In The News

Stop Hyperventilating, Start Talking

Peter Hayes July 11, 2006
North Korea’s missile test “was a strategic non-issue,” according to Peter Hayes, executive director of the Nautilus Institute. No major international constraints prevent the nation from testing missiles, with the North Koreans assuming that the Bush administration will never negotiate with them in good faith. Therefore, the decision to test the missile was a result of domestic factors inside the...

Rival US Labs in Arms Race to Build Safer Nuclear Bomb

Ralph Vartabedian July 7, 2006
US scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California gear up for a replay of the fierce competition that marked the development of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Yet observers and policymakers continue to debate the expediency of restarting a new weapons program. Supporters claim that diminishing reliability of the US...

North Korean Nuclear Conundrum

Chung Min Lee June 29, 2006
As North Korea plans to launch a long-range missile, the US threatens sanctions and military intervention. But public policy Professor Chung Min Lee asserts that it may be too late to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Analysts suggest that the country has enough weapons-grade plutonium for a dozen nuclear weapons. Since the early 1990s, North Korea has worked with highly enriched uranium...

US-Indian Deal Could Spark South Asian Arms Race, Markey Says

Jon Fox June 23, 2006
One provision of the US-Indian deal over nuclear weapons is that the US will provide India with a steady stream of nuclear fuel to power the nation’s nuclear reactors. Besides possibly being in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), this agreement could potentially fuel the arms race between India and Pakistan, neither of which has signed the treaty. The agreement would...

Don’t Forget Those Other 27,000 Nukes

Hans Blix June 20, 2006
Hans Blix is fully acquainted with both the successes and drawbacks of the current international system for policing nuclear technology. While the former chief UN weapons inspector recognizes that the instruments of nonproliferation – the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and international inspection – failed in cases such as North Korea and Libya, he cautions against abandoning these efforts in...

America's Image Slips, But Allies Share US Concerns Over Iran, Hamas

June 15, 2006
The Pew Global Attitudes Project has released results of its annual global public-opinion polls for 2006, and results show increasingly negative views toward the US. For its most recent release, the project conducted 16,710 interviews in 15 countries. The most significant reason for the slip in US popularity, in most cases, is the conflict in Iraq. Many respondents ranked this conflict – along...

US Approach to Iran Has a Familiar Ring

Jay Solomon June 14, 2006
International applause greeted the Bush administration’s policy shift and decision to participate in international talks with Iran about its nuclear program. The basic strategy focuses on offering Iran economic incentives in exchange for compliance on nuclear development. As the talks proceed, US diplomacy with North Korea may emerge as a precedent. In some ways, bargaining with Iran could be...