Writing on ACW 2009–2022 · 676 posts · On the podcast: 1 episode
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Words matter, which helps explain the arms control community’s preoccupation with declaratory policies and treaties relating to nuclear weapons. But whatever phraseology emerges from the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and however long it takes for the CTBT to enter…
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In June 2005, Senator Richard Lugar released the findings of a survey he commissioned of nonproliferation experts. Eighty-five of us responded. Here are some of our pessimistic findings: Question 1: In your estimate, how many nations that do not currently…
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Many have declared the practice of nuclear arms control to be dead or dying. This was especially true after the Carter administration pulled the plug on SALT II in 1979. Here’s a sampler: Arms control has essentially failed. Three decades…
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Original Caption: “Professor Bernard Brodie conducting a class.” September 1946. Walter Sanders, photographer. George Santayana managed to have it both ways. He once opined that, “History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who…
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The twain between my ACW posts and my day job at the Stimson Center have not met — until now. The following analysis, a trimmed-down version of which has been posted on Stimson’s website, seems way too wonkish to be…
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Our son has introduced me to Drive By Truckers – a great band, but I’d be disinclined to rent them hotel rooms. My new favorite lyric (the song is Marry Me, in Decoration Day) is “Just cause I don’t run…
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‘Tis the season for giving thanks – at least for U.S. readers of ACW. One of the many things I am thankful for is the opportunity to have had conversations about arms control with McGeorge Bundy. He was one of…
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Seymour Hersh deserves every one of many awards for investigative journalism he has received, but not for his reporting on Pakistan, where his sourcing is weak and his conclusions are suspect. Hersh’s latest, Defending the Arsenal, Can Pakistan’s nuclear weapons…
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What has been the worst display of wounded egotism, dressed up as a difference over arms control policy? On my scorecard, it’s a tie between Teller vs. Oppenheimer and Nitze vs. Warnke. J. Robert Oppenheimer always had qualms about nuclear…
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Over the years, many experts have predicted proliferation cascades, but worst cases have yet to unfold. The current variation on this theme – reinforced by arms controllers as well as hard liners — is that, once Iran gets the Bomb…
