By John Erath That 2024 is an election year in the United States will come as no more of a surprise than the usual partisan bickering and the inevitable portrayals of the other side as dangerous to national security. As someone who served presidents of both parties for three decades, I want to offer an […]
Front and Center: December 18, 2023
THE LAST U.S. CHEMICAL WEAPON: AN ARMS CONTROL VICTORY This year, we — the United States, the world and supporters like you — got to celebrate a massive arms control victory: elimination of the last weapon in the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile. While there are many differences between chemical and nuclear weapons, we can apply […]
Final Summary: Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 2670)
Table numbers in parentheses are increases or decreases from the FY24 Request FY24 requested levels other than the toplines come from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation’s Fiscal Year 2024 Defense Budget Request Briefing Book Numbers may not add due to rounding Total National Defense Discretionary Spending (050) *Does not include mandatory spending ** Total […]
No Good Reason for Nuclear Testing, Part 2
By John Erath On October 11, I published some reactions to the Russian announcement revoking signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). That post focused on Russia and why its leadership chose to take this step and made the case for renewed U.S. administration efforts to ratify CTBT. In this post, I want to look […]
Would A Nuclear Weapon Make South Korea Safer?
By Emma Sandifer The question of whether a nuclear deterrent might be necessary for South Korea has experienced a resurgence over the past few years, becoming a “mainstream feature of South Korea’s national security discourse”. With recent escalation in the pace of North Korea’s nuclear provocation, China’s aggressive buildup of its nuclear arsenal, and waning […]