Garmisch-Partenkirchen: The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, 2007. - 49 p.In one of the great examples of the re-convergence of thinking on security issues following the end of the Cold War, it is now the widely held belief of the UN Security Council, NATO, the EU, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and others that the two leading security problems of our era are terrorism and proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
In this study Ms Romashkina takes a critical look at the most challenging proliferation issues of our time, North Korea and Iran. Her detailed and carefully documented study goes well beyond the current rhetoric of politics and looks closely at historical developments, geopolitical factors, the scientific parameters of such development, and the potential consequences of the acquisition of weapons in these two countries.Of critical importance for the present and the future is the role of international organizations from the UN Security Council to the International Atomic Energy Agency in addressing these concerns on behalf of the international community. While the two independent cases of proliferation challenge she examines are still unresolved, she clearly lays out the risks for the two organizations in facing future challenges, based on the eventual outcome of the two cases examined here.She, likewise, looks at the security implications of the emergence of North Korea and Iran as nuclear weapons states for neighbors, such as China and the EU, and of particular importance for Russia and the United States, as the leading nuclear powers. For all states, she reviews attempts to resolve the proliferation challenges from Iran and North Korea and examines the reasons that the desired results have not yet been achieved.Finally, her careful study and analysis places proliferation in its new and proper context for a world that is no longer bipolar, where competing ideologies divided the globe into two camps and where the balance of power between these two global camps defined the understanding of security and stability for all others. As she notes, in the new world security context even broadly shared goals may not be supported with broadly held strategies on how to achieve those goals.The challenge of proliferation remains and the outcome of these two cases remains unknown as this study goes to press. This study makes a significant contribution to the understanding of this complex issue and will remain relevant even when we ultimately learn the outcome of continuing negotiations with North Korea and Iran.
