On the heels of the resumption of U.S.-Jordanian 123 talks, the pressure on the Obama Administration to maintain its commitment to the so-called Gold Standard is getting stronger. Indeed, the pressure is coming from across the political spectrum.
In a spate of OpEds and Commentaries over the last several …
The estimable Robert Kagan, senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brooking Institution has a new book, The World America Made (Knopf). Because Kagan is the most formidable of the neoconservative foreign policy intellectuals, and because he reputedly has the attention of both the Obama administration …
U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross argues compellingly in today’s New York Times that Iran sanctions are biting hard and that Tehran may be getting in the mood for serious negotiations. In particular, Ross reports that Iran has declared its willingness to discuss the so-called Russian …
The North Koreans allegedly conducted secret, nearly undetected nuclear tests in 2010. And they almost got away with it. That is, until Lars-Erik De Geer, an atmospheric scientist at the Swedish Defence Research Agency in Stockholm, took a closer look at the monitoring data from Russian and Japanese stations close …
What are the prospects for a diplomatic settlement to the simmering dispute with Iran over its nuclear program, now threatening to boil over?
On the positive side of the ledger, as Peter Crail spelled out in an Arms Control Association issue brief on Jan. 25,
Members of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, in an article posted on Science’s website on Jan. 30, explain their reasons for asking researchers to omit published details of their work, in which they manipulated the genetic composition of the N1N5 virus to make it …
Director of National Intelligence chief James Clapper testified today in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on intelligence community conclusions contained in the DNI’s annual Worldwide Threat Assessment.
In unclassified testimony, Clapper stated that Iran is “keeping open the option to develop nuclear …
After the Nuclear Threat Initiative released its Nuclear Materials Security Index, the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi posted a rebuke of sorts by Dr. Ch. Viyyanna Sastry, a Research Fellow, and Rajiv Nayan, a Senior Research Associate, both at the IDSA. In …
The creation of a modified H5N1 bird flu virus that can be transmitted through the air mammal-to-mammal has aroused wide consternation; a biosecurity advisory board to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended the research findings be published only in a redacted form, so …
In its latest effort to highlight the danger of loose nukes – in this case, weapons-usable nuclear material – the Nuclear Threat Initiative has launched its Nuclear Materials Security Index. The intent, according to NTI co-Chairman, Chief Executive Office and public face of NTI former Senator Sam Nunn, …
In an Arms Control Association issue brief published on January 4, Greg Thielmann ably makes the case for trying to resolve the Iranian nuclear dilemma by means of old-fashioned diplomacy. The ACA’s introduction to the piece forcefully gets across just how drastically and dangerously U.S.-Iranian relations have deteriorated in the …
Evidently I’m not the only one who found the genetic manipulation of the H5N1 bird flu virus quite frightening. Last Sunday, the New York Times lead editorial was devoted to “An Engineered Doomsday.” The Times takes the view that the research should never have been done …
It seems that the new year has begun with less of a bang and more of a whimper, as the venerable Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its symbolic Doomsday Clock a minute closer to midnight on Tuesday. The reason for the move: inadequate progress on nuclear weapons reduction …
The notion of asymmetric power–referring generally to the danger of lesser powers resorting to unconventional weaponry and tactics as an answer to the United States’ immense conventional military superiority–has been in vogue among American defense analysts since the first Gulf War; Gulf War II and its aftermath, with the devastating …
The IAEA’s confirmation that Iran had a full-fledged nuclear-warhead development program up until 2003 and the agency’s suspicions that come elements of that program have resumed or continued?
The fact that an inexperienced and untested young man may now have his hands on …
