Events on the subcontinent are moving quickly, with uncertain outcomes. In short order, Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a resounding mandate. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attended his oath-taking, a savvy symbolic gesture of potential import. One faction of the Pakistani…
The Republican Party in the United States has adopted positions on social issues and the environment that are at odds with those of the majority of the voting public. Their signature opposition to “Obamacare” is losing ground. Both parties gerrymander…
My mother never threw out a shoebox at the back of my closet floor with the complete set of Topps baseball cards for the 1958 season inside – a treasured collection that our son will inherit. Later in life, I…
President Obama has delivered another thoughtful, balanced speech, this time at West Point. His commencement address lent structure to his foreign and national-security policy decisions. It was long overdue, and essential after an exasperated, revealing response last month in Manila…
Pakistan has been failing for a long time. There have been periods of economic growth, backed up by foreign patrons – mostly the United States and increasingly China — but for the most part, Pakistan’s economy and internal security continue…
A dedicated band of anti-arms controllers, led by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, sought to foil President Ronald Reagan’s pursuit of nuclear arms reduction treaties with Moscow. One tactic was to publish charge…
Henry Kissinger wrote two early, influential books on the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957) and The Necessity for Choice (1960). I bought these used books at bargain-basement prices at the Princeton University bookstore. The name on the inside…
On March 24, 1985, Major Arthur D. Nicholson, Jr. was shot in the chest by a Soviet sentry while observing a tank shed near Ludwigslust, in East Germany. The 1947 Potsdam Agreement for the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany…
Mark Fitzpatrick is a highly respected, careful chronicler of nuclear proliferation. His monograph of A.Q. Khan’s activities is required reading. So, too, is his latest, Overcoming Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers, in which he recommends that Pakistan be treated as a normal…
Accidents happen. The least accident-prone nuclear weapons are the ones that are not in motion — but not always: see Eric Schlosser’s account of the Damascus incident in Command and Control. Nuclear weapons in transit are more accident prone. The…
