162 posts
Are we winning or losing the battle against proliferation? This simple question does not have a simple answer because bad headlines mask quiet progress. Since the 1960s, reports on the status of proliferation have almost always been pessimistic. It doesn’t…
Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker have sent along an Addendum, following up on their original analysis posted here and which spawned so much press coverage. The issues it raises continue to be very interesting. I am embroiled in several very…
The other day I joked that I am the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation program which means, lately, I am the Director of the North Korean Nonproliferation Program. Yeesh. Many of you have noticed that Markus Schiller and Robert…
There is a long history of deceptive practices and bogus military displays designed to project greater firepower than is actually available. In my military dictionary, this is known as creative deterrence, or deterrence on the cheap. A classic case in…
There is all sorts of wild talk, mostly around the possibility of a third DPRK nuclear test. But that’s hardly the weirdest, most disturbing thing occurring on the Korean peninsula. The North Korean propaganda campaign against South Korean President Lee…
The summer of love (at least in the San Francisco Bay Area) was in 1967. The summer of arms control was in 1960. Longstanding readers of these posts may recall my ten favorite books on arms control. Two of them…
We’ve had a lively discussion about the Chinese-manufactured WS51200 TEL that showed up in the DPRK’s April 15 military parade, carrying something very pointy. I wanted to weigh in with a few observations about the Wanshan Special Vehicle Company, the…
I am a little baffled that the media isn’t making a bigger deal out of the fact that North Korea paraded six road-mobile ICBMs through Pyongyang. Six road-mobile ICBMs. Hey! Look! ICBMs! Road-mobile ICBMs! Just like Gates said! As best…
Hans J. Morgenthau was a heavyweight whose books, including Politics Among Nations (1948) and In Defense of the National Interest (1951), packed a real wallop. Morgenthau also wrote with great clarity about nuclear weapons. Check out his essay, “The Four…
[Updates have been transposed to the end of the post. -Ed.] Tal Inbar points out these photos from today’s military parade in Pyongyang. More details after the jump.
