Hans Blix said a lot of things while Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency for 16 years, and one of them was this: “We cannot inspect every nook and cranny in a large country.” Before running the IAEA, Blix was a politician, a career civil servant, and a foreign minister, and in public …
CTBTO Policy Course
by | 2013-07-11 | No Comments
The CTBTO is going to live-stream a policy course entitled Proven Treaty, Political Challenge: The CTBT and Multistakeholder Security, with a pretty high quality list of speakers. And, if you are in Vienna, the course is free of charge. The CTBT Diplomacy and Public Policy Course, entitled, “Proven Treaty, Political Challenge: The CTBT and Multistakeholder Security”, …
The Triad
by | 2013-07-08 | 25 Comments
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 …
