Years

2004

332 posts

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How many bombs in North Korea?

Well, this is an interesting little development. As you know, ArmsControlWonk was a little uncertain about estimates that North Korea has produced “at least eight” nuclear weapons. There are two reasons for uncertainty. 1. That’s a lot of bombs, given…

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Congressional Research Service on Space Systems

The Congressional Research Service has a recent summary of US space systems that contains paragraphs about important weapons-related efforts including NFIRE. Marcia S. Smith, U.S. Space Programs: Civilian, Military, and Commercial (September 28, 2004).

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ISODARCO Wrap Up

Sorry for the long lapse in posts—the Chinese internet browser was not letting me use blogger. ISODARCO is off-the-record, but you’ll probably see little bits and pieces pop up over the next few weeks. Something I can say is that…

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9th ISODARCO Research Seminar, Nanjing, China

I’ll be giving a talk, Space Weaponization Spending in FY2005 Defense Budget, at the 9th PIIC Beijing Seminar on International Security (12-15 October 2004) in Nanjing, China. Yes, the Beijing Seminar is being held in Nanjing. How should I know?…

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Kaplan on Strangelove

Fred Kaplan, author of The Wizards of Armageddon, has a review of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in the New York Times. The whole thing is worth a read, but…

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Bush Tries to Take Kim up the Qadhafi

U.S. Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA) has apparently confirmed that the United States is attempting to establish a backchannel with North Korea through Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi [I am going with the State Dept. spelling]. In July, US National Security Advisor…

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Feckless Leadership on North Korea and Iran

Rose Gottemoellar has a spot-on letter to the FT about Bush’s leadership, or lack thereof, on North Korea and Iran issues: Bush showed lack of leadership over N Korea and Iran policy Financial Times, October 7 2004 03:00 From Ms…

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Blinding Satellites

The Pentagon often issues dire sounding warnings like : “The Soviets have … at least one ground-based laser, also at Sary Shagan, that may have sufficient power to damage some unprotected satellites in near-earth orbits.” “China already may possess the…

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Nuclear Weapons: Lost & Found

One of my favorite cocktail party gambits is to explain that the United States lost nuclear weapons all the time during the Cold War, including one off the coast of Georgia in 1958. After a moment of awkward disbelief, I…

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Marston.Blogspot.com

One of the nice things about living in Washington is meeting interesting people. I was lucky enough to meet Brett Marston, though under the worst possible circumstances. Brett has a blog focusing on “law and politics worldwide, etc.” He made…