This is a guest post on behalf of ACW reader and occasional contributor Chris Camp. The first Atomic bombs, Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, hold an outsized place in our perceptions of what a nuclear weapon should be. Certainly they were notable as the first bombs, the only ones used in anger, and the most famous devices …
Just because no one does it anymore doesn’t mean it doesn’t work
by | 2014-07-15 | 7 Comments
This is a guest post on behalf of ACW reader and occasional contributor Chris Camp. Everyone knows that there are basically two paths to a bomb, right? You either build a bunch of centrifuges and enrich uranium to 93% or you build a few reactors and extract plutonium from the spent fuel. If you’re old …
Revisiting Enrichment for Bushehr
by | 2014-07-12 | 16 Comments
Underground at Anhalter Bahnhof and waiting for the S2 train a couple of mornings ago, a reporter rang me up to talk about Iran. He had read this piece written a few days before, in which I had run down why the Russians had become increasingly perturbed in recent months about Iran’s claim that it needed to …
Silver Anniversary Celebrations and Fireworks
by | 2014-07-08 | 6 Comments
We at the Stimson Center are celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary this year. A quarter-century ago, the Cold War was receding at a rapid pace and the Soviet Union was in its last stages of decomposition. Washington and Moscow were on course to reduce their nuclear arsenals by previously unthinkable percentages. It was, in other words, …
