by Lyle Seeligson, Policy Intern, Summer 2026 My first conversation about nuclear weapons was with my mother. It was 2008; I had just turned ten years old. She explained that we were in a war in a place called Iraq. She told me how the war had been started because we thought Iraq had dangerous weapons. She said I shouldn’t worry, though — those weapons […]
Nukes of Hazard blog
The United States has a responsibility to uphold non-proliferation norms. Here’s how it can.
By Conor Donlevy On December 2, 1942, Manhattan Project scientists working at the University of Chicago (including our sister organization’s founder, Leo Szilard) created the first sustained, man-made nuclear chain reaction underneath the stands of a football field using a pile of graphite and uranium. The reactor was dubbed the “Chicago Pile-1” and its success […]
The Wrong Way
By John Erath Something’s wrong. Perhaps more than one thing, but there is something specifically amiss with the recently published U.S. Defense Budget Request. The Center has, as usual, prepared a breakdown of the numbers, and they show a lack of focus on the actual threats to American security. In particular, the request for FY27 […]
Introducing the Newest Member of the Center Team: Conor Donlevy
By Conor Donlevy I first came across the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation as a young congressional staffer working for Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. As a recent college graduate eager to get involved in foreign policy but employed as the Senator’s driver, I asked our foreign policy advisor for any task he felt […]
The Charge of the Silicon Brigade
by Joseph A. Getto* In the autumn of 1854, on the battlefields of the Crimean War, British forces under Field Marshal Lord Raglan faced Russian defenders near Sevastopol. When enemy troops seized several artillery positions, Raglan — watching from a distant ridge — dispatched a vague order demanding that cavalry “advance rapidly to the front” […]
