Spring
FAS Spring 2008 Public Interest Reports
The Federation of American Scientists, along with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and independent analysts, have issued a report, Toward True Security, that calls for immediately declaring that the sole mission for U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack, for taking all nuclear weapons off launch ready alert, and for reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to a total of 1000 warheads, including reserves, as an immediately achievable, secure step toward a nuclear free world… read more
U.S. failure to balance rapid equipment transfers with stringent accountability procedures is just one example of the poor preparation for the post-war period in Iraq. At the outbreak of the insurgency, weapons were rapidly transferred to the Iraqi Security Forces using adhoc security assistance programs that had neither clear nor stringent accountability requirements. As the insurgency took root and expanded, expediency became the primary consideration in the effort to develop the ISF…read more
FAS was among the first organizations to publish material online and the website is a premier destination on the internet (http://www.fas.org). The redesign is the first major renovation of the site since 2003. The most obvious change is the look and feel. Most content is organized by the three main program areas – strategic security, information technologies and energy and the environment – and via the horizontal navigation along the top of the page . The new layout better organizes the site’s hundred thousand pages and images to make it easier to find information. The new design also takes advantage of new technologies such as video stream… read more
The United States intercepted a dying reconnaissance satellite with a missile launched from a Navy ship. The administration justified the intercept on the basis of public safety. That is a long stretch, indeed, and there was virtually no mention of the political consequences of the United States’ conducting its first anti-satellite test in over two decades… read more
The United States can win any war on the battlefield, but we have not learned how to win the peace. We are losing the fight to win over the people we are trying to help. But there is a way to right our course for the future – by looking to our past.Overwhelming military superiority is not the key, because its use wreaks havoc and destroys lives. Moreover, our traditional public diplomacy efforts have not worked, with Karen Hughes the most recent government PR chief to resign after accomplishing very little…read more
When the Secretaries of the Air Force and Navy receive an urgent directive from the Secretary of Defense instructing them to “to undertake a comprehensive review and physical inventory by serial number of all nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons related materials under the possession or custody of your respective military department or agency” it’s hard to avoid the impression that the U.S. nuclear program is not being managed by the A-team. The inventory is going to take a lot of work. The United States has 4,075 operational nuclear weapons and 5,400 in a reserve stockpile. And there are huge inventories of associated equipment. (Worldwide there are 31 thousand nuclear weapons today – 94 percent owned by the United States and Russia, and the rest owned by six other countries….read more
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