Ages ago, I was a Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill, working for a member of the House Armed Services Committee. The most impressive person who testified before the Committee was Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. His mind was like a…
Aaron and Scott talk about the Fourth Player in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Turkey was the lesser-known player in the Cuban Missile Crisis, with nuclear-tipped Jupiter missiles that ranged the bulk of the western USSR and Warsaw Pact countries. The U.S. opted…
Donald Trump can independently order the United States to launch nuclear weapons. No, really … he can independently order the use American nukes. This realization has made some uncomfortable, prompting discussions about presidential power and the bomb. Jeffrey and Aaron…
Donald Trump’s narrow victory could bring a reprise of President Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” of deterrence – except on steroids. Nixon and Henry Kissinger believed that projecting an image of readiness to use nuclear weapons could provide negotiating leverage. They…
The outcome of the U.S. presidential election has filled many Americans, and people around the world, with bewilderment and dread. How did we get here? Where are we going? How seriously should we take President-elect Trump’s promises? Let’s remember! At various points during the…
Note to readers: A somewhat different version of this essay appeared at foreignaffairs.com on November 20th. Donald Trump becomes President when the global nuclear order is wobbly and arms-control agreements are unraveling. Nuclear dangers are growing along three axes – North…
The election is over and Donald Trump is our president elect. The president elect and the nuclear did make regular appearances on the podcast, but things are different now. This week, Jeffrey and Aaron discuss the election, the Donald, and…
Fred Charles Iklé has not gotten the credit he deserves as a strategic thinker, perhaps because of the density of his prose. Here he is twenty years ago, in “The Second Coming of the Nuclear Age” in Foreign Affairs: “Now…
Did you know Egypt has a robust ballistic missile program? And has had, since the 1960s? Or that Egypt worked with Argentina and Iraq to design missiles? Or that Egypt was the source of the missiles that are the basis of…
The United States is so divided that the election of a new President has become a cause of mourning for half the population. To me, Donald Trump’s election feels like Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush over…
