Arms Control Wonk

Timeline of the 5 April 2009 U’nha-2 Launch. Click on the image for a larger version. Ok, so I don’t have the amount of confidence in my prediction as the title seems to indicate. But everybody else is making blanket statements so why can’t I? After returning from the Mid-East on Thursday, I had to …

North Korea is expected by just about everyone to launch at least one (and possibly two?) large missiles/rockets this weekend. And yet, they do not seem to have filed a warning to mariners and airmen notification with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). This is something they seemed to have been very proud to do …

AQ Khan and Samar Mubarakmand, flanking the man in the blue beret (believed to be General Zulfikar Ali). Reproduced from the Nuclear Weapons Archive. A.Q. Khan is easily the most famous person associated with Pakistan’s nuclear program. By fostering the image of being the “father” of Pakistan’s Bomb, he gained public acclaim and the protection …

At left, is an Iranian numerically controlled lathe milling machine forming cooling channels in a rocket engine. It is impossible to tell the scale of this engine — and therefore impossible to uniquely link it to the Safir second stage. However, machining these channels, as opposed to using a corrugated insert, is a major technological …