If Iran cannot be peacefully convinced to curtail its nuclear program, the president could soon be faced with a hugely consequential decision: attack Iran in an attempt to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, or recognize that it could do so and embrace deterrence and containment instead. By staking American credibility on a policy of prevention at all costs, Obama may end up believing he has to choose war. But he would be wrong, because deterrence (threatening devastating retaliation) and containment (blunting the spread of Iranian power and influence) may in fact be more prudent than preventive attack.
Fact Sheet: The New START Treaty
By Sam Kane and Kingston Reif WHAT IS THE NEW START TREATY? • The New START treaty is a nuclear arms reduction agreement between the United States and Russia. It was signed in April 2010, approved by the US Senate in December 2010, and entered into force in February 2011. WHAT ARE THE TERMS OF […]
Key GOP Senator agitated by cost explosion of nuclear weapons enterprise
In an interview this week with Knoxville News reporter Frank Munger, Tennessee GOP Senator (and Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member) Lamar Alexander expressed is frustration and displeasure with the exploding costs of the nuclear weapons enterprise
House Passes Anti-Nuclear Terror Legislation (Again), Ball in Senate’s Court (Again)
Last week (May 20 to be precise), the House passed the Nuclear Terrorism Conventions Implementation and Safety of Maritime Navigation Act of 2013 (H.R. 1073) by an overwhelming vote of 390-3.
It’s smart to scale back nuclear weapons spending
Published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online on May 21, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. As part of his effort to win Republican support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in 2010, President Obama submitted to lawmakers a 10-year plan to maintain and modernize US nuclear warheads, […]
