A couple of months ago, Mark Hibbs wrote a nice little post here about China’s interest in commercial-scale reprocessing for its spent nuclear fuel. If you recall, a few reporters got unnecessarily excited about China’s announcement of initial operations at its pilot reprocessing facility in the Gobi Desert. Mark reminded everyone that the facility was …
Trident
by | 2011-07-26 | 12 Comments
In the 1970s, it was insufficient to offer state and local authorities a massive new military base. The Federal Government also needed to provide sweeteners like new schools to handle the influx of military personnel, government workers, and defense contractors. Those were the days when rainmakers truly reigned on Capitol Hill. No Congressional delegation had …
AFTAC
by | 2011-07-19 | 3 Comments
The Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) is the intelligence entity that looks for nuclear explosions, although if you are a regular reader you probably know that already. You probably also know that, even by the standards of the US intelligence community, AFTAC keeps a pretty low profile. So, imagine my surprise to see the …
Deterrence and Escalation Control
by | 2011-07-19 | 9 Comments
One theme in the Stimson Center’s Escalation Control and the Nuclear Option in South Asia (2004) is that deterrence is an abstract notion that sometimes fails real world tests. Crisis management and escalation control then become paramount, as was the case during the limited war in 1999 between Pakistan and India after Northern Light Infantry …
