration, this waiting borders on self-imposed paralysis even though North Korea remains capable of badly damaging regional stability as well as U.S. nonproliferation goals. So instead of positively defining and shaping the realities on the ground, we have taken shelter behind fixed positions: enforcing U.N. Security Council sanctions and demanding that the North make progress on denuclearization at the Six-Party Talks. These may be useful parts of an overall policy, but they cannot be effective by themselves and must be handled carefully.

Sanctions will inevitably get in the way of diplomatic progress, and there needs to be a way to use their loosening--as much as their tightening--in support of negotiations. Moreover, Washington's single-minded insistence that the North return to the Six-Party Talks actually has ceded to Pyongyang a great deal of tactical initiative. There is nothing the North Koreans love more than leaping over our heads to a new position just as we think we have them cornered. As such, in mid-January, they reversed their opposition to talks in the framework of the September 2005 Six-Party joint statement and have proposed that talks proceed on all fronts simultaneously.

The second part of Washington's dogma is that there is no sense in negotiating with Pyongyang because history shows that agreements with North Korea always fail and the United States ends up snookered. But the idea that our deals with the North have all been useless is based on a flawed reading of the record, a lingering misrepresentation of the accomplishments of the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework. In fact, the utility of that agreement (which lasted from 1994 until 2002) is still evident. Without it, North Korea would have produced far more fissile material and a significantly larger arsenal of nuclear weapons. Two hulking, unfinished North Korean nuclear reactors testify to its lasting legacy.

Reinforcing the belief that we don't need to, or shouldn't, pursue an active policy toward North Korea is the Obama administration's apparent concern that it will be vulnerable to charges of being "weak" if it approaches Pyongyang from anything but the toughest position possible. Thus, on the grounds that the September 2005 joint statement calls for progress on the North's denuclearization before talks can begin on replacing the 1953 Korean Armistice with permanent peace arrangements, Washington rejected out of hand Pyongyang's recent proposals to move on both issues simultaneously. We may find it difficult to hold that position because it is neither what the joint statement actually says nor what some of the other parties (especially the Chinese) intended.

The fundamental U.S. goal is exactly right: We want North Korea to denuclearize and to return to the international nuclear nonproliferation regime. But stating the goal isn't the same as moving closer to it. To do so, we must accomplish things that can help stabilize the situation, make it less likely that the strategic threat from the North will get worse, and begin exploring with Pyongyang a range of ideas for reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and in the region. A couple of mid-term steps could include a halt in nuclear testing and long-range ballistic missile launches, along with a complete freeze of the Yongbyon nuclear center, which would involve further decommissioning and a return of international inspectors.

These interim steps won't "solve" the nuclear problem, but they aren't beyond what we can accomplish. They will do considerably more to protect our interests and those of our allies than the current all-or-nothing policy, which is going nowhere fast.

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Nonproliferation efforts have traditionally focused on controlling supply of proliferation-relevant technology, expertise, and material. As barriers to diffusion of all three have been lowered, there is increased acknowledgement of the need to reduce demand for such weapons, and, in cases where efforts to prevent proliferation have failed, the need to develop effective international responses. However, with few exceptions, approaches to nonproliferation have not changed qualitatively in the last 40 years. This research explores the concept of resilience as understood for other complex interactive systems, extracts key features, and applies them to nonproliferation. In addition, it examines unintended consequences of traditional nonproliferation strategies and feedbacks among them.  Based on insights gained from this exercise, a new analytical framework for nonproliferation will be proposed.

Arian L. Pregenzer is a 2009-2010 CISAC visiting scholar and a Senior Scientist in the Global Security Program at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is responsible for initiating new programs in arms control and nonproliferation and for developing strategies for international engagement for multiple laboratory programs. In addition, she provides leadership for Sandia's efforts to integrate across nuclear weapons, arms control, and nonproliferation missions to effectively meet nuclear security challenges.

Most recently, Dr. Pregenzer has focused on near-term steps that can enhance nuclear security while advancing the goals of NPT Article VI. She is particularly interested in how international technical cooperation on topics such as verification methods for nuclear arms control, nuclear weapons security and accountability, and nuclear fuel cycle management can establish the technical basis for moving toward a world without nuclear weapons.

Dr. Pregenzer has bachelors' degrees in physics, mathematics, and philosophy from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from the University of California at San Diego. Prior to her career in international security, she worked at Sandia to develop lithium ion sources for particle-beam-driven inertial confinement fusion.

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Arian Pregenzer CISAC Visiting Scholar Speaker
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Achilles Zaluar is Minister-Counselor of Political Affairs at the Brazilian Embassy to the United States in Washington, D.C. From 2008-09 Zaluar served as Minister-Counselor of Multilateral and International Security Affairs at the Brazilian Embassy to the United States. Zaluar has previously held positions as Deputy Head of the Division for United Nations Affairs (DNU), 2003-06, and assistant at the Theory of International Relations Chair of the Rio Branco Institute, 2002-03. From 1997-98 Zaluar served as a member of the team that drafted the position papers and presidential message for Brazil’s accession to the NPT. Zaluar has held posts at the Brazilian Embassy to the U.S, Washington, 2006-present; Brazilian Mission to the United Nations, New York, 1995-98; and the Brazilian Embassy to Paraguay, Asuncion, 1998-2001. In 1993 Zaluar served as secretary of the interagency group that drafted Brazil’s export control law. From 1991 to 1994, he worked on non-proliferation and export control, including Brazil’s relations with the MTCR and NSG control regimes, and US-Brazil issues. Zaluar received a Bachelor in Mathematics at Rio Catholic University in 1985, graduated in Diplomacy from the Rio Branco Institute, Brazil’s diplomatic academy, in 1991, and received a Master in Public Administration (MPA/MC) at the Harvard Kennedy School, in 2002.

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Achilles Zaluar Minister-Counselor, Political Affairs, Brazilian Embassy to the United States, Washington Speaker
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The global nuclear order is changing. Concerns about climate change, the volatility of oil prices, and the security of energy supplies have contributed to a widespread and still-growing interest in the future use of nuclear power. Thirty states operate one or more nuclear power plants today, and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), some 50 others have requested technical assistance from the agency to explore the possibility of developing their own nuclear energy programs. This surge of interest in nuclear energy - labeled by some proponents as ‘the renaissance in nuclear power' - is occurring simultaneously with mounting concerns about the healthy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, the regulatory framework that constrains and governs the world's civil and military- related nuclear affairs. The question then arises: is it possible to have nuclear power without nuclear proliferation? The answer is not clear, for the technical, economic, and political factors that will determine whether future generations will have more nuclear power without more nuclear proliferation are exceedingly complex and interrelated. Dr. Sagan will outline the current state of nuclear power and nuclear proliferation, before examining the weaknesses and promise of existing research on the subject. He argues that a key aspect of ensuring a safe nuclear future will be the strengthening of the NPT through "shared responsibility" for disarmament.

Scott Sagan is a professor of political science and co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as a special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He has also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989), The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993), and with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (W.W. Norton, 2002). He is the co-editor of Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James L. Wirtz, Planning the Unthinkable (Cornell University Press, 2000) and the editor of Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford University Press, 2009). His most recent publications include "The Case for No First Use," Survival (June 2009) and "Good Faith and Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations" in George Perkovich and James A. Acton (eds.) Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (Carnegie Endowment, 2009).

Allen S. Weiner is senior lecturer in law and co-director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. His expertise is in the field of public international law and the foreign relations law of the United States. He is a seasoned international lawyer with experience in such wide-ranging fields as national security law, the law of war, international dispute resolution, and international criminal law. His current scholarship focuses on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. For more than a decade he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. In those capacities, he advised government policy-makers, negotiated international agreements, and represented the United States in litigation before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and the International Court of Justice. He teaches courses in public international law, international conflict resolution, and international security matters at Stanford Law School. He received a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.

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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
The Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education  
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, where he previously served as the social science co-director. He is the Inaugural Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellow for Nuclear Ethics and Security at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (2026-2027). Sagan also serves as co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, he was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.     

Former co-director, Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Allen S. Weiner Senior Lecturer in Law; Co-Director, Stanford Program in International Law; Co-Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation; CDDRL and CISAC Faculty Member; Forum on Contemporary Europe Research Affiliate Speaker
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Ambivalent nuclear technologies use or have a potential to produce nuclear weapon relevant materials like highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium, tritium and U233. It is important to assess the proliferation potential and measures to strengthen the proliferation resistance of these technologies as early as possible (preventively) to find alternative more proliferation resistant designs or at least to identify sensitive parameters or even critical parts that should trigger international safeguards and export controls.

The conclusions of different case studies investigating the proliferation resistance of nuclear technologies such as spallation neutron sources, tokamak fusion reactors and plutonium fuels will be briefly presented. The main part of the talk will focus on the minimization or elimination of civil HEU usage and the role of research reactor conversion to the use of low enriched uranium, which is intrinsically more proliferation resistant. The conversion of the German high flux research reactor FRM-II will serve as an example for the complex political and technological challenges and problems one has to face, especially, if proliferation concerns are not taken seriously in the research and design phase. These case studies of relatively disparate nuclear technologies have in common that they are neutron producing technologies and some questions regarding their proliferation potential can be addressed using neutronic codes.

Finally, the talk will briefly outline the future research of the next year addressing centrifuge technology as another case study to explicate on exemplary basis general criteria for the proliferation resistant use of nuclear technologies.


Matthias Englert
is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. Before joining CISAC in 2009, Matthias was a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Group Science Technology and Security (IANUS) and a PhD student at the department of physics at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. 

His major research interests include nonproliferation, disarmament, arms control, nuclear postures and warheads, fissile material and production technologies, the civil use of nuclear power and its role in future energy scenarios and the possibility of nuclear terrorism.  His research during his stay at CISAC focuses primarily on the technology of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the implications of its use for the nonproliferation regime and on technical and political measures to manage the proliferation risks. 

Matthias has been participating in projects investigating technical aspects of the concept of proliferation resistance with topics spanning from conversion of research reactors, uranium enrichment with gas centrifuges, reducing plutonium stockpiles with reactor based options,  spallation neutron sources and fusion power plants. Further research topics included fissile material stockpiles, fuel-cycles and accelerator  driven systems. Although a substantial part of his professional work of the last years was quite technical he is equally interested in and actively studies the historical, social and political aspects of the use of nuclear technologies. Research interests include the dispute about Article IV of the NPT, the future development of the NPT regime, possibilities for a nuclear weapon free world, preventive arms control, and history and development of proliferation relevant programs. By studying contemporary theory in philosophy of the interaction of science, technology and society, Matthias acquired analytical tools to reflect on approaches describing or addressing the problem of ambivalent technology.

Matthias is a vice speaker of the working group Physics and Disarmament of the German Physical Society (DPG) and a board member of the  German Research Association for Science, Disarmament and Security (FONAS).

 

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.

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Matthias Englert Postdoctoral Fellow, CISAC Speaker
Michael M. May Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus; FSI Senior Fellow; CISAC Faculty Member Commentator
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Interest in nuclear disarmament has grown rapidly in recent years. Starting with the 2007 Wall Street Journal article by four former U.S. statesmen-George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn-and followed by endorsements from similar sets of former leaders from the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Australia, and Italy, the support for global nuclear disarmament has spread. The Japanese and Australian governments announced the creation of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in June 2008. Both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama explicitly supported the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons during the 2008 election campaign. In April 2009, at the London Summit, President Barack Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev called for pragmatic U.S. and Russian steps toward nuclear disarmament, and President Obama then dramatically reaffirmed "clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons" in his speech in Prague.

There is a simple explanation for these statements supporting nuclear disarmament: all states that have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are committed "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." In the United States, moreover, under Clause 2 of Article 6 of the Constitution, a treaty commitment is "the supreme Law of the Land." To af1/2rm the U.S. commitment to seek a world without nuclear weapons is therefore simply promising that the U.S. government will follow U.S. law.

A closer reading of these various declarations, however, reveals both the complexity of motives and the multiplicity of fears behind the current surge in support of nuclear disarmament. Some declarations emphasize concerns that the current behavior of nuclear-weapons states (NWS) signals to non-nuclear-weapons states (NNWS) that they, too, will need nuclear weapons in the future to meet their national security requirements. Other disarmament advocates stress the growth of global terrorism and the need to reduce the number of weapons and the amount of fissile material that could be stolen or sold to terrorist groups. Some argue that the risk of nuclear weapons accidents or launching nuclear missiles on false warning cannot be entirely eliminated, despite sustained efforts to do so, and thus believe that nuclear deterrence will inevitably fail over time, especially if large arsenals are maintained and new nuclear states, with weak command-and- control systems, emerge.

Perhaps the most widespread motivation for disarmament is the belief that future progress by the NWS to disarm will strongly influence the future willingness of the NNWS to stay within the NPT. If this is true, then the choice we face for the future is not between the current nuclear order of eight or nine NWS and a nuclear-weapons- free world. Rather, the choice we face is between moving toward a nuclear- weapons-free world or, to borrow Henry Rowen's phrase, "moving toward life in a nuclear armed crowd."

There are, of course, many critics of the nuclear disarmament vision. Some critics focus on the problems of how to prevent nuclear weapons "breakout" scenarios in a future world in which many more countries are "latent" NWS because of the spread of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities to meet the global demand for fuel for nuclear power reactors. Others have expressed fears that deep nuclear arms reductions will inadvertently lead to nuclear proliferation by encouraging U.S. allies currently living under "the U.S. nuclear umbrella" of extended deterrence to pursue their own nuclear weapons for national security reasons. Other critics worry about the "instability of small numbers" problem, fearing that conventional wars would break out in a nuclear disarmed world, and that this risks a rapid nuclear rearmament race by former NWS that would lead to nuclear first use and victory by the more prepared government.

Some critics of disarmament falsely complain about nonexistent proposals for U.S. unilateral disarmament. Frank Gaffney, for example, asserts that there has been "a 17 year-long unilateral U.S. nuclear freeze" and claims that President Obama "stands to transform the ‘world's only superpower' into a nuclear impotent." More serious critics focus on those problems-the growth and potential breakout of latent NWS, the future of extended deterrence, the enforcement of disarmament, and the potential instability of small numbers-that concern mutual nuclear disarmament. These legitimate concerns must be addressed in a credible manner if significant progress is to be made toward the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world.

To address these problems adequately, the current nuclear disarmament effort must be transformed from a debate among leaders in the NWS to a coordinated global effort of shared responsibilities between NWS and NNWS. This essay outlines a new conceptual framework that is needed to encourage NWS and NNWS to share responsibilities for designing a future nuclear-fuel-cycle regime, rethinking extended deterrence, and addressing nuclear breakout dangers while simultaneously contributing to the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.

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In this introductory essay, we aim first to demonstrate why the question of which states will develop nuclear power in the future matters for global security. To do so, we briefly discuss the connections between nuclear power, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism risks; we present data contrasting existing nuclear-power states with potential new entrants with respect to factors influencing those risks. Second, we introduce major themes addressed by the authors in both volumes, and explain why the expansion of nuclear power, the future of nuclear weapons disarmament, and the future of the NPT and related parts of the nuclear control regime are so intertwined. Finally, we conclude with some observations about what is new and what is not new about current global nuclear challenges. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has published three important special issues of Dædalus on nuclear weapons issues in the past-in 1960, 1975, and 1991-and reflecting on the differences between the concerns and solutions discussed in those three issues and the nuclear challenges we face today is both inspiring and sobering.

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Visiting Scholar (in residence January-June 2010)

Teng Jianqun was a visiting fellow with John Lewis's Project on Peace and Cooperation in the Asian-Pacific Region. He is director of the Centre for Arms Control and International Security Studies at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, China. Teng, who will be in residence until June 11, plans to participate in CISAC's work on international security issues regarding the nuclear-free world initiative as it relates to Sino-U.S. relations.

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