28 posts
General Obering and the Missile Defense Agency want to build microsatellites that look like warheads and decoys to help them practice looking dumbfounded when the interceptor fails to leave the silo. Sorry, that was peevish. Let me try again: MBA,…
I had a nice discussion with Bob Peurifoy today. He has kindly agreed to let me post the full text of his working paper on a notional uranium reliable replacement warhead (URRW). Three comments, by way of introdcution: Peurifoy’s first…
Yang Yegong (杨业功)—a commander in the Second Artillery—has died of bowel cancer. CCTV has a massive retrospective. I have no idea why Yang is a big deal, but it is fun to speculate. This article suggests (I think, it is…
John Fleck, writing in the Albuquerque Journal, reports some folks think the reliable replacement warhead program should emphasize uranium designs: A veteran of the U.S. nuclear weapons program thinks the weaponeers should consider giving up on plutonium. In a paper…
Too many articles about Chinese espionage are about as sophisticated as the plot of a Hong Kong action flick. At least John Woo made stuff blow up. Somebody at the Wall Street Journal saw Hard Boiled one too many times.…
I am just now getting the chance to write some comments about Peter Scoblic’s TNR article about nuclear proliferation. [full disclosure: Peter was the editor of Arms Control Today when I first began working at ACA.] These are just some…
Iranian news agencies are really showing off the Uranium Conversion Facility at Esfahan (Isfahan), where Iran has resumed fuel cycle activities. The Fars news agency photographs Iran’s uranium conversion facility, inside and out. Check it out. Conservative daily Keyhan (full…
As previously rumored here at ACW, conservative Ali Larijani will replace Hasan Rowhani (Rohani) as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC)—becoming Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. Larijani has had some very tough things to say about EU-Iran negotiations. Update:…
Iran’s Uranium Conversion Facility is the weak point in Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle. That was a victory for US nonproliferation policy under, gasp, the Clinton Administration. The new NIE on Iran’s nuclear program contains a pair of substantive revelations. Dafna…
I have previously noted Wade Boese’s article explaining that, despite previous Bush administration claims, the BBC China interdiction was not a PSI operation. For whatever reason, SecState Rice decided around that time to argue that the “PSI provided the framework…
