Of the many reasons I have a soft spot for the intelligence community, one is this: imagine how hard it is to produce a document that is both precise and readable. That’s the same challenge I face on the blog, but the IC can’t include gratuituous jokes of a certain kind just to liven things …
Clustering Engines, Adding Up the Weights
by | 2008-11-20 | 1 Comment
In an unfortunately title article in Jane’s Intelligence Review (“Safir When Ready: Iran sets its sights on long-range capability”; sorry, its subscription only) I discussed why I interpreted pictures of the test-stand version of a Safir second stage as indicating Iran was developing a new advance in its missile program: a clustering of two engines …
Chinese-English Nuclear Security Glossary
by | 2008-11-19 | No Comments
The National Academies is having a release party (ok, release event) for the English-Chinese, Chinese-English Nuclear Security Glossary. I saw Ben Rusek and Wu Jun give a joint talk on the subject in Qingdao. Be there or B 2 Sorry, math joke. The Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) of the U.S. National …
Moving ‘em Out to Move Them Up
by | 2008-11-19 | 7 Comments
Yesterday, I discussed the possibility that Iran was learning techniques that might help them utilize higher energy fuels such as UDMH and nitric acid. However, the evidence for such use is rather minimal. The case we examined yesterday was not very convincing and, while there is still room for doubt (see Jochen Schischka’s comments), I …
