IAEA DDG for Safegards Olli Heinonen is in Iran to draw up what the Iranian press is calling a “modality plan.” Just what our field needs, more f’ing jargon. The editors of the OED can barely contain their contempt in the entry on “modality”, burying this peculiar usage as the last (and least) of eight …
Busboys and Bomb Scares
by | 2007-07-10 | No Comments
My Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative is hosting Joe Cirincione for a discussion of his book, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, Wednesday at 5:30 over at Busboys and Poets. Yeah, that’s right, Busboys and Poets over on 14th St. How cool is that? Busboys and Poets is named for the great …
Tunnels Near Natanz
by | 2007-07-09 | 1 Comment
Looks like the concrete overburden at Natanz may not be all its cracked up to be. About a year ago, I wrote that I thought the Iranian centrifuge halls at Natanz, although buried, were not likely to survive strikes by conventional, penetrating munitions. Leaked DIA estimates in 1999 suggest current penetrating munitions can hold at …
Conventional Trident & Al Qaeda
by | 2007-07-09 | No Comments
As you may know, I have long argued that Conventional Trident is mildly pointless —I gave a talk to the National Academies of Science panel on global strike to that effect, based in part on a detailed case study of the strike on Dora Farm that opened Operation Iraqi Freedom. (One beer buys an abbreviated …
