Avatar photoAftergood Catches ODNI Being Lazy

I failed to mention that Steven Aftergood caught ODNI passing off flimsy Russian news accounts as intelligence regarding Russian counterspace capabilities: Some of the DNI’s statements are surprisingly flimsy. For example, he declares (question 17) that “In 2003, the Russian military prepared for an exercise that included attacking U.S. satellites to disrupt the NAVSTAR global …

Avatar photoThere Are Idiots

Students of nuclear deterrence could learn something from the financial crisis. (So I’ve argued before.) One reason to think so appears in a review of Justin Fox’s new book, The Myth of the Rational Market. In Paul Krugman’s telling, Fox describes how the efficient markets hypothesis, which is the basis of modern financial risk assessment, …

Avatar photoHibbs on the BOB

Mark Hibbs finds further evidence that the BOB is not a reactor, but a giant industrial facility: Beginning two weeks ago, some private researchers have posted photographs on the Internet that they speculated might show a secret reactor being constructed in Myanmar. The photos show a square, box-like structure about 80 meters, roughly 262 feet, …

Avatar photoNPR Fact Sheets

Yesterday, I attended a meeting on the Nuclear Posture Review at the Pentagon. The ground-rules weren’t super clear, so I won’t say anything about the meeting itself. The Pentagon did, however, use the occasion to release two fact sheets: Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Background The NPR, Arms Control and Deterrence The fact that they are …