It’s an unfortunate reality that’s often left unsaid: sharp rhetoric and tough international sanctions haven’t deterred North Korea from developing its nuclear weapons program. But American political leaders across the ideological spectrum haven’t been paying attention. Responding to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted unanimously on January 28 to advance […]
The 2016 Presidential Candidates on Nuclear Issues
With implementation day for the Iran nuclear agreement around the corner, implicit nuclear threats from Russia, an expensive nuclear weapons modernization program in the U.S., striking revelations of attempted nuclear smuggling, and threats of weapons testing from North Korea, nuclear weapons policy is receiving more attention during debates on U.S. foreign policy.
The U.S. Needs to Stop Throwing Weapons at Problems
The survival of the Iran nuclear agreement in Congress sent countless members of Congress scrambling for new ways to demonstrate their opposition to the deal and to throw sand into the gears required to carry out the agreement. One of the more preposterous ideas put forward was to send Massive Ordnance Penetrators (or MOPs) to Israel. MOPs are essentially really, really big bombs that have the capacity to penetrate up to 200 feet into the ground.
Looking Beyond New START to the Future of U.S.-Russian Arms Control Treaties
On October 1,, 2015 the U.S Department of State’s Bureau for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance released its count of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons covered under the New START treaty. For the first time since the treaty entered into force on February 5, 2011, the United States has dropped below the imposed limit on deployed strategic warheads.
Cyber Vulnerabilities of Nuclear Weapons Are a Real National Security Threat
Hundreds of nuclear missiles are kept on full-alert 24/7 resulting in increased risks of cyber-attacks from enemies in order to launch the missiles unauthorized. Chances are that the next nuclear detonation won’t come from a calculated missile launch, but from a nuclear accident or a cyber-attack.
