One of the great things about the Wikileaks cables is that they contain a bunch of stuff that I should have known, but didn’t. For example, Operation Groundhog. One of the Wikileaks cables — a February 2010 scene-setter for a visit to Kazakhstan by CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus — notes that “of all of …
The Next START
by | 2011-01-06 | 21 Comments
What fan of the hapless Chicago Cubs doesn’t look at a sunny day and think of Ernie Banks? His “Let’s play two!” expressed optimism in the face of fatigue, off-field worries and the inevitability that a doubleheader meant the luckless Cubs would receive two merciless drubbings by the visting team. Come to think of it, …
Read Behind
by | 2011-01-04 | 8 Comments
An idiosyncratic survey of the arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation universe in no particular order. The first in a possibly regular installment. FACEBOOK | Mark Hibbs says “there is no Chinese reprocessing ‘breakthrough’ as announced by Chinese official media. This is about China deciding if, when, and how it closes its fuel cycle.” (Note, also, …
The First Conversation
by | 2011-01-04 | 22 Comments
Go figure: The very first conversation between Washington and Moscow on the relationship between strategic offense and missile defense took place at Glassboro, New Jersey. Soviet Premier Alexey Kosygin was visiting the United States in June 1967, and President Lyndon Baines Johnson arranged for him to listen to Robert McNamara discuss this subject over lunch. …
