Scott Sagan wrote a typically fine essay in the Spring 2000 issue of International Security on “The Commitment Trap.” His subject was the Bush administration’s use of “calculated ambiguity” to deter Saddam Hussein from using chemical or biological weapons in the run-up to the second Gulf war. After disavowing chemical weapons (1992) as well as …
A New START Model for Transparency in Nuclear Disarmament
by | 2013-04-29 | 7 Comments
Last week, I was lucky to be able to join NPT PrepCom-ers in Geneva to help present the recently completed UNIDIR study ‘A New START Model for Transparency in Nuclear Disarmament,’ carried out by Pavel Podvig, Phillip Schell, and myself. The work is accessible on the recently launched nuclearforces.org website, where you can check out the …
FYRP: Fuzzy Red Lines
by | 2013-04-27 | 4 Comments
Another installment of the best (and only) regular ACW post! The White House | “…varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used [sarin] on a small scale…” Joseph Holliday says that Assad has outfoxed Obama. Nature | From prison in Iran, a graduate student writes that he refused to work on a laser-based …
Reconverting Iran’s U3O8 to UF6
by | 2013-04-27 | 46 Comments
What do we really know about Iran’s capability to reconvert triuranium octoxide (U3O8) enriched to 20% U-235 back into UF6 feedstock that can be further enriched to produce weapon-grade uranium? Can Iran do it? And if so, how fast? The answer matters considerably, as Iran, Israel, and the P5+1 will make decisions this year, based …
