Massive Retaliation
What was the apogee of U.S. nuclear excess? Numerically speaking, one could argue that it was in the 1960s, when the overall size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile peaked, or in the 1980s, if we’re counting the number of warheads…
2009
377 posts
Why Iran's Clock Keeps Resetting
I’ve never asked, but am willing to bet that the good folks at The Bulletin get a fair bit of grief over the Doomsday Clock. Seeing as we’ve been at five minutes to midnight since 2007 (the typical snide question…
Bye Jack, We’re Proud to Have Known You
Jack McGeorge, left, in one of his rubber suits examines an Iraqi 122 mm rocket potentially filled with sarin One of the great unsung heroes of the UN weapons inspections in Iraq passed away during cardiac surgery on 18 August…
South Korea Blinks
The Republic of Korea (ROK) aborted today’s launch of the KSLV-1 at T minus seven minutes. The crystal-clear blue skies shown in the picture, with the only cloud present being the venting of LOX boil-off, seem to indicate that it…
SECDEF Tried to Revive RRW in June
Elaine Grossman has a stellar piece of process journalism on the infighting surrounding the Nuclear Posture Review and START. The short version is that SECDEF Robert Gates tried to revive the RRW program at a Principal’s Committee meeting in June…
Acton on Prolif Risk, Nuclear Power
James Acton argues in Survival that proliferation risks ought to play a bigger role in decisions about nuclear power: Policymakers, industry insiders and regulators have usually failed to factor proliferation concerns into decisions about nuclear energy. If the policy of…
African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone
On 15 July, Burundi deposited its instrument of ratification for the Treaty of Pelindaba. Africa is now a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone. The entry into force of the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty, (also known as the Treaty of…
Can’t Ban ‘em? Compete with ‘em!
India’s CIRUS reactor in Google Earth (top) and Bhuvan (bottom) I love Google Earth and don’t know how I could have ever done my job before it was invented. (The love is apparently not mutual since Google censored my work…
Iran NSPD Coda
Long-time readers may recall that I was fairly vexed by the utter inability of the Bush Administration to produce a policy on Iran. And by “produce” I mean actually write an an honest-to-goodness National Security President Directive that the President…
Playing Peek-A-Boo With Nuclear Opacity
A picture is worth… You already know the saying. But what’s a picture worth when it comes without a caption? This may sound like an off-brand Zen koan, but it’s actually the windup to a small exercise in decoding ambiguous…