Avatar photoBurma’s Suspicious Defense Facility

What is Burma building in the jungle? In this week’s podcast, Jeffrey and Aaron discuss Jeffrey’s and Catherine Dill’s two recent pieces on Burma’s very large – and very suspicious – facility in Pauk. The conversation begins with a discussion about the facility and then pivots to the Obama administration’s outreach to the Burmese government. …

Avatar photoCrime and Punishment

A dedicated band of anti-arms controllers, led by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, sought to foil President Ronald Reagan’s pursuit of nuclear arms reduction treaties with Moscow. One tactic was to publish charge sheets of Soviet treaty violations. For example, the Kremlin constructed a large phased array radar …

Avatar photoAdditional Thoughts on Burma

Catherine Dill and I have published a pair of articles concerning allegations that Burma’s generals are building a chemical weapons facility near a place called Pauk.  The article published on the CNS website analyzes satellite images of the site, while the other in Foreign Policy explains why we ought to care. The short version is …

Avatar photoThe Psychology of Deterrence

Henry Kissinger wrote two early, influential books on the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957) and The Necessity for Choice (1960). I bought these used books at bargain-basement prices at the Princeton University bookstore. The name on the inside cover suggests that I was the beneficiary of Klaus Knorr’s decision to thin out his …