Last month Iran raised the specter that it may expand the scope of its nuclear activities, especially if its interpretations concerning what constitutes non-compliance with the JCPOA do not prevail. This was not the first time Iran has dropped this hint. In 2013 the head of Iran’s nuclear program, Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, announced that Iran might …
OSINT Brief for PEOTUS
by | 2017-01-03 | 24 Comments
Welcome to 2017! I’m still on vacation (can’t you tell?), but Trump sure isn’t. He shot off two tweets last night. North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017 …
Thomas Schelling: Compellence in Asia
by | 2017-01-03 | 3 Comments
For the first part of this two-part essay, see: Thomas Schelling: Deterrence in Europe. (Now with minor corrections and an update in the middle of the post.) * * * So much for Europe. Let’s consider the role of events in Asia in shaping Schelling’s ideas. “The brink” is the central metaphor in Schelling’s explanation …
Thomas Schelling: Deterrence in Europe
by | 2017-01-02 | 30 Comments
(Now with updates and minor corrections, for extra goodness.) When I came to the University of Maryland College Park for grad school in the fall of 1998, I didn’t have to buy either The Strategy of Conflict or Arms and Influence, having inherited the battered copies my parents shared in college. That was a tiny …
