The Trump Administration has just released its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a document that calls for new nuclear capabilities and shatters a decades-old bipartisan consensus that reduced the role of nuclear weapons in American national security strategy. We dive into the NPR with nuclear experts Dr. Adam Mount, Anthony Wier, and Alexandra Bell.
Dr. Strangelove Or: How We Learned to Start Worrying and Hate the Bomb
Today marks the 54th anniversary of the release of Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the Cold War-era classic often seen as the ultimate comedy on decidedly unfunny nuclear war. The movie, starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, is the story of an insane general who sets […]
Able Archer 83: How a Military Exercise Almost Spawned Nuclear War
By Alexandra Crowley Last week marked the 34th anniversary of one of the most alarming moments of the Cold War. In November 1983, NATO allies engaged in a routine communication post-war game referred to as Able Archer 83. However, events leading up to Able Archer led the Soviet Union to believe that NATO was merely […]
Is Doc Brown a Nuclear Terrorist?
By Anna Schumann Masked beneath the humor and heart that made the 1985 movie, Back to the Future, such a classic, is the very real issue of nuclear security and nuclear terrorism. The movie begins with a newscast in the background: “In other news, officials at The Pacific Nuclear Research Facility have denied the rumor […]
Diplomacy and North Korea: Fact and Fiction
By Meyer Thalheimer In an editorial in The Washington Post earlier this year, Stephen Rademaker, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation from 2002–2006, echoed a common line of thought on the North Korean nuclear crisis. He argued that “[i]n the absence of good military options or a Chinese deus ex machina, the […]
