Does the Prague Treaty (aka New START) limit missile defenses? Certainly the text mentions defenses, but does it limit them? “Limit” is a very particular word — The definitions in OED suggest usage most often involves those things that we can measure: time, acreage, troops, eggs, and whatnot. That usage holds true, too, in the …
Grading the NPR: Transparency
by | 2010-04-13 | 14 Comments
As I have already argued, I believe the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review is a significant achievement — in a way that critics and some surprising advocates don’t quite grasp yet. Because everyone is focusing on the details — this caveat, that compromise — the broader shift in how we talk about the role of nuclear …
The Blue and Yellow Bomb (Part 3)
by | 2010-04-13 | No Comments
Yesterday, I attended a meeting with the International Law Association in Brighton, and the Swedish nuclear programme was raised again. It is interesting that so much international attention has been given recently to what, essentially, is a but a side note in the broader Cold War narrative. Perhaps it’s because Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign …
The Dead Hand
by | 2010-04-13 | 2 Comments
Wow. David Hoffman’s The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in the category of general nonfiction. To win in that catch-all category, it had to beat out works on such modest and inconsequential themes as the origins of financial catastrophe …
