Avatar photoRethinking China’s Fast Reactor

At the beginning of 2017 a little more information percolated to the outside world concerning the hazy official particulars of China’s aspirations to “close the nuclear fuel cycle” by deploying fast breeder reactors and reprocessing plants. What’s coming across adds to other information suggesting that this program for some time has been subject to an …

Avatar photoTear-Down Mode

Republican insurgents in the Congress are now in full tear-down mode, aiming their wrecking balls at what’s left of seven decades of bipartisan achievement to reduce nuclear dangers and nuclear arsenals. The disruptors are now ascendant in Washington, with the Disruptor-in-Chief setting the tone from the Oval Office. He busies himself dissing allies, tweeting out …

Avatar photoA Simple, Unthreatening Way to Shore Up NATO

Secretary of Defense James Mattis travelled to Asia to calm nerves in Tokyo and Seoul. America’s Asian allies have been unnerved by President Donald Trump’s dismissive rhetoric about alliances based on cost/benefit grounds, and his decision to dump the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. America’s European allies are also deeply unsettled by Trump’s bad-mouthing of NATO …

Avatar photoGuest Post: The Prague Agenda in a Post-Truth World

This guest contribution from Heather Wokusch, a writer, educator, and activist based in Vienna, Austria, recounts the discussion at the 6th Prague Agenda Conference in early December 2016, and the somber mood of the event. The event took place in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, but prior to the inauguration. “Collective handwringing about the …