164 posts
Amidst talk of budget cuts and further strategic arms reductions, the Pentagon has issued another ritualistic affirmation of the Triad in its report to Congress on Nuclear Employment Strategy. During the Cold War, the big plus of maintaining a strategic…
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, is the most important player in decisions on Iran’s nuclear program. For anything that Iran’s new president-elect, Hassan Rouhani, may propose to the outside world to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis, we won’t…
Sonni Efron has an article online at the TheAtlantic.com detailing the efforts of a Syrian activist to crowd-source missile launches [link fixed] against civilians in Aleppo and other opposition-held areas: [Dishad] Othman’s SCUD early warning system began operating on Wednesday.…
Reader Chris Camp, who comments under the name Cthippo, sent me an essay last week that I wanted to share with readers. Camp asks which states would be winners (or losers) if some sorcerer used a magic wand make all…
There have been only two Democratic Presidents since FDR who have been elected to serve two full terms. On nuclear issues, Barack Obama seems to be following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton. President Clinton achieved considerable success in reducing…
We know you’ve missed your favorite post! New York Times | Is anybody happy with President Obama’s Berlin speech? The NYT Ed Board wishes he had the nerve to endorse unilateral nuclear arms cuts rather than wait on Russia. Eric Edelman and Robert…
When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957, its member states began putting flesh on the bones of the IAEA’s statutory verification mandate. Then “and for many years thereafter,” according to David Fischer’s seminal history, “there were no…
Without further ado, a guest post by R. Scott Kemp, assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, where he directs the Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy. When it comes to North Korea, there are pretty severe limits on…
The cheapest debating trick in the nuclear weapons/arms control business is the well-crafted rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions are asked not to seek answers, but to advance preferred outcomes. Hardy perennials include, “Can’t we do better than…?” The best rhetorical questions…
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Department of State | Nunn-Lugar is dead. Long live non-Lugar. Here, have a fact sheet. Bloomberg | Wait. So Iranian President-elect Rohani is ready to suspend enrichment of 20 percent uranium (for sanction relaxation, of course). …
