A post written with Allison Berke… While the locations of many of North Korea’s most important nuclear facilities are known to the general public, one of North Korea’s more obscure locations has remained a mystery. In the mid-1980s, North Korea created an Institute for Atomic Energy in Pyongyang to house a 20 MeV cyclotron imported …
Recalling two mentors
by | 2025-07-02 | 1 Comment
1. Jonathan D. Pollack My father, Jonathan Pollack, died at the end of May after what’s politely called a long convalescence. He had worked over several decades as a scholar of Chinese foreign and defense policy. After completing his PhD at the University of Michigan, he took a postdoc at Harvard’s Center for Science and …
Guest Post: Sorry, Mr. Secretary, producing uranium metal isn’t particularly difficult
by | 2025-07-02 | 2 Comments
This guest post is by Dr. James M. Acton Central to the Trump administration’s case for the effectiveness of its air strikes on Iran is the destruction of a “conversion” facility at Isfahan with equipment for producing uranium metal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed that U.S. strikes set Iran back by “years,” largely …
Exhaustion and Inflection: Estimating Interceptor Expenditures in the Israel-Iran Conflict [UPDATED]
by | 2025-06-24 | 1 Comment
Following Israel’s twelve-day bombing campaign against Iran’s leaders, nuclear facilities and missile program, two key questions have been how deep is Israel’s missile defense interceptor magazine, and how long Israel can sustain relatively high intercept rates against the retaliatory Iranian strikes. While the ceasefire which started on June 23 may dampen the immediate significance of …
