Without further ado, a guest post by R. Scott Kemp, assistant professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, where he directs the Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy. When it comes to North Korea, there are pretty severe limits on traditional intelligence-gathering. Spy agencies frequently disagree about what’s happening in the country, and rarely can …
Cheap Rhetorical Tricks
by | 2013-06-23 | 10 Comments
The cheapest debating trick in the nuclear weapons/arms control business is the well-crafted rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions are asked not to seek answers, but to advance preferred outcomes. Hardy perennials include, “Can’t we do better than…?” The best rhetorical questions frame a public policy argument advantageously, untie purse string, help gain approval for a treaty …
FYRP: The Non-Lugar Program
by | 2013-06-19 | 9 Comments
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Department of State | Nunn-Lugar is dead. Long live non-Lugar. Here, have a fact sheet. Bloomberg | Wait. So Iranian President-elect Rohani is ready to suspend enrichment of 20 percent uranium (for sanction relaxation, of course). He is ready to fulfill one the US’s major demands? Sounds great! Or way too good …
Peace, Justice and Nuclear Arms Reductions
by | 2013-06-19 | 14 Comments
[Update below the jump. -Ed.] Berlin brings out the best in U.S. Presidents. President Barack Obama has now tried in Berlin to replicate successful JFK’s recipe for curtailing nuclear tests. Senior administration officials have talked privately with the Kremlin about taking parallel steps to reduce strategic forces by one-third and to make bold reductions in …
