Readers beware: The next two posts are ridden with conflicts of interest. Policy entrepreneurship to reduce nuclear dangers would dry up without foundations. National leaders and bureaucracies are too consumed by their daily calendars to serve as their own think tanks. Instead, they borrow, embrace, implement or oppose initiatives that come from outside their ranks. …
Tuppenny Trident?
by | 2012-03-05 | 55 Comments
In case you haven’t been watching, some very interesting fissures are now evident in the support for an independent British nuclear deterrent. This is going to be very interesting. There are two factors at play — the looming UK budget crisis and the possibility of an independent Scotland. Together, these two factors may achieve something …
The Moon Race
by | 2012-03-04 | 28 Comments
America’s race to the moon was like the competition with Nazi Germany to make the atomic bomb: the “race” mobilized immense resources while the opponent failed to compete. In the case of the A-bomb, this became evident only after Germany surrendered. Not so in the race to the moon, when the absence of competition became …
Significant Quantities Rant
by | 2012-03-01 | 37 Comments
Working at a think tank with lots of proliferation specialists offers certain advantages, especially the casual conversations. It turns out Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, Miles Pomper and I all share a pet-peeve: When people incorrectly convert amounts of plutonium and especially highly enriched uranium from kilograms into some arbitrary number of nuclear weapons. There is a right …
