by Kingston Reif America’s troubled national ballistic missile defense system just found more trouble. For the first time, the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Dr. Michael Gilmore, has determined that this system, known as Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), may be too flawed to save. In his Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 report to […]
Analysis of the FY 2014 National Defense Authorization Bill, H.R. 3304
by Kingston Reif, Laicie Heeley, and John Isaacs Senate and House negotiators have agreed on a Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Bill, H.R. 3304, that was negotiated between the two Armed Services Committees. This tactic was chosen after the Senate failed to agree to limit the number of amendments on the Senate floor before the […]
The Global Impact of a Limited Nuclear War in South Asia: Famine, Disease and War
Earlier this week, the nuclear watchdog group Physicians for Social Responsibility, published their report authored by Ira Helfand “Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk?” The report summarizes, synthesizes and expands upon a number of findings made in previous scientific studies by independent sources on the likely consequences of a ‘limited’, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan on global food supplies.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Reduce the Bombs
by Kingston Reif and Usha Sahay Outside of Congress, there is a strong consensus among security experts of both parties that the U.S. arsenal of approximately 5,000 nuclear weapons, deployed and in storage, greatly exceeds American security requirements. Inside of Congress, however, nuclear weapons have been subject to the same grinding partisanship as most important policy […]
Pentagon pushes for billions to refurbish nuclear bombs
by Kingston Reif Published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online on October 25, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. At an estimated cost of more than $11 billion, the life-extension program for the B61 bomb would be the most ambitious and expensive nuclear warhead refurbishment in history. Concerned by this massive […]
