Four debates and one Frankenstorm later, it’s the final countdown: Election Day is a day away. In less than 48 hours, we’ll (hopefully!) know who the next President will be. Throughout the campaign season, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation has examined the candidates’ positions on various issues related to arms control and national security, and tried to make sense of what those positions might mean for a 2nd Obama term or a 1st Romney term.
Missile Misinformation
Missile defense is, in many ways, the poster child for expensive and technologically dubious US defense systems that survive based on misconceptions about their strategic benefits. A November 1 Letter to the Editor in the Washington Times by Admiral James A. Lyons, Jr. provides a classic example of these misconceptions.
In Truman’s Iran War Simulation, You’re The President
Our friends at the Truman National Security Project just released an online Iran war simulation that puts you in the Oval Office and guides you step-by-step through the process of launching military strikes against Iran. As “President,” you receive bri…
The Presidential Candidates and Iran: 4 Things to Know
Happy Friday, all! Over on the Center’s website, I’ve got a primer on the candidates and Iran. The piece places the candidates’ positions on Iran in context, discussing Romney’s shifting red lines, Obama’s nonproliferation policy, the two candidates’ f…
Quote of the Day: Unintended Consequences Edition
“[A]n attack would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable. They would just bury the program deeper and make it more covert…The results of an American or Israeli military strike on Iran could, in my view, prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations in that part of the world.”
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking about Iran at the Norfolk Forum, October 3, 2012. Gates was Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011, serving in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.
He went on to add that sanctions on Iran are “our best chance going forward, to ratchet up the economic pressure and diplomatic isolation to the point where the Iranian leadership concludes that it actually hurts Iranian security and, above all, the security of the regime itself, to continue to pursue nuclear weapons.”