The Stimson Center will release an edited volume in September comparing and contrasting deterrence against nuclear and space warfare. Here’s a preview. Nuclear deterrence and space deterrence have common elements as well as distinct differences. No difference is more striking…
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…
Anatoly Dobrynin was the Soviet Union’s Ambassador to the United States for a mere twenty-four years. He arrived in Washington the year of the Cuban missile crisis and left after Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan managed to steer US-Soviet relations…
There’s a Mad Man Theory of Deterrence. Does it apply to arms control, too? Here’s the keeper Mad Man quote, found in Richard M. Nixon’s The Real War (1980): International relations are a lot like poker – stud poker with…
The thirtieth anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s surprise roll-out of the Strategic Defense Initiative has been duly noted within narrow circles. The section of my shoe box files devoted to SDI is thick and inviting. The 4 X 6 card…
On February 12th, the President of the United States will deliver his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. Passages about nuclear dangers are usually included on these occasions. I asked Stimson’s Jonathan Fox to read…
Big Brother and the Holding Company I could do without, but I’ve been waiting four decades for someone with Janis Joplin’s raw talent and intensity. Finally, along comes Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes. Patience can sometimes be rewarded. There…
Twenty-five years ago, the world’s highest-stakes poker game was played in Reykjavik. This characterization comes from a man with a pretty good poker face, George Shultz, who was the US Secretary of State at the time. Secretary Shultz appeared to…
