“I Like Ike” was a campaign slogan for Dwight David Eisenhower’s easy presidential victories in 1952 and 1956. The General who led allied forces to victory in Europe during World War II was a natural to lead the Republican Party…
Trend lines in the subcontinent are poor and will not improve until there is substantive dialogue between India and Pakistan. Hopes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would pull a “Nixon goes to China” maneuver with Pakistan have been dashed, at…
Which camp – pro or con — is most guilty of wishful thinking about the Iran deal? Supporters who argue they have secured verifiable, significant reductions in Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons? Or opponents who argue that a “better…
Tense situations that prompt nuclear threats occur when one (or more) of three conditions exist: when the state issuing threats feels weak in some important respects, when other means of suasion are unsuccessful, and when the stakes involved are exceptionally…
A serious competition between two nuclear-armed rivals is very hard to stabilize. When one rival increases its nuclear capability, the other does, too. Then both rivals feel less secure – even when they possess secure retaliatory capabilities. It’s even harder…
Our nuclear future would take a significant turn for the worse if Beijing and New Delhi begin to mimic Cold War thinking about the utility of nuclear weapons. So far, they haven’t. New Delhi waited 24 years in between nuclear…
This summer, I’ve been thinking and writing about the delusional, aspirational notion of deterrence stability between antagonistic nuclear-armed states. For the short form of my argument, see my essay in Dawn. The long form will be part of a second collection of essays…
Mike Moore reminded me a while back of this verse from William Butler Yeats’ classic poem, “The Second Coming“: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere…
