by Usha Sahay On February 6, I attended a breakfast with North Dakota Senator John Hoeven, who delivered an address on the importance of nuclear deterrence and the U.S. nuclear triad. Sen. Hoeven, whose state houses one of the nation’s 3 ICBM bases, spoke at length about the benefits of a large nuclear arsenal in […]
LTE: Fewer nukes make financial, strategic sense
On February 21 Kingston Reif published the following letter to the editor in The Baltimore Sun on the merits of further nuclear weapons reductions. The recent editorial on arms control (“Avoiding Armageddon,” Feb. 18) was exactly on point. More than two decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and U.S. national security […]
The Banality of Unilateral Nuclear Cuts
Published on Time’s Battleland blog on February 15, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. U.S. nuclear weapons strategy remains largely based on a confrontation with the Soviet Union that no longer exists. There is an emerging bipartisan and military consensus that it is time for an updated strategy and that a smaller […]
Fact Sheet on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT)
By Kingston Reif and Madeleine Foley Updated by Usha Sahay Cascade of gas centrifuges used to produce enriched uranium (DOE) PURPOSE OF FISSILE MATERIAL CUTOFF TREATY A fissile material cutoff treaty would ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons purposes. Fissile materials, principally highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, are the essential […]
Does missile defense work?
Published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online on February 8, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. After launching a rocket in December and vowing to conduct a third nuclear test, North Korea followed up last week by saying it would take measures “stronger than a nuclear test” and releasing a bizarre […]
