Published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online on March 6, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. Nuclear arms control is back in the news. After paying little public attention to the issue over the long course of his reelection campaign, President Obama said in his February State of the Union address […]
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 […]
North Korean Nuclear Test Raises Stakes in the Region
An artificial magnitude 5.1 earthquake was detected that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said displayed “clear explosion-like characteristics.” It will take time to ascertain important elements of the test including the yield (or size) of the explosion and the nuclear material with which it was constructed.
To Cut Wasteful Spending, Start With Nuclear Weapons
Published in The Huffington Post on February 5, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. The first “fiscal cliff” was temporarily averted through a last-minute congressional deal. The next “fiscal cliff”, the automatic budget cuts, known as sequestration, is scheduled to arrive March first. Between now and March, Congress and the president will […]
