Henry Kissinger doesn’t do remorse. The closest he came to second guessing his arms control negotiating record has become a classic quote in Wonkdom: I would say in retrospect that I wish I had thought through the implications of a…
In meetings over the past few weeks, I have heard repeated references to the wonderful 1983 essay Deterrence and Reassurance by the late Michael Howard. Point of fact — Sir Michael Howard is not dead. But with the way in…
Much has been said about the decision to refuel Iran’s Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) and many have worried about possible consequences for proliferation that supplying Iran with uranium enriched to 19.75% U235 might imply. As I hope I made clear,…
Yes, we’ve all had a big helping of TRR lately, but this extra tidbit is just too juicy to pass up. Other topics again soon, I promise. A friend of the blog who shall go nameless points out that just…
Thomas Schelling and Morton Halperin provided the most widely used definition of arms control in their seminal book, Strategy and Arms Control (1961): We believe that arms control is a promising, but still only dimly perceived, enlargement on the scope…
Last week, the Senate Republican Policy Committee released this execrable document, START: Do Time Extension Instead of a Bad Treaty, on the New START treaty. Today, I finagled a copy of a memo that Senator Kyl’s staff has distrubuted in…
Molybdenum seems to be something that just won’t go away! Most people feel it is one of the reasons Iran appears willing to ship its indigenously enriched LEU first to France to be further purified and then to Russia to…
The immediate advantages of last week’s agreement-in-principle between Iran and the P5+1 / E3+3 are pretty clear. Iran gets about five years’ worth of fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR). And removing 1,200 kg of Iran’s LEU and returning…
The Russians have made a lot of noise about the possibility that advanced conventional weapons in the US arsenal place their nuclear forces at risk and, as a corollary, that certain capabilities should be included in future arms control negotiations.…
A swimming pool-type reactor similar to the TRR in Iran whose fuel is apparently the subject of a deal between Iran and the P5+1. The eerie blue light is Cherenkov radiation given off as subatomic particles streak through the surrounding…
