We know you’ve missed your favorite post! New York Times | Is anybody happy with President Obama’s Berlin speech? The NYT Ed Board wishes he had the nerve to endorse unilateral nuclear arms cuts rather than wait on Russia. Eric Edelman and Robert Joseph, observing that he hasn’t completely ruled it out, predict that Obama will end up going …
LBJ’s Safeguards Legacy
by | 2013-06-25 | 6 Comments
When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957, its member states began putting flesh on the bones of the IAEA’s statutory verification mandate. Then “and for many years thereafter,” according to David Fischer’s seminal history, “there were no serious proposals for applying safeguards” in the nuclear weapon states (NWS). These countries already had …
Is This Where North Korea Makes Its Centrifuges?
by | 2013-06-24 | 21 Comments
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 …
