One of the persistent problems with the intelligence community (and its critics) is a form of selection bias—some of the folks who take an interest in intelligence matters do so because they’ve seen one to many James Bond movies. Even…
Hans Kristensen has pieced together a history of Russian nuclear submarine patrols over 1981-2004: The Russian nuclear submarine force is far less active than during the Cold War. Since 1984, according to information obtained from the U.S. Navy, the annual…
Joe Fiorill at Global Security Newswire has a nice summary of recent developments in the US-Russia nuclear liability issue, with a hopeful note of progress: Meanwhile, a key U.S.-Russian agreement on locking down and destroying various materials in Russia is…
Hands up! Participants celebrate. Reuters reports on Expedition Trophy 2005—a 15,000 km Murmansk to Vladivostok road rally through the Siberian wilderness: Another team, called Severny Dozor (the North Watch) and made up of Russians and Americans in two Chevrolet trucks,…
Nobody, Pavel Podvig included, seems to be able to craft a compelling reason for Moscow to threaten to pull out of the INF Treaty. But maybe, Ivanov didn’t bring it up. Maybe Rumsfeld did. Artur Blinov, writing in Nezavisimaya Gazeta…
SS-20 (left) and Pershing II (right) eliminated under the 1987 INF Treay on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The Financial Times is reporting that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov asked Donald Rumsfeld how the…
About ten years ago (25 January 1995) a Black Brant XII rocket launch from Northern Norway triggered a false alarm in the Russian early warning system. How close the false alarm came to triggering an accidental nuclear war is a…
An example of enhanced perimeter security and entry control fencing provided to Russia under the Nunn-Lugar program. The National Intelligence Council has issued an updated (November 2004) Annual Report to Congress on the Safety and Security of Russian Nuclear Facilities…
An SS-18 dismantled under START I. Jonathan Landay of Knight-Ridder reports that the intelligence community cannot verify the terms of the Moscow Treaty. The article is fascinating because of the revelations about how the Bush Administration approached the issue of…
Pavel Podvig, author of the definitive Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (makes a nice stocking stuffer), has a website and episodic blog entitled—what else—Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces. The goal of his Russian Nuclear Forces Project is to provide Russian citizens and…
