An Opportunity to Work with Iran Laicie Heeley This August, Hassan Rouhani will take office as Iran’s next president, and the world will have a new face to confront on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. Rouhani, a moderate cleric, won a landslide victory in Iran’s June presidential elections. He’ll replace the inflammatory Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, […]

A ‘Gold-Plated’ Bomb Upgrade July 29, 2013 Megan Scully President Barack Obama delivered a sweeping arms control speech in June that called for bold reductions in the number of tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. His vow to work to cut nukes drew applause from the crowd assembled outside Berlin’s historic Brandenburg Gate and approval […]

B61 Nuclear Bomb Life Extension Program Is Worth It, Kehler Says July 12, 2013 By Pat Host The head of the Defense Department’s nuclear enterprise defended the B61 nuclear gravity bomb life extension program (LEP), which is under fire as too expensive and wasteful in an era of budget cutting and further nuclear weapons reductions. […]

Seizing Chemical Weapons in Syria Is Really Hard To Do By Lee Michael Katz July 26, 2013 As U.N. officials negotiate terms of their probe into murky reports of chemical weapons use in Syria, one thing remains clear: An attempt by the United States to seize Syria’s deadly stockpile would be a difficult and dangerous […]

Published in DefenseOne on July 24, 2013 What Ash Carter Gets Wrong about Nuclear Weapons Spending Historically, cost has not played a decisive role in the United States’ nuclear weapons policy. For most of the nuclear age, money for the nuclear enterprise was viewed almost entirely in the abstract: $1 million was just a number […]