Amchitka
I’ve always counseled our son and daughter to go the extra mile. During the Cold War nuclear competition, the Soviet Union and the United States went a bit further than the extra mile. In one particular instance, the Nixon administration…
Michael Krepon
Writing on ACW 2009–2022 · 676 posts · On the podcast: 1 episode
Article·
The Long March
The Obama administration has gotten off to a much delayed start by unveiling the unclassified version of its National Space Policy on June 28th. The crafting of specific diplomatic initiatives will follow. The administration has accentuated the differences between its…
Article·
Echoes of a Treaty Ratification Past
The 1987 INF Treaty broke the back of the nuclear arms race, completely changed the tenor of U.S. – Soviet relations, and ushered in previously inconceivable intrusive inspections. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev accomplished these results by rejecting nuclear orthodoxy.…
Article·
Negotiating the Limited Test Ban Treaty
Glenn T. Seaborg knew about the Bomb from the inside out: he discovered plutonium, worked at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, served on the General Advisory Committee during the Truman administration, and accepted President Kennedy’s offer to become Chairman of the…
Article·
Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy
In a workshop in Islamabad today, one of the Pakistani presenters quoted from Henry Kissinger’s Big Splash on nuclear issues, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. This book was first published in 1957. It carried the imprimatur of the Council on…
Article·
Mea Culpa
Deepti Choubey has taken issue with my characterization of the 2010 NPT Rev Con as a “lowest common denominator success.” Upon reflection, and after comparing the 2010 final document with the 1995 and 2000 final documents, I think she’s right:…
Article·
Nightmare Scenarios for the NPT
Any conference that requires consensus, with almost two hundred potential vetoes, has two most-likely outcomes: a lowest common denominator success or an ugly mess. The 2005 NPT Review Conference was an ugly mess. The 2010 Rev Con was a lowest…
Article·
Death by Number
Courtesy of Milton Leitenberg’s research (“The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Bio-Terrorism” in the NONPROLIFERATION REVIEW, 16:1 (March 2009): Annual deaths in the United States due to cancer: 565,000 Annual deaths in the United States due to tobacco: 440,000 Annual deaths in…
Article·
Great Speeches
What are the most significant speeches related to arms control given at the middle and end of a U.S. presidency? There’s plenty of room for argument, but here are my choices. Let’s work backward. End of term: President Eisenhower’s famous…
Article·
The Tripartite Agreement
Here’s my two cent’s worth on the Iran-Brazil-Turkey trilateral agreement. The heads of state of Brazil and Turkey appear to have made the avoidance of confrontation their top-most priority, trumping the avoidance of gains in Tehran’s ability to make nuclear…