How much has the Republican Party on Capitol Hill lost its equilibrium? Just hear the histrionics about the Iran deal — a deal which has the unanimous support of the UN Security Council and every U.S. ally and friend around…
A “free” vote on Capitol Hill is one without negative consequences. Republicans and Democrats can line up with party activists and showboat without risk because they will be unsuccessful. Hard decisions can be sidestepped and political posturing is easy when…
This assessment of the core monitoring provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is necessarily hurried and preliminary. I invite ACW readers to weigh in with their comments. The text of key provisions follows my first-cut assessment. The agreement’s…
Five years ago (5/6/10), during the 2010 NPT Review Conference, you can find my blog post on “Egypt, the Spoiler?” After the 2015 RevCon, we can dispense with the question mark. What happened in New York was symptomatic of a…
The “nuclear enterprise” – as the nuclear weapons complex and force structure in the United States have been successfully rebranded — is bloated and in need of paring. It is also in need of repair. The Pentagon commissioned two high-level…
Scott Sagan wrote a typically fine essay in the Spring 2000 issue of International Security on “The Commitment Trap.” His subject was the Bush administration’s use of “calculated ambiguity” to deter Saddam Hussein from using chemical or biological weapons in…
Every war must end, but few end well. Fred Charles Iklé has written a slim but essential book on this subject. Fred’s bottom line: government leaders that make momentous decisions to go to war, or decisions that could lead to…
