Nuclear Research Highlighted by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
By Hans M. Kristensen
The Nuclear Notebooks Robert Norris and I publish in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are now the most frequently read articles in the magazine, according to their latest announcement.
The highlight of the announcement is Senator John Kerry’s use of our estimate of Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the New START treaty on December 19, 2010.
The Bulletin announcement states that all current and previous Nuclear Notebooks are now freely available online. Issues back to 1999 are here. You’ll have to scroll down to the end of each table of content to find the Notebook in each issue. Earlier versions are available on Google Books.
In the past, Norris and I have urged the publisher of the Notebooks to make them freely available to the public to ensure that this important resource on the status of the world’s nuclear arsenals is available for the debate about the future of nuclear weapons.
The Notebooks are very popular. As of January 4, 2011, our Notebook on Chinese nuclear forces from November 2010 was listed as the most read article on the Bulletin’s web site, and 11 of the 50 most read articles were Notebooks.
Good estimates on nuclear arsenals don’t come easy or cheep but require time-consuming and persistent research. We’re grateful for the generous support we have received to do this work over the years from foundations including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation, and the Ploughshares Fund.
While it is reasonable for governments to keep the most sensitive aspects of nuclear policies secret, the rights of their citizens to have access to general knowledge about these issues is equally valid so they may know about the consequences to themselves and their country.
Nearly one year after the Pentagon certified the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program to continue after it incurred critical cost and schedule overruns, the new nuclear missile could once again be in trouble.
“The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the cold war, is coming to an end”
Without information, without factual information, you can’t act. You can’t relate to the world you live in. And so it’s super important for us to be able to monitor what’s happening around the world, analyze the material, and translate it into something that different audiences can understand.