A belated posting from Michael Krepon’s shoebox but, I am sure Bob Zarate will agree, one worth the wait: Albert Wohlstetter worked at the RAND Corporation in the 1950s and 1960s where his analyses of surprise attack scenarios and the “delicate balance of terror” drew considerable attention. He later complemented his consulting work by teaching …
China's Nuclear Stockpile, Revisited
by | 2009-05-11 | 17 Comments
How big is China’s nuclear stockpile? Benn Tannenbaum sends along this quote from Ed Corcoran who provides, er, a rather large range of estimates: China is neither ally nor adversary, but something in between. It is a nuclear power with a relatively modest arsenal of perhaps a couple hundred nuclear warheads, though some estimates do …
Shooting the Messenger (or not)
by | 2009-05-11 | 6 Comments
I was famously quoted in the New York Times (and in Newsweek) as saying about the failure of the April 5th, 2009 satellite launch attempt: It’s got to be embarrassing. I can imagine heads flying if the Dear Leader finds out the satellite didn’t fly into orbit. Not too many people have noted the if …
The Trouble With Zero
by | 2009-05-10 | 12 Comments
Image is credited to “Shout” in the NYT. Philip Taubman, a former New York Times reporter now writing a book at Stanford, has a wonderful survey of the debate about nuclear abolition in the New York Times entitled, The Trouble With Zero: Yet even as the allure of disarmament grows, the obstacles seem as daunting …
