Arms Control Wonk

Episode48 min

Open Source and the MH17 Shootdown

What open source information is out there about the MH17 shootdown? Do the rebels have the Buk missile system that reportedly downed the aircraft? How has open source analysis helped analysts fact check the Kremlin’s claims about the shooting down…

Article

The Dogs of War

Fellow ACW readers, can you recall a time when the world seemed more inflamed and disordered? Governed spaces are shrinking. Wild men lay waste. The dogs of war have been unleashed and peaceful settlements seem more distant than ever. “World…

Article

Bye-Bye Bipartisanship

A friend and I have an ongoing debate about the reasons for the plague of partisan rancor now afflicting Washington in general and arms control in particular. For my friend, the passage of the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) was…

Episode33 min

The Motorcycle Diaries: Japan’s Nuclear Program

Has the focus on the unlikely possibility of a nuclear-armed Japan distracted from more important policy challenges that threaten the shared interests of the United States and Japan in arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation? Should policymakers take Japanese “nut-jobs” seriously?…

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Why No One Will Ever Build Another Nagasaki Type Bomb

This is a guest post on behalf of ACW reader and occasional contributor Chris Camp. The first Atomic bombs, Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, hold an outsized place in our perceptions of what a nuclear weapon should be.  Certainly they were notable…

Article

Revisiting Enrichment for Bushehr

Underground at Anhalter Bahnhof and waiting for the S2 train a couple of mornings ago,  a reporter rang me up to talk about Iran. He had read this piece written a few days before, in which I had run down why the…

Article

Silver Anniversary Celebrations and Fireworks

We at the Stimson Center are celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary this year. A quarter-century ago, the Cold War was receding at a rapid pace and the Soviet Union was in its last stages of decomposition. Washington and Moscow were on…

Episode27 min

Double Dragon: Open Source and North Korean Missile Launches

Why did North Korea just test two Scud missiles? Was North Korea responding to the US-South Korean military exercise? Does the pairing of conventional and unconventional missiles pose a unique challenge for military planners in the future? Today, Jeffrey and…

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The Wonktern Goes to Washington

Harry here.  It’s official, I will be in DC (in the flesh!) between July 9th and 19th!  I plan on attending the Generation Prague conference, along with several other Think Tank and State Dept hosted events. However, events don’t take…