Arms limitation is ridiculously hard to explain and even harder to accomplish. Arms limitation is useful when dealing with bad actors that possess fearsome weapons. If success requires self-limitation as well, the results are often met with derision, since bad…
Dear Readers of ACW: I have posted the perspectives of others in this space on whether the explosive use of nuclear weapons can be reconciled with the laws of war. This discussion is useful, in my view, because it clarifies…
What are we to make of President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima? To my ear, President Obama’s speech was oddly unequal to the occasion – and not just because he signaled no new efforts to move in the direction of his…
Reminder! The book launch event takes place on Monday, May 16, at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC. If the Pentagon is to be believed, the second coming of MIRVs is upon us, this time in Asia, with China’s deployment of…
Note to readers: Dr. Justin Anderson continues the conversation about nuclear weapons and the laws of war with this contribution. Rejoinders are, of course, welcome. Justin is a Research Fellow at National Defense University’s Center for the Study of WMD.…
The next US president faces lots of questions relating to nuclear weapons and nuclear threat reduction. Here’s one: Should the United States unilaterally reduce strategic forces deemed to be in excess of the Pentagon’s needs, or wait instead for an…
An earlier post called on President Obama to visit Hiroshima when he visits Japan for the G-7 Summit on May 26-27. If he fails to visit, the journey begun with a stirring speech at Prague in April 2009 and the Nobel…
Doyens of nuclear deterrence strategy during the first nuclear age were convinced that size mattered. The nuclear-armed state with a bigger arsenal, or greater missile throw-weight, or sharper missile accuracy, or more tactical nuclear weapons, or [fill in the blank]…
Secretary of State John Kerry joins other foreign ministers placing flowers at the cenotaph of the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on Monday. Visits by high-level U.S. officials to Hiroshima are heavily freighted, unlike those to Tokyo, where over 100,000…
(Continued from here.) Why did the Nixon Administration open the floodgates to MIRVs when it was clear that the Kremlin would follow suit, effectively ruining prospects for serious strategic arms limitation? Domestic politics had something to do with this result,…
