Avatar photoKim Jong Il and the Grim Reaper

When Jimmy Carter was last in Pyongyang, according to KCNA, he was reminded that “it is the behest of President Kim Il Sung to denuclearize the peninsula.” How wholeheartedly NDC Chairman Kim Jong Il shares that wish is another question. In the judgment of Richard Bush of the Brookings Institution, not so much: “The best …

Avatar photoWhy ICBMs are Hard to Build

UCS’s David Wright has written a nice post at All Things Nuclear that replots a graph originally produced by IISS to explain that ICBMs are hard to build because the principal trick to increasing range is adding fuel:

Avatar photoThe Flood

The clearest thinking and writing I’ve ever done was under the influence of chemo drips. The prospect of death can be life affirming… or not. The Soviet Union was on a chemo drip for the decade before it died, but few took serious notice. Sovietologists in the United States were too threat-oriented to recognize grave …

Avatar photoBack in the US

I am just back from a swing through Asia that ended in a little visit to the Lighthouse of Hope for Happiness and Prosperity on Earth — better known as the Korea Institute for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control. (Think I am kidding about the Lighthouse comment? Check out the KINAC PR video at 00:50.)