Quote of the week: “A ‘no first use’ policy would be the end of flexible response and thus of the very credibility of the Western strategy of deterrence.” – Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, speech at Georgetown University’s Center for…
Quotes of the week: “Evils can be created much quicker than they can be cured.” — Winston Churchill, 1951 “It is much easier at all times to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes.” — George Washington, in a letter…
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…
The Republican Party in the United States has adopted positions on social issues and the environment that are at odds with those of the majority of the voting public. Their signature opposition to “Obamacare” is losing ground. Both parties gerrymander…
My mother never threw out a shoebox at the back of my closet floor with the complete set of Topps baseball cards for the 1958 season inside – a treasured collection that our son will inherit. Later in life, I…
On March 24, 1985, Major Arthur D. Nicholson, Jr. was shot in the chest by a Soviet sentry while observing a tank shed near Ludwigslust, in East Germany. The 1947 Potsdam Agreement for the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany…
Five years ago, President Barack Obama was preparing to deliver a speech in Prague calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Nongovernmental organizations, including the Stimson Center, helped with blueprints for getting to zero, and distinguished “formers” were lending their…
It’s not easy to leave the mothership, but artists sometimes flourish by venturing away from the familiar. George Harrison’s talent was constrained by the Beatles, who already had two musical geniuses as front men. Harrison’s crowning achievements came after the…
The control of weapons of mass destruction has been about numbers, treaties and norms. The first two get most of the attention, even though the third is the grand prize. Numbers and treaties are essential tools to build an edifice…
[Update below the jump. -Ed.] Berlin brings out the best in U.S. Presidents. President Barack Obama has now tried in Berlin to replicate successful JFK’s recipe for curtailing nuclear tests. Senior administration officials have talked privately with the Kremlin about…
