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 …
PCS: The How of Proliferation, Part 2
by | 2009-08-06 | 13 Comments
Yesterday, I started to present a framework to think about how proliferators get the know-how and industrial infrastructure necessary to make weapons of mass destruction. This framework has proved very helpful to me in understanding various WMD programs. It becomes more predictive when combined with two competitive forces: the need for proliferators to minimize risk …
The Jackson Amendment
by | 2009-08-06 | 6 Comments
Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson was a tenacious, well-informed, defense-minded Democrat who played a central role in arms control debates during the 1960s and 1970s. He was a reliable vote for progressive domestic causes, and a deep skeptic of détente with the Soviet Union. Jackson favored missile defenses and was greatly concerned about trend lines …
O'Connor on the BOB
by | 2009-08-05 | 25 Comments
Sean O’Connor, whose excellent IMINT and Analysis blog was recently on hiatus, sent along his thoughts on the Box o’ Burma, aka The BOB: Recent revelations in Sydney Morning Herald and Yale Global Online (Part I and Part II) have begun to shed more light on the potential nuclear ambitions of Burma. While it is …
