Years · 2006

December 2006

26 posts

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How Long For Japan To Build A Deterrent?

First, a little housekeeping, then onto the subject of Japanese nukes. In the comments section of my previous post on the Sankei article, I posted the full text in Japanese. Two readers have offered translations, which I think is a…

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The Sankei Article on Japanese Nukes

Here is the link to the Japanese language Sankei Shimbun story about a Japanese government study on developing nuclear weapons. The story doesn’t have the document, but reproduces the “essence” in bullet points:  一、小型核弾頭試作には最低でも3~5年、2000億~3000億円かかる  一、核原料製造のためウラン濃縮工場拡張は非現実的。軽水炉使用済み燃料再処理をしても不可能  一、黒鉛減速炉によるプルトニウム抽出が一番の近道 I gather (from a…

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How long would it take Japan?

I’ve usually taken it as common wisdom that Japan, if it suddenly wanted to, could build a nuclear bomb in about 6 months. Articles and experts have quoted this figure. However, there are reports quoting the Japanese newspaper Sankei of…

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Merry Christmas and other Winter Holidays

A couple of months ago, Jane blogged about a computer game called DEFCON, which she observed was probably “more fun” than the various nonviolent strategy games making a big deal in our field. Spencer Yip at Siliconera notes we can…

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More Iran and more Israeli bunkers

We are on a whole Iran kick here so I felt that I should get in on the fun. First, check out this article, A Win-Win U.S. Strategy for Dealing with Iran in the current issue of Washington Quarterly. The…

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TotalWonkerr on Iran

Paul is just blogging up a storm, with posts on UN Resolution 1737 (sanctions on Iran) and a bill passed by the Majlis stipulating that the body “must decide within the next 48 hours whether to continue its membership in…

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Roston on Leverett

Ron Brynaert and Michael Roston make their best effort at reconstructing the Leverett op-ed, as does Brad Delong.

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More on the Leverett Redactions

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann claim that all the passages blocked by the CIA under White House pressure can found in other published articles, mostly quoting senior US officials less critical of the Bush Administration. I can’t prove it, but…

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Leverett Op-Ed

The New York Times has printed the redacted version of Flynt Leverret and Hillary Mann’s op-ed on US policy toward Iran, as well as a second op-ed by Leverett and Mann that contains citations for public domain discussions of all…

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W56 Safety Problem?

POGO claims that that workers at Pantex disassembling a W56 (exactly like that warhead) nearly made a big oopsie: Now we have learned that in March 2005, there was a “near-miss” event while disassembling another W56 warhead. Apparently the production…