I believe that US nuclear forces, policies and posture are mis-aligned with today’s security environment. The current budget crisis provides the best opportunity to fundamentally realign our approach to nuclear deterrence since the end of the Cold War. That simple fact — that this is a decisive moment — is why we have an intensely …
Missile Defense Phobia
by | 2011-12-05 | 18 Comments
Krasnodar is a beautiful region near the Black Sea which is justly famous for its black tea. It may become the home for Iskander tactical ballistic missiles, now that the Kremlin has pulled the plug on talks with the Obama administration over missile defenses. The passage of time clearly has not diminished Moscow’s hyper-sensitivity over …
Who Wants Diplomacy on Iran?
by | 2011-12-01 | 78 Comments
Given the diplomatic fallout which began raining down with the pre-release of the IAEA board report on Iran to the P-5 at the beginning of November, I surmised then that there might be a chance that Russia would embellish a two-page offer which it floated to Iran this summer, and that the Obama administration might regard that as a potential opportunity to keep things from spiraling …
Plushkino Traffic Jam
by | 2011-11-30 | 5 Comments
This past August, a Russian TEL carrying an SS-25 ICBM broke down along a road in Russia, causing massive traffic jam. It made the news immediately, replete with images of the disabled TEL and angry locals stuck in the traffic snarl. A colleague pointed this out, as an illustration that we live in a very …
