A few disarmament posters by Robert Wout, better known as Opland. Many of my colleagues are attending the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit in Amsterdam, Netherlands. (My friend @MilesPomper is tweeting up a storm for #NSS2014.) It is normal for the assembled heads of government to bring “housegifts” — tangible accomplishments to improve nuclear security that will paint their countries …
Trial Operational Deterrence
by | 2014-03-21 | 13 Comments
Yeah, that’s a weird title, huh? Well, it’s a weird idea. Bear with me. Over the course of my writing, teaching and corresponding about China’s nuclear forces, I kept stumbling over the same question: Why does China insist on calling the Second Artillery, China’s nuclear-armed missile force, the “core force” for China’s deterrent?
Project Dribble (Uniform Vela)
by | 2014-03-19 | 2 Comments
There is something unsettling about seeing a Confederate flag fluttering above a nuclear test site. No, this isn’t some alternate history where the South rises again, armed with nuclear weapons. It’s a (cropped) image after the October 1964 Salmon shot — one of the pair of nuclear tests conducted in the Tatum Salt Dome in …
Pakistan/US: Ties that Chafe and Bind
by | 2014-03-19 | 7 Comments
Husain Haqqani has many detractors in Pakistan due to his shifting political allegiances and book publications. The thesis of Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (2005) is about a longstanding alliance of convenience between the Army and Pakistan’s religious parties “to seek strategic depth in Afghanistan and to put pressure on India,” which cemented the Army’s …
