Before Ronald Reagan, there was Charles Evans Hughes. Both men were unorthodox thinkers, spotlight stealers and risk takers. Both were dismissive of the status quo, and sought deep cuts in strategic forces. Battleships were the strategic forces of the 1920s…
I belong to the tribe that favors treaties that reduce the risk of war, add transparency and predictability to relations between well-armed competitors, and that depress impulses toward arms races. Not all treaties and treaty provisions succeed. Some have not…
Major diplomatic accomplishments for space are as rare as triple crown winners in baseball. The last year both occurred was in 1967, when the Outer Space Treaty was finalized and Carl Yastrzemski powered the Red Sox into the World Series.…
Reading 1,000 pages of memoranda, meeting notes, and transcripts of conversations about SALT I in Volume XXXII of Foreign Relations of the United States prompts many unsettling questions, beginning with the competence of President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser…
Pakistani and Indian politics baffle me, even after two decades of watching. You can’t keep track of the players, even with a scorecard, because they change positions so often. In Pakistan, jockeying for power used to be a triangular affair…
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement that the Obama administration will lend its support to international efforts to craft a Code of Conduct for responsible space-faring nations is welcome news. The fourth year of a presidential term is not the…
Happy New Year! There have been five particularly horrific years of living dangerously in the nuclear age. The first was, most jarringly, 1945, when the Bomb made its spectacular appearance. No advance in the history of warfare was more jarring…
The contest to pick the best lyric about the Bomb and best adapted lyric about the Bomb generated so many superb entries that our distinguished panel of judges had great difficulty selecting winners. Truth be told, in both categories we…
Consider this long post a crude proselytizing effort in this holiday season for those who doubt the existence of God, angels, guardians, guides, benevolent spirits, or deities of any kind or persuasion. One way to get religion is to have…
India remains thoroughly non-aligned, even after its civil nuclear deal with Washington. Pakistan, in contrast, needs patrons, and has succeeded in having two powerful ones — Washington and Beijing – to counterbalance India, a significant diplomatic accomplishment. No other country…
