Very few military men figure prominently in the story of India’s Bomb. This is partly due to civilians who jealously guard their prerogative to make national security policy, and partly due to New Delhi’s practice of relying on seniority to fill the top-most military positions. Consequently, India’s Army Chiefs have been a varied lot. One …
Sagan on No First Use
by | 2009-06-18 | 19 Comments
Scott Sagan argues very convincingly in the pages of Survival that the United States should adopt a declaratory policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons (Scott D. Sagan, “The Case for No First Use,” Survival 51:3, June–July 2009, pp. 163–182). Particularly compelling, to me, is his demolition of “calculated ambiguity” using a case study …
Practicalities of Interdicting WMD—Part 3
by | 2009-06-18 | 9 Comments
Click on the image for a larger version In a typical one hour period, five US low earth orbit satellites pass over the Port of Rajin Yesterday, I pointed out that the only way for the West to tell the difference between a cargo container full of uranium gas centrifuges and a container full of …
Practicalities of Interdicting WMD—Part 2
by | 2009-06-17 | 6 Comments
The Ports of North Korea Yesterday, we started to get some ballpark numbers relevant to interdicting WMD shipments. Today, we are going to continue to try to get a feel for the problem of determining whether or not there is proscribed material onboard a ship. The first step, I think, is to considering the volume …
