Policy Briefs and Reports

This report examines the fall of the House of Assad—a regime built on terror, ruled by fear and sustained by foreign and proxy forces—which can be traced back to Hamas’s attacks on southern Israel more than a year ago. Except that instead of a Free Palestine, a Free Syria has come into being. It raises the puzzle: how does one impress upon nationalistically inflamed consciousness the enormous disparity between the goals sought, the means used and the results obtained? The second part of the article references the same discrepancy of goals, means and outcomes as a note of caution against the first instinct to euphoria over the downfall of the much-hated Assads. The third and fourth sections look at the implications for regional and global actors with significant footprints in Syria.

This report posits that the combination of emerging and disruptive technologies and strategic conventional weapons may have a revolutionary impact on the future of nuclear weapons. While emerging and disruptive technologies may yield additional arguments to keep relying on nuclear weapons to defend against them, they are often regarded as destabilizing for the global nuclear order, which makes it more likely that nuclear deterrence will fail and nuclear weapons will be used. At the same time, strategic conventional weapon systems (including hypersonic missiles) have deterrence characteristics comparable to nuclear weapons.  Because they could be used in a way that at least seeks to comply with jus in bello principles, by minimizing civilian harm (in comparison with nuclear weapons), they are also more credible as a deterrent. This may in turn increase political willingness to seriously consider fully delegitimizing nuclear weapons, and eventually replacing them with the default option: modern conventional weapons.