Hard and Soft Power
Lyric of the week: There’s gonna come a time when the true scene leaders Forget where they differ and get big picture ’cause the kids at their shows, they’ll have kids of their own The sing-a-long songs will be our…
April 2020
9 posts
The Day After Hiroshima
Quote of the week: “If necessary, we shall continue the war alone, and we are not afraid of that. But I trust you realize, Mr. President, that the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if…
Roof repair work spotted at the Pyongsan uranium mill
In exciting news, Planet Labs snapped its first Skysat (0.8m resolution) image of North Korea’s uranium mill at Pyongsan on April 14, 2020. The image shows North Korea completed roof repair work on the largest building at the complex. This…
The IAEA’s questions for Iran
The International Atomic Energy Agency has questions about three sites in Iran — but Iran doesn’t feel like answering. Aaron, Anne and Jeffrey discuss the atomic archive, access to suspect facilities, and environmental sampling. Plus, there are a few things…
Tracking the PLA Rocket Forces
The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces used to be a nearly opaque organization to all but a few open-source researchers. Now, increased availability of satellite-imagery and public media enable open-source exploitation and tracking of PRC missile forces like never before. …
The Covid-19 and Nuclear Plagues
Poem of the week: “Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw little that is Good Steadily hastening towards immortality, And the vast all that is call’d Evil I saw hastening to merge itself And become lost and dead.” –…
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something…Yellow?
This is a guest post from my colleague Margaret Croy. Dual Use in the DPRK: Uranium Extraction from Phosphate Fertilizer Factories Last June, while going through Google Earth and trying to geolocate some of the facilities linked to North Korea’s…
Mort Halperin and the Okinawa Decision
Mort Halperin a giant as an academic and a policy practitioner. And he’s working on a memoir that covers his sixty year career in foreign policy. Mort played an important role in the US decision to revert Okinawa to Japanese…
The Most Consequential Step
Diversion of the week: I strongly recommend the movie “Heart and Souls” (1993) starring a very young Robert Downey, Jr., the great Alfre Woodard, the under-appreciated straight man, Charles Grodin, Kyra Sedgwick and Tom Sizemore. We usually settle for one,…
