Years

2014

142 posts

Article

Accelerating Descent

Arms control has boom-and-bust cycles. We’re now going through very tough times. They remind me of the Carter administration. As Yogi Berra has said, it feels like déjà vu all over again – only Obama’s challenges are more severe. This…

Episode41 min

A Hypersonic Arms Race

What is the status of China’s and the United States’ hypersonic weapons programs? What can open source tell us about China’s most recent rest? What happened at Kodiak Island? Are hypersonic weapons destabilizing? And why were Jeffrey and James searching…

Article

Isodarco PSA

For the second year in a row, a PSA regarding the Isodarco conference! Isodarco since 1966 Italian Pugwash Group International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts 28th Winter Course on: “GLOBAL NUCLEAR GOVERNANCE: ACTORS, POLICIES AND ISSUES” ANDALO (TRENTO)…

Article

Uncommon Strategic Restraint

Our nuclear future would take a significant turn for the worse if Beijing and New Delhi begin to mimic Cold War thinking about the utility of nuclear weapons. So far, they haven’t. New Delhi waited 24 years in between nuclear…

Episode44 min

An Expensive Burden: Nuclear Weapons in Europe

Are NATO based nuclear weapons an advantage in a dangerous world? Or are they an expensive and obsolete weapon that undermine NATO burden sharing? Is NATO divided about US nuclear weapons in Europe? Are the weapons secure? Are Euro-Hippies a…

Article

Geolocating the Toksa Launch

Give it a second to load the map. As I suspected, some of North Korea’s recent “MLRS” tests are more likely tests of the solid-fueled SS-21 Toksa SRBM.  The missile in question is an extended-range SS-21, that may eventually be…

Article

Brodie at the Beginning

Original Caption: “Professor Bernard Brodie conducting a class.” September 1946. Walter Sanders, photographer. It’s been awhile since I’ve steered aspiring wonks and ACW readers to the virtues of reading Bernard Brodie’s first take about the Bomb. Brodie made some incorrect…

Article

Korla Missile Test Complex

I have a new column at Foreign Policy, as well as a podcast with Aaron Stein, on China’s testing of hit-to-kill technologies against satellites and ballistic missiles. I’ve been trying to figure out where Arms Control Wonk fits in between…

Episode38 min

Satellites Under Threat: The Spread of Hit-To-Kill

What are the implications of the spread of hit-to-kill? What are the differences between ground based missile defense interceptors and anti-satellite weapons? Why is China continuing to develop ground based anti-satellite weapons? Why did the US feel the need to…

Article

Responding to Treaty Violations

Gray-haired readers of ACW will remember when the acronym RSVP was treaty-related. During the first term of the Reagan administration, arms-control opponents compiled a long list of the Kremlin’s treaty violations and circumventions, real or imagined. They then commissioned studies…