Amidst talk of budget cuts and further strategic arms reductions, the Pentagon has issued another ritualistic affirmation of the Triad in its report to Congress on Nuclear Employment Strategy. During the Cold War, the big plus of maintaining a strategic force posture consisting of bombers, land-based, ocean-spanning missiles and ballistic missile-carrying submarines was clear: diversification …
Closing the Iran File
by | 2013-07-04 | 35 Comments
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, is the most important player in decisions on Iran’s nuclear program. For anything that Iran’s new president-elect, Hassan Rouhani, may propose to the outside world to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis, we won’t know for a fact whether Rouhani will be acting upon specific instructions from Khamenei. But …
Crowdsourcing Scud Launches
by | 2013-07-03 | 5 Comments
Sonni Efron has an article online at the TheAtlantic.com detailing the efforts of a Syrian activist to crowd-source missile launches [link fixed] against civilians in Aleppo and other opposition-held areas: [Dishad] Othman’s SCUD early warning system began operating on Wednesday. It is called Aymta, which means “when” in Arabic. Users can opt to receive alerts by …
Disarmament Winners and Losers
by | 2013-07-01 | 33 Comments
Reader Chris Camp, who comments under the name Cthippo, sent me an essay last week that I wanted to share with readers. Camp asks which states would be winners (or losers) if some sorcerer used a magic wand make all the world’s nuclear weapons disappear. As I read through and found myself agreeing here, disagreeing …
