18 posts
Will President Barack Obama speak of nuclear matters during his second inaugural address? If past is prologue, he will offer a sentence or two. Only twice in the nuclear age has a Presidential inaugural address not touched on nuclear danger.…
Patriot launch unit rearmed after making first “kill.” Battery A, 2d Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery, after becoming the first Patriot unit to successfully engage a SCUD missile, 18 January 1991, XVIII Airborne Corps History Office photograph by SPC Randall…
The internet is abuzz with the White House’s official, very amusing response to the online petitionto build a Death Star (This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For). (I will admit that I got a little silly myself on Twitter:…
Alain C. Enthoven wrote a book with K. Wayne Smith titled, How Much is Enough?, published by the RAND Corporation in 1971 and re-issued in 2005. Professor Enthoven has been asking this question his entire professional life, most recently about…
Yesterday morning here over a latte and a croissant–Kurfuerstendamm Ecke Schlueterstrasse–I got my ear bent by someone telling me that Israel and Western countries are now worried about the fate of 50 metric tons of uranium secretly stashed away in Syria. Reflecting for a couple of minutes after clicking off my…
Prospects for arms control in 2013 look bleak on most fronts, with a few important, potential exceptions. Prognostication is a fool’s game, since surprise – pleasant, but more often painful – comes with this territory, but here goes… In the…
This year’s contest elicited fewer entries than in the past, but they were of extremely high quality. Our semi-distinguished panel of judges pays homage to “barron” for remembering Prince’s lyrical plea to Ronald Reagan. “Ghost of ‘83” impressed with his…
The last time someone came up with a scheme to square the circle with Iran was back in 2010, and the leading actor was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The “Lavrov Plan” never took off because the U.S. and European powers wouldn’t embrace it, for reasons including differences over how to handle orders to Iran from the United Nations…
