Naysayers and Defenders of Arms Control
Our son has introduced me to Drive By Truckers – a great band, but I’d be disinclined to rent them hotel rooms. My new favorite lyric (the song is Marry Me, in Decoration Day) is “Just cause I don’t run…
Arms Control Wonk
Latest · page 195
Revisiting Votkinsk
Nicholas Kralev has an interesting story on the impending closure of the Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility. The key grafs confirm that rumor that the Bush Administration made the concession to Russian on ending monitoring at Votkinsk in November 2008: Congressional…
Cirincione on Colbert
Dear god. The best part is the sanction, bomb, marry game.
He3 & DHS, Pt2: A Modest Proposal
We usually think of the enrichment power of a centrifuge as fixed by its physical parameters. For a given gas, that of course is true. For enriching uranium hexafluoride, centrifuges with larger rotational speeds (the enrichment power of a centrifuge…
Iran: Compliance in Defiance?
Warning: Even more speculative than usual. The Iranian government has spoken: in response to the the rebuke contained in Friday’s IAEA Board of Governors resolution, Iran has defiantly announced that it will build another ten enrichment facilities: “We had no…
He-3 and Homeland Security, Part 1
A recent news article reporting the significant shortfall of He-3— a rare isotope of helium—has received an unfortunately small amount of attention. Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has planned on putting 1,400 He-3 based neutron detectors in ports…
The Vienna-New York Two-Step
[Update. I’ve come to the conclusion that the first third of this post is in error, alas. I continue to differ with the view of the New York Times that the resolution is “largely symbolic” — so far, it looks…
You know it was the 1980s because …
In 1986, Time Magazine hosted a conference in Washington on the Strategic Defense Initiative. You know it is the 1980s because a news magazine was hosting a conference on nuclear weapons. The images from the conference, by the way, are…
The Blue and Yellow Bomb (part 2)
Many things remain unknown about Sweden’s nuclear programme, especially why it was suddenly discontinued. It is interesting to note, of course, that the US intelligence community estimated that Sweden was on its way to the weapon up until 1964. Later…
McGeorge Bundy
‘Tis the season for giving thanks – at least for U.S. readers of ACW. One of the many things I am thankful for is the opportunity to have had conversations about arms control with McGeorge Bundy. He was one of…