Building International Partnerships

The Eisenhower Institute's Future of Space project is engaged in a study to produce a politically viable and technically feasible set of rules defining a security regime for the future use of space. Our approach is based on a vision that integrates the interests of all space stakeholders-military and civilian, domestic and international-within a new security framework that underscores the principle of space as an international resource that can and should be used by the countries of the world for economic and scientific development. At the same time, this regime will have measures in place that can keep proliferation in check and avoid the necessity to use weapons in space to protect national assets, making even weapons of deterrence, which could ignite an arms race, unnecessary.

The Safeguarding the Atom project, run by The Eisenhower Institute and funded by NTI, was designed to engage the VNIITF nuclear weapons design lab in Snezhinsk, Russia in an effort to build an informal bilateral interactive process focused on finding solutions to the most pressing issues/obstacles in US-Russian non-proliferation cooperation and to facilitate an understanding of the inner thinking of the leading figures of the Russian nuclear establishment, especially as it relates to the war on terrorism and the safety of the nuclear weapons arsenal. The Eisenhower Institute has been an integral, and at times the exclusive, intermediary between VNIITF and the Department of Energy in support of these nonproliferation objectives. In addition to acting as a highly confidential, back-channel conduit between DOE and VNIITF, the Institute has begun to incorporate new innovative programs aimed at fostering and expanding our relationship with VNIITF.