113 posts
The year ends on many somber notes – the election of Donald Trump, his modus operandi and appointments to senior positions, the push on Capitol Hill to expand national missile defenses and to once again explore space-based systems, and the…
The end of the year has been hectic, and I would forgive you if you missed a Bill Gertz article from earlier this month about preparations for an anti-satellite/missile defense test in China at the Korla Missile Test Base. I…
In the mid-60s, The Green Hornet was a popular TV show. Popular enough for the Taiwanese to apparently name an early ballistic missile after it, the Green Bee (青蜂). Also, did you know Taiwan had its own ballistic missile program? Its anti-ship…
Guidance from Van Morrison: Rave on John Donne, rave on thy Holy fool Down through the weeks of ages In the moss borne dark dank pools Rave on, down through the industrial revolution Empiricism, atomic and nuclear age Rave on…
Can the North Koreans still trade coal effectively? What is going on with North Korean ships? Are transit lounges smokey dens of proliferative behavior? Andrea Berger, Deputy Director of Proliferation and Nuclear Policy at the Royal United Services Institute, joins Jeffrey…
Last week, Geoff Brumfiel at NPR wrote a story about my research, with Veli-Pekka Kivimäki, showing that Russia was now deploying the Iskander missile system to Kaliningrad. This is the longer analysis that outlines the evidence that Russia is putting the…
Ages ago, I was a Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill, working for a member of the House Armed Services Committee. The most impressive person who testified before the Committee was Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. His mind was like a…
Aaron and Scott talk about the Fourth Player in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Turkey was the lesser-known player in the Cuban Missile Crisis, with nuclear-tipped Jupiter missiles that ranged the bulk of the western USSR and Warsaw Pact countries. The U.S. opted…
Donald Trump can independently order the United States to launch nuclear weapons. No, really … he can independently order the use American nukes. This realization has made some uncomfortable, prompting discussions about presidential power and the bomb. Jeffrey and Aaron…
Donald Trump’s narrow victory could bring a reprise of President Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” of deterrence – except on steroids. Nixon and Henry Kissinger believed that projecting an image of readiness to use nuclear weapons could provide negotiating leverage. They…
