I recently heard a funny story about the negotiations for the START II treaty. It turns out that when the US START II treaty negotiators tried to explain to their Russian counterparts the need for a “strategic reserve” of nuclear warheads, they called it a hedge. The Russian interpreters alternately translated that as either “cheat” …
US-Israel Deal for CTBT Ratification?
by | 2008-12-05 | 10 Comments
After the US-India deal and the possible China-Pakistan deal (which, the US is now officially opposing, by the way), a US-Israel deal was always going to be a possibility. The price? Unknown, but CTBT ratification appears to be part of it, the latest CTBTO newsletter gleefully reports: Mark Hibbs of Nucleonics Week reports that if …
In GoogleEarth, Shadows are Your Friend
by | 2008-12-04 | 8 Comments
If you are anything like me, you suffer a death of a thousand cuts when you see something on GoogleEarth and want to know how tall it is. For instance, you can measure the diameters of Iran’s heavy water exchange columns (3.5 m) but if you could only measure their height then maybe you could …
Trident on the Radio
by | 2008-12-04 | 6 Comments
BBC Radio 4 aired a documentary called The Human Button last night about the command and control system for Britain’s Trident fleet—and it’s available to listen to online for the next 5 days. I haven’t heard the full thing yet but it is presented by the outstanding Peter Hennessey and covers some of the issues …
