What Does Natanz Cost?
Iran is obviously investing a lot of its political, intellectual, and financial resources into the Natanz enrichment center. But can we come up with a figure for how much it has cost Iran? Perhaps we can estimate it based on…
Geoff Forden
Writing on ACW 2008–2010 · 142 posts
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Nuclear Sesame Street
I’ve been reading “Caging the Dragon” on the flight to London and it reminded me of a little song from Sesame Street that goes: One of these things is not like the others One of these things is just not…
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Practicalities of Interdicting WMD—Part 3
Click on the image for a larger version In a typical one hour period, five US low earth orbit satellites pass over the Port of Rajin Yesterday, I pointed out that the only way for the West to tell the…
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Practicalities of Interdicting WMD—Part 2
The Ports of North Korea Yesterday, we started to get some ballpark numbers relevant to interdicting WMD shipments. Today, we are going to continue to try to get a feel for the problem of determining whether or not there is…
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DPRK: Practicalities of Interdicting WMD
UNSC Resolution 1874: 12. Calls upon all Member States to inspect vessels, with the consent of the flag State, on the high seas, if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo of such vessels contains…
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North Korea and International Norms
North Korea is rightly considered an international pariah that not only starves its population while pampering its dictator but also thumbs its nose at the international community’s demand that it not test nuclear bombs or continue its missile development. It…
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DPRK: U'nha-2 Elevation at Staging
Never take anything for granted. I’m afraid I put off something that Peter Brown, who is always on top of the interesting stories in Asia as he writes for the Asia Times, has been bugging me about. Sorry Peter! I…
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Strategic Uses for Tactical Nukes—not!
click on the image for a larger version Four Kt nuclear explosion over one “sub-harbor” in Ulsan. Overpressures are for a 4 Kt nuke detonated at the optimum height to maximize blast effects. POL destruction limit is the range where…
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Caging the Dragon: Antipodal Seismometry
an•tip•o•dal 1: of or relating to the antipodes ; specifically : situated at the opposite side of the earth or moon (an antipodal meridian, an antipodal continent) 2: diametrically opposite (an antipodal point on a sphere) 3: entirely opposed (a…
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North Korea’s Design Choices
The DPRK apparently told China before its 2006 test that they were aiming for a yield of about 4 KT but they only acheived a yield around ½ KT. This implies that there was a significant problem with that design.…