Years · 2012

December 2012

20 posts

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More Iranians in North Korea

Greetings from Paris.  Bruno Tertrais says hello. UPI and Chosun Ilbo, both conservative news outlets, add some potential details to the possibility of Iranian technicians in North Korea.  I don’t have much to add, other than noting the location of…

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The Fate of the IAEA’s PMD File

In anticipation of this week’s meeting in Tehran between Iran and the IAEA, there has been some buzz about what should happen with the IAEA’s file on “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program if in fact the U.S. administration decides to…

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DBT

As readers of these posts know, DBT stands for the Drive-By Truckers, whose music has been extolled here repeatedly. Consider this a not-so-subtle plug for additional entries for the ACW holiday competition for best lyrics about the Bomb. DBT also…

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Amano at CFR on PMD and SLC

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano was at the Council on Foreign Relations for an hour of on-the-record discussion yesterday. George Perkovich moderated. Here’s the link. Highlights:  IAEA “will keep asking questions” to Iran about PMD in parallel with ongoing P5+1 diplomacy DPRK developments are “equally…

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Holiday Season Contest

It’s that time of year – time for the annual ACW contest for best lyrical stanzas relating to the Bomb. There are two categories for this competition, as before: (1) A lyric about the Bomb that has been written and…

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SLA versus SLC

One aspect of the current tizzy over the future course for IAEA safeguards is a certain frustration expressed by a number of  states about how the IAEA’s terms of reference all fit together exactly. Above all, confusion reigns in these quarters about the extent of congruity between Integrated Safeguards and State-Level Safeguards. Are…

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Iranians in North Korea?

Kyodo news — citing the inevitable single “Western diplomatic source” — has an interesting report that Iran has agreed to permantly station four missile (and perhaps nuclear) experts at a facility in North Korea, about 85 kilometers from the Chinese…

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Patton on Pakistan’s U Supply

My colleague, Tamara Patton, has published her much anticipated master’s thesis on estimating the size of the Pakistani plutonium production reactors at Khushab in Science and Global Security  (Combining Satellite Imagery and 3D Drawing Tools for Nonproliferation Analysis: A Case…

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Russia’s Safeguards Problem

I’ve  been away from this blog for a couple months working on, among other things, the subject of this post. I also knocked about a while in Rome, where I was inspired to read Helen Langdon’s magnificent biography of the painter Caravaggio. This opus was the fruit of many…

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Verification, Risk, and Nuclear Testing

Concerns over verification and compliance are a refuge for skeptics of arms control. These concerns can be substantive as well as overdramatized. No treaty is risk-free, and no monitoring regime is foolproof. Will a powerful cheater be called out, even…