Indian Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar tells the Indian Express that whether India tests or not will depend on the consquences: Asked about the right to conduct nuclear tests, he said, “in terms of consequences, of course, when we decide to do that, we need to factor in possible consequences.” Seems like a good …
Tipping the Bureaucratic Scales
by | 2008-09-05 | 3 Comments
How’s this for irony: the bureaucratic home of nuclear weapons policy at DOD is SO/LIC&IC, short for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict & Interdependent Capabilities. Kidding aside, this actually says a lot about the diminishing bureaucratic footprint of nuclear weapons policy. During the 1993-1994 NPR, for example, the career nuclear weapons bureaucracy, civilian and military, was an …
North Koreans Reverse Disablement, Kinda
by | 2008-09-04 | 5 Comments
There is a lot of hullaballo about North Korea reversing the disablement procedures at Yongbyon. I take the measures seriously as a signal by Pyongyang, but it is important to keep in mind that the substance of the reversal is quite limited. As the news reports indicate, North Korea had completed eight of the eleven …
NSG Exemption (Take 2)
by | 2008-09-04 | 27 Comments
The Arms Control Association has the revised text for India’s draft NSG exemption. I thought it might be fun to compare, word for word, the old text with the new. It wasn’t (I got rather obsessive about it). However, I hope it might prove useful for some of you. Apart from lots of fiddling the …
