In a phone call at one o’clock in the morning on March 17, 2003, the U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA, Kenneth Brill, advised IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to remove his inspectors from Baghdad immediately. The following day, the IAEA gave orders for personnel to leave Iraq. On March 19, the U.S. launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. Fast-forward nine years. We’re now moving into the fifth month …
Spurgeon Keeny
by | 2012-08-17 | 2 Comments
Spurgeon Keeny, one of the founding fathers and practitioners of nuclear arms control, died last week, after a full life, well lived. Spurgeon loved Hieronymus Bosch as much as touch football. His understanding of arms control, nonproliferation, and the fuel cycle was encyclopedic, one reason why meetings with him were rarely brisk. Almost every issue …
Ayatollah’s Pregnant Pause
by | 2012-08-16 | 18 Comments
Sorry about the light posting as of late — the day job has been busier than usual and the new column at Foreign Policy is definitely a lot of work. I’ve started a few posts, but got hung up in the usual ways — the problems turned out to be more interesting than I thought or …
Deterrence-palooza
by | 2012-08-12 | 11 Comments
For four years now, STRATCOM has hosted an annual deterrence symposium that provides opportunities for younger officers and their seniors to hear old hands, U.S. government officials, foreign perspectives, policy influentials, and the occasional heretic. As a networking and learning experience on all matters relating to deterrence, it doesn’t get much better than this. I …
