FAS Forum: Envisioning the Future of Wildland Fire Policy
In this critical year for reimagining wildland fire policy, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) hosted a convening that provided stakeholders from the science, technology, and policy communities with an opportunity to exchange forward-looking ideas with the shared goal of improving the federal government’s approach to managing wildland fire.
A total of 43 participants attended the event. Attendee affiliations included universities, federal agencies, state and local agencies, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropies.
This event was designed as an additive opportunity for co-learning and deep dives on topics relevant to the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission (the Commission) with leading experts in relevant fields (the convening was independent from any formal Commission activities).
In particular, the Forum highlighted, and encouraged iteration on, ideas emerging from leading experts who participated in the Wildland Fire Policy Accelerator. Coordinated by FAS in partnership with COMPASS, the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), and Conservation X Labs, this accelerator has served as a pathway to source and develop actionable policy recommendations to inform the work of the Commission.
A full list of recommendations from the Accelerator is available on the FAS website.
The above PDF summarizes discussions and key takeaways from the event for participant reference. We look forward to building on the connections made during this event.
AI for science: creating a virtuous circle of discovery and innovation
In this interview, Tom Kalil discusses the opportunities for science agencies and the research community to use AI/ML to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery and technological advancement.
Q. Why do you think that science agencies and the research community should be paying more attention to the intersection between AI/ML and science?
Recently, researchers have used DeepMind’s AlphaFold to predict the structures of more than 200 million proteins from roughly 1 million species, covering almost every known protein on the planet! Although not all of these predictions will be accurate, this is a massive step forward for the field of protein structure prediction.
The question that science agencies and different research communities should be actively exploring is – what were the pre-conditions for this result, and are there steps we can take to create those circumstances in other fields?
One partial answer to that question is that the protein structure community benefited from a large open database (the Protein Data Bank) and what linguist Mark Liberman calls the “Common Task Method.”
Q. What is the Common Task Method (CTM), and why is it so important for AI/ML?
In a CTM, competitors share the common task of training a model on a challenging, standardized dataset with the goal of receiving a better score. One paper noted that common tasks typically have four elements:
- Tasks are formally defined with a clear mathematical interpretation
- Easily accessible gold-standard datasets are publicly available in a ready-to-go standardized format
- One or more quantitative metrics are defined for each task to judge success
- State-of-the-art methods are ranked in a continuously updated leaderboard
Computational physicist and synthetic biologist Erika DeBenedictis has proposed adding a fifth component, which is that “new data can be generated on demand.” Erika, who runs Schmidt Futures-supported competitions such as the 2022 BioAutomation Challenge, argues that creating extensible living datasets has a few advantages. This approach can detect and help prevent overfitting; active learning can be used to improve performance per new datapoint; and datasets can grow organically to a useful size.
Common Task Methods have been critical to progress in AI/ML. As David Donoho noted in 50 Years of Data Science,
The ultimate success of many automatic processes that we now take for granted—Google translate, smartphone touch ID, smartphone voice recognition—derives from the CTF (Common Task Framework) research paradigm, or more specifically its cumulative effect after operating for decades in specific fields. Most importantly for our story: those fields where machine learning has scored successes are essentially those fields where CTF has been applied systematically.
Q. Why do you think that we may be under-investing in the CTM approach?
U.S. agencies have already started to invest in AI for Science. Examples include NSF’s AI Institutes, DARPA’s Accelerated Molecular Discovery, NIH’s Bridge2AI, and DOE’s investments in scientific machine learning. The NeurIPS conference (one of the largest scientific conferences on machine learning and computational neuroscience) now has an entire track devoted to datasets and benchmarks.
However, there are a number of reasons why we are likely to be under-investing in this approach.
- These open datasets, benchmarks and competitions are what economists call “public goods.” They benefit the field as a whole, and often do not disproportionately benefit the team that created the dataset. Also, the CTM requires some level of community buy-in. No one researcher can unilaterally define the metrics that a community will use to measure progress.
- Researchers don’t spend a lot of time coming up with ideas if they don’t see a clear and reliable path to getting them funded. Researchers ask themselves, “what datasets already exist, or what dataset could I create with a $500,000 – $1 million grant?” They don’t ask the question, “what dataset + CTM would have a transformational impact on a given scientific or technological challenge, regardless of the resources that would be required to create it?” If we want more researchers to generate concrete, high-impact ideas, we have to make it worth the time and effort to do so.
- Many key datasets (e.g., in fields such as chemistry) are proprietary, and were designed prior to the era of modern machine learning. Although researchers are supposed to include Data Management Plans in their grant applications, these requirements are not enforced, data is often not shared in a way that is useful, and data can be of variable quality and reliability. In addition, large dataset creation may sometimes not be considered academically novel enough to garner high impact publications for researchers.
- Creation of sufficiently large datasets may be prohibitively expensive. For example, experts estimate that the cost of recreating the Protein Data Bank would be $15 billion! Science agencies may need to also explore the role that innovation in hardware or new techniques can play in reducing the cost and increasing the uniformity of the data, using, for example, automation, massive parallelism, miniaturization, and multiplexing. A good example of this was NIH’s $1,000 Genome project, led by Jeffrey Schloss.
Q. Why is close collaboration between experimental and computational teams necessary to take advantage of the role that AI can play in accelerating science?
According to Michael Frumkin with Google Accelerated Science, what is even more valuable than a static dataset is a data generation capability, with a good balance of latency, throughput, and flexibility. That’s because researchers may not immediately identify the right “objective function” that will result in a useful model with real-world applications, or the most important problem to solve. This requires iteration between experimental and computational teams.
Q. What do you think is the broader opportunity to enable the digital transformation of science?
I think there are different tools and techniques that can be mixed and matched in a variety of ways that will collectively enable the digital transformation of science and engineering. Some examples include:
- Self-driving labs (and eventually, fleets of networked, self-driving labs), where machine learning is not only analyzing the data but informing which experiment to do next.
- Scientific equipment that is high-throughput, low-latency, automated, programmable, and potentially remote (e.g. “cloud labs”).
- Novel assays and sensors.
- The use of “science discovery games” that allow volunteers and citizen scientists to more accurately label training data. For example, the game Mozak trains volunteers to collaboratively reconstruct complex 3D representations of neurons.
- Advances in algorithms (e.g. progress in areas such as causal inference, interpreting high-dimensional data, inverse design, uncertainty quantification, and multi-objective optimization).
- Software for orchestration of experiments, and open hardware and software interfaces to allow more complex scientific workflows.
- Integration of machine learning, prior knowledge, modeling and simulation, and advanced computing.
- New approaches to informatics and knowledge representation – e.g. a machine-readable scientific literature, increasing number of experiments that can be expressed as code and are therefore more replicable.
- Approaches to human-machine teaming that allow the best division of labor between human scientists and autonomous experimentation.
- Funding mechanisms, organizational structures and incentives that enable the team science and community-wide collaboration needed to realize the potential of this approach.
There are many opportunities at the intersection of these different scientific and technical building blocks. For example, use of prior knowledge can sometimes reduce the amount of data that is needed to train a ML model. Innovation in hardware could lower the time and cost of generating training data. ML can predict the answer that a more computationally-intensive simulation might generate. So there are undoubtedly opportunities to create a virtuous circle of innovation.
Q. Are there any risks of the common task method?
Some researchers are pointing to negative sociological impacts associated with “SOTA-chasing” – e.g. a single-minded focus on generating a state-of-the-art result. These include reducing the breadth of the type of research that is regarded as legitimate, too much competition and not enough cooperation, and overhyping AI/ML results with claims of “super-human” levels of performance. Also, a researcher who makes a contribution to increasing the size and usefulness of the dataset may not get the same recognition as the researcher who gets a state-of-the-art result.
Some fields that have become overly dominated by incremental improvements in a metric have had to introduce Wild and Crazy Ideas as a separate track in their conferences to create a space for more speculative research directions.
Q. Which types of science and engineering problems should be prioritized?
One benefit to the digital transformation of science and engineering is that it will accelerate the pace of discovery and technological advances. This argues for picking problems where time is of the essence, including:
- Developing and manufacturing carbon-neutral and carbon-negative technologies we need for power, transportation, buildings, industry, and food and agriculture. Currently, it can take 17-20 years to discover and manufacture a new material. This is too long if we want to meet ambitious 2050 climate goals.
- Improving our response to future pandemics by being able to more rapidly design, develop and evaluate new vaccines, therapies, and diagnostics.
- Addressing new threats to our national security, such as engineered pathogens and the technological dimension of our economic and military competition with peer adversaries.
Obviously, it also has to be a problem where AI and ML can make a difference, e.g. ML’s ability to approximate a function that maps between an input and an output, or to lower the cost of making a prediction.
Q. Why should economic policy-makers care about this as well?
One of the key drivers of the long-run increases in our standard of living is productivity (output per worker), and one source of productivity is what economists call general purpose technologies (GPTs). These are technologies that have a pervasive impact on our economy and our society, such as interchangeable parts, the electric grid, the transistor, and the Internet.
Historically – GPTs have required other complementary changes (e.g. organizational changes, changes in production processes and the nature of work) before their economic and societal benefits can be realized. The introduction of electricity eventually led to massive increases in manufacturing productivity, but not until factories and production lines were reorganized to take advantage of small electric motors. There are similar challenges for fostering the role that AI/ML and complementary technologies will play in accelerating the pace of scientific and technological advances:
- Researchers and science funders need to identify and support the technical infrastructure (e.g. datasets + CTMs, self-driving labs) that will move an entire field forward, or solve a particularly important problem.
- A leading academic researcher involved in protein structure prediction noted that one of the things that allowed DeepMind to make so much progress on the protein folding problem was that “everyone was rowing in the same direction,” “18 co-first authors .. an incentive structure wholly foreign to academia,” and “a fast and focused research paradigm … [which] raises the question of what other problems exist that are ripe for a fast and focused attack.” So capitalizing on the opportunity is likely to require greater experimentation in mechanisms for funding, organizing and incentivizing research, such as Focused Research Organizations.
Q. Why is this an area where it might make sense to “unbundle” idea generation from execution?
Traditional funding mechanisms assume that the same individual or team who has an idea should always be the person who implements the idea. I don’t think this is necessarily the case for datasets and CTMs. A researcher may have a brilliant idea for a dataset, but may not be in a position to liberate the data (if it already exists), rally the community, and raise the funds needed to create the dataset. There is still a value in getting researchers to submit and publish their ideas, because their proposal could be catalytic of a larger-scale effort.
Agencies could sponsor white paper competitions with a cash prize for the best ideas. [A good example of a white paper competition is MIT’s Climate Grand Challenge, which had a number of features which made it catalytic.] Competitions could motivate researchers to answer questions such as:
- What dataset and Common Task would have a significant impact on our ability to answer a key scientific question or make progress on an important use-inspired or technological problem? What preliminary work has been done or should be done prior to making a larger-scale investment in data collection?
- To the extent that industry would also find the data useful, would they be willing to share the cost of collecting it? They could also share existing data, including the results from failed experiments.
- What advance in hardware or experimental techniques would lower the time and cost of generating high-value datasets by one or more orders of magnitude?
- What self-driving lab would significantly accelerate progress in a given field or problem, and why?
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Schmidt Futures.
The Magic Laptop Thought Experiment
One of the main goals of Kalil’s Corner is to share some of the things I’ve learned over the course of my career about policy entrepreneurship. Below is an FAQ on a thought experiment that I think is useful for policy entrepreneurs, and how the thought experiment is related to a concept I call “shared agency.”
Q. What is your favorite thought experiment?
Imagine that you have a magic laptop. The power of the laptop is that any press release that you write will come true.
You have to write a headline (goal statement), several paragraphs to provide context, and 1-2 paragraph descriptions of who is agreeing to do what (in the form organization A takes action B to achieve goal C). The individuals or organizations could be federal agencies, the Congress, companies, philanthropists, investors, research universities, non-profits, skilled volunteers, etc. The constraint, however, is that it has to be plausible that the organizations would be both willing and able to take the action. For example, a for-profit company is not going to take actions that are directly contrary to the interests of their shareholders.
What press release would you write, and why? What makes this a compelling idea?
Q. What was the variant of this that you used to ask people when you worked in the White House for President Obama?
You have a 15-minute meeting in the Oval Office with the President, and he asks:
“If you give me a good idea, I will call anyone on the planet. It can be a conference call, so there can be more than one person on the line. What’s your idea, and why are you excited about it? In order to make your idea happen, who would I need to call and what would I need to ask them to do in order to make it happen?”
Q. What was your motivation for posing this thought experiment to people?
I’ve been in roles where I can occasionally serve as a “force multiplier” for other people’s ideas. The best way to have a good idea is to be exposed to many ideas.
When I was in the White House, I would meet with a lot of people who would tell me that what they worked on was very important, and deserved greater attention from policy-makers.
But when I asked them what they wanted the Administration to consider doing, they didn’t always have a specific response. Sometimes people would have the kernel of a good idea, but I would need to play “20 questions” with them to refine it. This thought experiment would occasionally help me elicit answers to basic questions like who, what, how and why.
Q. Why does this thought experiment relate to the Hamming question?
Richard Hamming was a researcher at Bell Labs who used to ask his colleagues, “What are the most important problems in your field? And what are you working on?” This would annoy some of his colleagues, because it forced them to confront the fact that they were working on something that they didn’t think was that important.
If you really did have a magic laptop or a meeting with the President, you would presumably use it to help solve a problem that you thought was important!
Q. How does this thought experiment highlight the importance of coalition-building?
There are many instances where we have a goal that requires building a coalition of individuals and organizations.
It’s hard to do that if you can’t identify (1) the potential members of the coalition; and (2) the mutually reinforcing actions you would like them to consider taking.
Once you have a hypothesis about the members of your coalition of the willing and able, you can begin to ask and answer other key questions as well, such as:
- Why is it in the enlightened self-interest of the members of the coalition to participate?
- Who is the most credible messenger for your idea? Who could help convene the coalition?
- Is there something that you or someone else can do to make it easier for them to get involved? For example, policy-makers do things with words, in the same way that a priest changes the state of affairs in the world by stating “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Presidents sign Executive Orders, Congress passes legislation, funding agencies issue RFPs, regulatory agencies issue draft rules for public comment, and so on. You can make it easier for a policy-maker to consider an idea by drafting the documents that are needed to frame, make, and implement a decision.
- If a member of the coalition is willing but not able, can someone else take some action that relaxes the constraint that is preventing them from participating?
- What evidence do you have that if individual or organization A took action B, that C is likely to occur?
- What are the risks associated with taking the course of action that you recommend, and how could they be managed or mitigated?
Q. Is this thought experiment only relevant to policy-makers?
Not at all. I think it is relevant for any goal that you are pursuing — especially ones that require concerted action by multiple individuals and organizations to accomplish.
Q. What’s the relationship between this thought experiment and Bucky Fuller’s concept of a “trim tab?”
Fuller observed that a tiny device called a trim tab is designed to move a rudder, which in turn can move a giant ship like the Queen Elizabeth.
So, it’s incredibly useful to identify these leverage points that can help solve important problems.
For example, some environmental advocates have focused on the supply chains of large multinationals. If these companies source products that are more sustainable (e.g. cooking oils that are produced without requiring deforestation) – that can have a big impact on the environment.
Q. What steps can people take to generate better answers to this thought experiment?
There are many things – like having a deep understanding of a particular problem, being exposed to both successful and unsuccessful efforts to solve important problems in many different domains, or understanding how particular organizations that you are trying to influence make decisions.
One that I’ve been interested in is the creation of a “toolkit” for solving problems. If, as opposed to having a hammer and looking for nails to hit, you also have a saw, a screwdriver, and a tape measure, you are more likely to have the right tool or combination of tools for the right job.
For example, during my tenure in the Obama Administration, my team and other people in the White House encouraged awareness and adoption of dozens of approaches to solving problems, such as:
- Sponsoring incentive prizes, which allow agencies to set a goal without having to choose the team or approach that is most likely to be successful;
- Making open data available in machine-readable formats, and encouraging teams to develop new applications that use the data to solve a real-world problem;
- Changing federal hiring practices and recruiting top technical talent;
- Embracing modern software methodologies such as agile and human-centered design for citizen-facing digital services;
- Identifying and pursuing 21st century moonshots;
- Using insights from behavioral science to improve policies and programs;
- Using and building evidence to increase the share of federal resources going to more effective interventions;
- Changing procurement policies so that the government can purchase products and services from startups and commercial firms, not just traditional contractors.
Of course, ideally one would be familiar with the problem-solving tactics of different types of actors (companies, research universities, foundations, investors, civil society organization) and individuals with different functional or disciplinary expertise. No one is going to master all of these tools, but you might aspire to (1) know that they exist; (2) have some heuristics about when and under what circumstances you might use them; and (3) know how to learn more about a particular approach to solving problems that might be relevant. For example, I’ve identified a number of tactics that I’ve seen foundations and nonprofits use.
Q. How does this thought experiment relate to the concept that psychologists call “agency?”
Agency is defined by psychologists like Albert Bandura as “the human capability to influence …the course of events by one’s actions.”
The particular dimension of agency that I have experienced is a sense that there are more aspects of the status quo that are potentially changeable as opposed to being fixed. These are the elements of the status quo that are attributable to human action or inaction, as opposed to the laws of physics.
Obviously, this sense of agency didn’t extend to every problem under the sun. It was limited to those areas where progress could be made by getting identifiable individuals and organizations to take some action – like the President signing an Executive Order or proposing a new budget initiative, the G20 agreeing to increase investment in a global public good, Congress passing a law, or a coalition of organizations like companies, foundations, nonprofits and universities working together to achieve a shared goal.
Q. How did you develop a strong sense of agency over the course of your career?
I had the privilege of working at the White House for both Presidents Clinton and Obama.
As a White House staffer, I had the ability to send the President a decision memo. If he checked the box that said “yes” – and the idea actually happened and was well-implemented, this reinforced my sense of agency.
But it wasn’t just the experience of being successful. It was also the knowledge that one acquires by repeatedly trying to move from an idea to something happening in the world, such as:
- Working with the Congress to pass legislation that gave every agency the authority to sponsor incentive prizes for up to $50 million;
- Including funding for dozens of national science and technology initiatives in the President’s budget, such as the National Nanotechnology Initiative or the BRAIN Initiative;
- Recruiting people to the White House to help solve hard and important problems, like reducing the waiting list for an organ transplant, allowing more foreign entrepreneurs to come to the United States, or launching a behavioral sciences unit within the federal government; and,
- Using the President’s “bully pulpit” to build coalitions of companies, non-profits, philanthropists, universities, etc. to achieve a particular goal, like expanding opportunities for more students to excel in STEM.
Q. What does it mean for you to have a shared sense of agency with another individual, a team, or a community?
Obviously, most people have not had 16 years of their professional life in which they could send a decision memo to the President, get a line in the President’s State of the Union address, work with Congress to pass legislation, create a new institution, shape the federal budget, and build large coalitions with hundreds of organizations that are taking mutually reinforcing actions in the pursuit of a shared goal.
So sometimes when I am talking to an individual, a team or a community, it will become clear to me that there is some aspect of the status quo that they view as fixed, and I view as potentially changeable. It might make sense for me to explain why I believe the status quo is changeable, and what are the steps we could take together in the service of achieving a shared goal.
Q. Why is shared agency important?
Changing the status quo is hard. If I don’t know how to do it, or believe that I would be tilting at windmills – it’s unlikely that I would devote a lot of time and energy to trying to do so.
It may be the case that pushing for change will require a fair amount of work, such as:
- Expressing my idea clearly, and communicating it effectively to multiple audiences;
- Marshaling the evidence to support it;
- Determining who the relevant “deciders” are for a given idea;
- Addressing objections or misconceptions, or responding to legitimate criticism; and
- Building the coalition of people and institutions who support the idea, and may be prepared to take some action to advance it.
So if I want people to devote time and energy to fleshing out an idea or doing some of the work needed to make it happen, I need to convince them that something constructive could plausibly happen. And one way to do that is to describe what success might look like, and discuss the actions that we would take in order to achieve our shared goal. As an economist might put it, I am trying to increase their “expected return” of pursuing a shared goal by increasing the likelihood that my collaborators attach to our success.
Q. Are there risks associated with having this strong sense of agency, and how might one mitigate against those risks?
Yes, absolutely. One is a lack of appropriate epistemic humility, by pushing a proposed solution in the absence of reasonable evidence that it will work, or failing to identify unintended consequences. It’s useful to read books like James Scott’s Seeing Like a State.
I also like the idea of evidence-based policy. For example, governments should provide modest amounts of funding for new ideas, medium-sized grants to evaluate promising approaches, and large grants to scale interventions that have been rigorously evaluated and have a high benefit to cost ratio.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Schmidt Futures.
2022 Bioautomation Challenge: Investing in Automating Protein Engineering
2022 Bioautomation Challenge: Investing in Automating Protein Engineering
Thomas Kalil, Chief Innovation Officer of Schmidt Futures, interviews biomedical engineer Erika DeBenedictis
Schmidt Futures is supporting an initiative – the 2022 Bioautomation Challenge – to accelerate the adoption of automation by leading researchers in protein engineering. The Federation of American Scientists will act as the fiscal sponsor for this challenge.
This initiative was designed by Erika DeBenedictis, who will also serve as the program director. Erika holds a PhD in biological engineering from MIT, and has also worked in biochemist David Baker’s lab on machine learning for protein design at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Recently, I caught up with Erika to understand why she’s excited about the opportunity to automate protein engineering.
Why is it important to encourage widespread use of automation in life science research?
Automation improves reproducibility and scalability of life science. Today, it is difficult to transfer experiments between labs. This slows progress in the entire field, both amongst academics and also from academia to industry. Automation allows new techniques to be shared frictionlessly, accelerating broader availability of new techniques. It also allows us to make better use of our scientific workforce. Widespread automation in life science would shift the time spent away from repetitive experiments and toward more creative, conceptual work, including designing experiments and carefully selecting the most important problems.
How did you get interested in the role that automation can play in the life sciences?
I started graduate school in biological engineering directly after working as a software engineer at Dropbox. I was shocked to learn that people use a drag-and-drop GUI to control laboratory automation rather than an actual programming language. It was clear to me that automation has the potential to massively accelerate life science research, and there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit.
Why is this the right time to encourage the adoption of automation?
The industrial revolution was 200 years ago, and yet people are still using hand pipettes. It’s insane! The hardware for doing life science robotically is quite mature at this point, and there are quite a few groups (Ginkgo, Strateos, Emerald Cloud Lab, Arctoris) that have automated robotic setups. Two barriers to widespread automation remain: the development of robust protocols that are well adapted to robotic execution and overcoming cultural and institutional inertia.
What role could automation play in generating the data we need for machine learning? What are the limitations of today’s publicly available data sets?
There’s plenty of life science datasets available online, but unfortunately most of it is unusable for machine learning purposes. Datasets collected by individual labs are usually too small, and combining datasets between labs, or even amongst different experimentalists, is often a nightmare. Today, when two different people run the ‘same’ experiment they will often get subtly different results. That’s a problem we need to systematically fix before we can collect big datasets. Automating and standardizing measurements is one promising strategy to address this challenge.
Why protein engineering?
The success of AlphaFold has highlighted to everyone the value of using machine learning to understand molecular biology. Methods for machine-learning guided closed-loop protein engineering are increasingly well developed, and automation makes it that much easier for scientists to benefit from these techniques. Protein engineering also benefits from “robotic brute force.” When you engineer any protein, it is always valuable to test more variants, making this discipline uniquely benefit from automation.
If it’s such a good idea, why haven’t academics done it in the past?
Cost and risk are the main barriers. What sort of methods are valuable to automate and run remotely? Will automation be as valuable as expected? It’s a totally different research paradigm; what will it be like? Even assuming that an academic wants to go ahead and spend $300k for a year of access to a cloud laboratory, it is difficult to find a funding source. Very few labs have enough discretionary funds to cover this cost, equipment grants are unlikely to pay for cloud lab access, and it is not obvious whether or not the NIH or other traditional funders would look favorably on this sort of expense in the budget for an R01 or equivalent. Additionally, it is difficult to seek out funding without already having data demonstrating the utility of automation for a particular application. All together, there are just a lot of barriers to entry.
You’re starting this new program called the 2022 Bioautomation Challenge. How does the program eliminate those barriers?
This program is designed to allow academic labs to test out automation with little risk and at no cost. Groups are invited to submit proposals for methods they would like to automate. Selected proposals will be granted three months of cloud lab development time, plus a generous reagent budget. Groups that successfully automate their method will also be given transition funding so that they can continue to use their cloud lab method while applying for grants with their brand-new preliminary data. This way, labs don’t need to put in any money up-front, and are able to decide whether they like the workflow and results of automation before finding long-term funding.
Historically, some investments that have been made in automation have been disappointing, like GM in the 1980s, or Tesla in the 2010s. What can we learn from the experiences of other industries? Are there any risks?
For sure. I would say even “life science in the 2010s” is an example of disappointing automation: academic labs started buying automation robots, but it didn’t end up being the right paradigm to see the benefits. I see the 2022 Bioautomation Challenge as an experiment itself: we’re going to empower labs across the country to test out many different use cases for cloud labs to see what works and what doesn’t.
Where will funding for cloud lab access come from in the future?
Currently there’s a question as to whether traditional funding sources like the NIH would look favorably on cloud lab access in a budget. One of the goals of this program is to demonstrate the benefits of cloud science, which I hope will encourage traditional funders to support this research paradigm. In addition, the natural place to house cloud lab access in the academic ecosystem is at the university level. I expect that many universities may create cloud lab access programs, or upgrade their existing core facilities into cloud labs. In fact, it’s already happening: Carnegie Mellon recently announced they’re opening a local robotic facility that runs Emerald Cloud Lab’s software.
What role will biofabs and core facilities play?
In 10 years, I think the terms “biofab,” “core facility,” and “cloud lab” will all be synonymous. Today the only important difference is how experiments are specified: many core facilities still take orders through bespoke Google forms, whereas Emerald Cloud Lab has figured out how to expose a single programming interface for all their instruments. We’re implementing this program at Emerald because it’s important that all the labs that participate can talk to one another and share protocols, rather than each developing methods that can only run in their local biofab. Eventually, I think we’ll see standardization, and all the facilities will be capable of running any protocol for which they have the necessary instruments.
In addition to protein engineering, are there other areas in the life sciences that would benefit from cloud labs and large-scale, reliable data collection for machine learning?
I think there are many areas that would benefit. Areas that struggle with reproducibility, are manually repetitive and time intensive, or that benefit from closely integrating computational analysis with data are both good targets for automation. Microscopy and mammalian tissue culture might be another two candidates. But there’s a lot of intellectual work for the community to do in order to articulate problems that can be solved with machine learning approaches, if given the opportunity to collect the data.
Growing Innovative Companies to Scale: A Listening Session with Startups in Critical Industries
On September 16th, 2021, the Day One Project convened a closed-door listening session for interagency government leaders to hear from co-founders and supply-chain leaders of 10 startups in critical industries — bioeconomy, cleantech, semiconductor — about challenges and opportunities to scale their operations and improve resilience in the United States. The panel was moderated by Elisabeth Reynolds, Special Assistant to the President for Manufacturing and Economic Development. The overarching theme is that for innovative companies in critical industries, the path of least resistance for scaling production is not in the United States — but it could be.
Unlike many startups that are purely software based and can scale quickly with little capital expenditure, these companies produce a product that requires manufacturing expertise and can take longer and more capital to grow to scale. Capital markets and government programs are often not well aligned with the needs of these companies, leaving the country at risk that many of the most cutting-edge technologies are invented here, but made elsewhere. As there is a tight relationship between the learning-by-building phase of scale up and innovation capacity, outsourcing production poses a threat to U.S. competitiveness. The country also risks losing the downstream quality manufacturing jobs that could stimulate economic growth in regions across the country.
Key Takeaways:
Challenges
- Overseas government incentives and manufacturing ecosystems, like intellectual property support, subsidies, and more available advanced manufacturing technology options, are more attractive than U.S. offerings.
- Shortcomings with existing federal programs and funding include a lack of government outreach to navigate the complexity of opportunities, regulations that delay access to funding on appropriate timelines, and misplaced emphasis away from commercialization.
- Supply chain gaps and opportunities for sustainable manufacturing in the United States were identified in quantum and bioindustry sectors.
Solutions
- Additional government financing mechanisms, like tax-credits for R&D and renewable tech and government co-investment opportunities through an expanded EXIM Bank, In-Q-Tel, J2 Ventures, and programs like the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) were highly encouraged.
- Improving government processes and regulations through reducing funding application timelines in the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office or providing better guidance over The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) restrictions on quantum companies’ foreign acquisitions.
- Government demand-pull incentives were the most important solution recommended by startups in order to guide the development of technology from basic science to commercialization.
Challenges
There are significant challenges to taking advanced technology from earlier R&D phases to manufacturing products that demonstrate viability at scale. Available financing opportunities do not adequately support longer time horizons or larger capital requirements. A lack of manufacturing and engineering skills pose another barrier to scaling a product from prototype to pilot to commercial production. After many decades of disinvestment in the country’s manufacturing base, overcoming these challenges will be difficult but essential if we are to grow and benefit from our most innovative, emerging companies. As two of the bioeconomy startups stated:
“The USG knows how to fund research and purchase finished products. There is not enough money, and far more problematically, not nearly enough skilled Sherpas to fill the gap in between.”
“Manufacturing … has been considered as a “cost center,” … reducing cost of manufacturing (e.g., moving manufacturing sites offshore) is one of the major themes … Rarely there are investments or financing opportunities coming to the sector to develop new technologies that can drive innovation…the types of investment are usually very large (e.g., capex for building a manufacturing plant). As a result, it has been very hard for startups which dedicate themselves to novel, next generation manufacturing technologies to raise or secure sufficient funding.”
During the conversation, three specific challenges were identified that speak to key factors that contribute to this manufacturing gap in the United States:
1) Overseas Government Incentives and Manufacturing Ecosystems
The startups largely agreed that overseas governments provide more incentives to manufacture than the United States. Often, these countries have developed “manufacturing-led” ecosystems of private companies and other institutions that can reliably deliver critical inputs, whether as part of their value chain, or in terms of their broader development needs. Some examples from the companies include:
- “A Dutch-owned manufacturing plant in Brazil was designed to produce 30 million gallons of oil from algae; the favorable rates for such an endeavor were only made possible by the financing provided by the Brazilian Development Bank to bridge the gap of scale.” —Bioeconomy startup.
- “Currently, with a lack of biomanufacturing capacity in the US, there is a scramble for companies trying to secure capacity at contract manufacturing facilities, which are usually filled. Many are looking to other countries for scale up.” — Bioeconomy startup.
- “There are far more off-shore companies that support semiconductor packaging, manufacturing, and testing … given the volumes of these companies, it is much cheaper to do this off-shore…as foreign fabrication facilities have more technically advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes.” —Semiconductor startup.
- “The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) also offers a much wider variety of IP support in their process libraries for semiconductors—much of this IP is production proven with a roadmap for support on future technology nodes.” —Semiconductor startup.
2) Shortcomings with Existing Federal Programs and Funding
The U.S. government has a wide range of programs that focus on supporting innovation and manufacturing. However, these programs are either targeted at the earlier stages of R&D and less on manufacturing scale up, are relatively small in scope, or involve time consuming and complicated processes to access them.
- “National Quantum Initiative allocates $1.4B towards the growth of the quantum industry and workforce, but most of this funding is going to National Labs. Larger contracts and grants to small businesses are needed.” —Semiconductor startup.
- “[Obtaining federal funding] is more complicated than going for venture backing or going to other countries.” —Semiconductor startup.
- “Regarding our knowledge of financing or other government support options currently available, I would say that any additional awareness, education or direction you can provide us with would be welcomed … even just making a single connection could prove beneficial and lower the burden [of figuring out how to access federal programs].” —Bioeconomy startup.
- “As we grew, we ran into early challenges convincing capital providers about the market drivers and perceptions about the waste industry and infrastructure …The time/timing of Department of Energy Loan Program Office funding has been a challenge taking over a year from review to award to project funding. Process doesn’t always match up with the speed of technology development and market need for commercialization.” —Cleantech startup.
- “Key U.S. federal agencies, most notably the National Security Agency (NSA), have publicly indicated a non-embrace of emerging quantum secure communication technology … The NSA position (which prefers new algorithm development) is greatly hampering VC investment in quantum component suppliers.” — Semiconductor startup.
3) Supply Chain Gaps and Opportunities for Sustainable Manufacturing in the U.S.
A few specific instances were described where the United States lacks access to critical inputs for bioeconomy and quantum development, as key suppliers are located abroad. However, as these emerging fields develop, critical inputs will change and present an opportunity to course correct. Therefore, improving our domestic manufacturing base now is vital for driving demand and establishing innovation ecosystems for industries of the future.
- “Quantum tech is going to be critical to the next century of product and tech development…The quantum supply chain currently has significant choke points for US suppliers. Many critical components (such as single frequency lasers, non-linear crystals, and InGaAs single photon detectors) are not available through US vendors.” —Semiconductor startup.
- “A lack of current capacity in the U.S. is also the opportunity for the industry as well to develop more sustainable processes, as new material inputs are developed and created, there will need to be new processes and new ways of manufacturing … With new bio inputs there is an opportunity to build up our biomanufacturing ability, produce on demand and rebuild that converter level, train a new workforce and create the building blocks for new materials that we need here to make products.“ —Bioeconomy startup.
Solutions
Startups commented on the importance of expanding funding opportunities, such as co- investment and tax credit solutions, as well as key process and regulatory changes. Most importantly, startups highlighted the importance of demand-pull mechanisms to help commercialize new technologies and create new markets.
1) Additional Government Financing Mechanisms
Several companies commented on the need to provide additional financing to support manufacturers, as equipment is often too expensive for venture avenues and other forms of capital are not readily available. These solutions include expanding government co- investment and leveraging tax credits.
- “Expanding the scope of the EXIM to support manufacturers looking to export materials and products abroad would be of interest. In the case of new, advanced biomaterials we have found that the EU is driving a great deal of demand interest as well as early adoption. Helping smaller companies with new materials developed in the US navigate this might benefit the speed of commercialization.” — Bioeconomy startup.
- “Two specific financing mechanisms to be expanded are 1) Increased funding for accelerator programs that support emerging US-based manufacturing companies and 2) government funding of venture capital companies like In-Q-Tel and J2 Ventures that can help support early-stage technology companies.” — Semiconductor startup.
- “Policymakers should support, maintain, and expand programs like the recent Development Finance Corporation’s investments [under Defense Production Act authority] to accelerate the domestic production of pharmaceuticals and active ingredients, particularly for essential medicines that are in short supply and often needed in response to public health emergencies.” —Bioeconomy startup.
- “The R&D Tax Credit is one of the most effective and efficient federal tax incentives for driving innovation across a variety of industries…an enhanced R&D tax credit for companies investing in research and development of technology to enable the domestic production of active pharmaceutical ingredients … would fully unlock the potential of synthetic biology and result in meaningful and immediate changes to the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain.” —Bioeconomy startup.
- “Provided the incentives are set at adequate levels, incentives such as renewable energy and storage tax credits could be structured with bonuses to support domestic manufacturing in our selection of suppliers.” —Cleantech startup.
2) Improving Government Processes and Regulations
A few of the startups identified specific government processes or regulations that could be improved upon, such as application times for funding in energy sectors or restrictions in procurement or foreign acquisitions.
- “Department of Energy loan mechanisms appear to be developing positively, but for them to be effectively utilized, there needs to be a simple and swift process for application and decision making. We hear horror stories of 9 months to 3 years for this process currently.” —Bioeconomy startup.
- “In-Q-Tel is an excellent funding vehicle … However, they require a Department of Defense (DoD) sponsor. Given the stance of NSA, DoD sponsors are unwilling to support an investment in a non-NSA desired technology. This eliminates a critical government financing mechanism.” —Semiconductor startup.
- “Securing the US supply chain in quantum is going to require the acquisition of key foreign owned companies and processes. For small companies, these acquisitions are only possible when equity sharing is included in the negotiations. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) restrictions greatly complicate these negotiations since foreign ownership in a US company that is producing products with national security implications is restricted. Although these restrictions are still needed, it would be helpful if CFIUS could provide more direct guidance to US companies negotiating the acquisition and transfer of foreign manufacturing capabilities.” —Semiconductor startup.
3) Government Demand-pull Incentives:
Most, if not all, startups felt that the best role for the government is in creating demand- pull incentives to support the development of technology from basic science to commercialization and help create new markets for leading-edge products. This can range from procurement contracts to new regulatory standards and requirements that can incent higher quality, domestic production.
- “The best role that the Department of Defense or other agencies can play is that they can help drive the demand for these technologies.” —Cleantech startup.
- “The most important thing that the Government can do to help speed the financing and adoption of new advanced materials is to help to build the pull through from research and new materials development to the final product … We believe that we have a once in a generation opportunity to re-imagine how we manufacture goods and products here in the US. We need to look at the whole of the supply chain from molecule and material inputs to final products. There has been a hollowing out of the middle of the supply chain for manufacturing here in the United States.” — Bioeconomy startup.
- “Policymakers should continue to invest in public-private partnerships like the Manufacturing USA Institutes, which brings together experts from government, academia, and industry to support projects from the research phase through the commercialization of innovative technologies.” —Bioeconomy startup.
- Examples:
- “If there were a mechanism to incent companies and early adopters to reducetheir petroleum inputs and bridge the gap all the way to the domestically sourced chemical inputs to their domestic manufacturing it could help to create more secure supply chains.” —Bioeconomy startup.
- “Domestic procurement requirements … could stimulate investment in domestic pharmaceutical supply chain[s] … Policymakers should consider maintaining a list of essential medicines and give preference to domestically sourced pharmaceuticals (and active ingredients) in any federal procurement programs” —Bioeconomy startup.
- “Policymakers should consider directing the Food and Drug Administration to create a priority review designation for domestically sourced pharmaceutical products and active ingredients. By moving these products to the top of the priority list, manufacturers would have another incentive to change supply chain practices and shift production back to the United States.” —Bioeconomy startup.
Conclusion
These anecdotes provide a small window into some of the challenges startups face scaling their innovative technologies in the United States. Fixing our scale up ecosystem to support more investment in the later-stage manufacturing and growth of these companies is essential for U.S. leadership in emerging technologies and industries. The fixes are many — large and small, financial and regulatory, product and process-oriented — but now is a moment of opportunity to change pace from the past several decades. By addressing these challenges, the United States can build the next generation of U.S.-based advanced manufacturing companies that create good quality, middle-skill jobs in regions across the country. The Biden-Harris Administration has outlined a new industrial strategy that seeks to realize this vision and ensure U.S. global technological and economic leadership, but it’s success will require informing policy efforts with on-the-ground perspectives from small- and medium-sized private enterprises.
Session Readout: Rebuilding American Manufacturing
Our roundtable of senior leadership at the White House National Economic Council and U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services as well as a diversity of viewpoints across political ideologies from Breakthrough Energy, American Compass, MIT’s The Engine, and Employ America discussed competing with China on advanced manufacturing sectors (bioeconomic, semiconductor, quantum, etc.), supply chain resilience, and new visions for industrial policy that can stimulate regional development. This document contains a summary of the event.
Topic Introduction: Advanced Manufacturing & U.S. Competitiveness
The session began with an introduction by Bill Bonvillian (MIT), who shared a series of reflections, challenges, and solutions to rebuilding American manufacturing:
Advanced manufacturing and supply chain resilience are two sides of the same coin. The pandemic awoke us to our over dependence on foreign supply chains. Unless we build a robust domestic manufacturing system, our supply chains will crumble. American competitiveness therefore depends on how well we can apply our innovation capabilities to the historically underfunded advanced manufacturing ecosystem. Other nations are pouring tremendous amounts of resources because they recognize the importance of manufacturing for the overall innovation cycle. To rebuild American manufacturing, an ecosystem is needed—private sector, educational institutions, and government—to create an effective regional workforce and advanced manufacturing technology pipeline.
Panel 1: Framing the Challenge and Identifying Key Misconceptions
Our first panel hosted Arnab Datta (Employ America), Chris Griswold (American Compass), and Abigail Regitsky (Breakthrough Energy). The questions and responses are summarized below:
What would you say are some misconceptions that have posed obstacles to finding consensus on an industrial policy for advanced manufacturing?
Chris Griswold: The largest misconception is the ideological view that industrial policy is central planning, with the government picking winners and losers—that it is un- American. That’s simply not true. From Alexander Hamilton, to Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln, and through the post-war period and America’s technological rise, the American way has involved a rich public-private sector innovation ecosystem. Recent decades of libertarian economics have weakened supply chains and permitted the flight of industry from American communities.
Arnab Datta: People like to say that market choices have forced manufacturing overseas, but really it’s been about policy. Germany has maintained a world-class manufacturing base with high wages and regulations. We have underrated two important factors in sustaining a high-quality American manufacturing ecosystem: financing and aggregate demand. Manufacturing financing is cash-flow intensive, making asset-light strategies difficult. And when you see scarce aggregate demand, you see a cost-cutting mentality that leads to things like consolidation and offshoring. We only need to look back to the once-booming semiconductor industry that lost its edge. Our competitors are making the policy choices necessary to grow and develop strategically; we should do the same.
Abigail Regitsky: For climate and clean energy, startups see the benefit of developing and manufacturing in the United States—that’s a large misconception, that startups do not want to produce domestically. The large issue is that they do not have financing support to develop domestic supply chains. We need to ensure there is a market for these technologies and there is financing available to access them.
With the recently introduced bill for an Industrial Finance Corporation from Senator Coons’ Office, what would you say are the unique benefits of using government corporations and why should the general public care? And how might something like this stimulate job and economic growth regionally?
Arnab Datta: The unique benefits of a government corporation are two-fold: flexibility in affordability and in financing. In some of our most difficult times, government entities were empowered with a range of abilities to accomplish important goals. During the Great Depression and World War III, the Reconstruction Financing Corporation was necessary to ramp up wartime investment through loans, purchase guarantees, and other methods. America has faced difficult challenges, but government corporations have been a bright spot in overcoming these challenges. We face big challenges now. The Industrial Finance Corporation (IFC) bill arrives at a similar moment, granting the government the authority to tackle big problems related to industrial competition—national security, climate change, etc. We need a flexible entity, and the public should care because they are taking risks in this competition with their tax dollars. They should be able to have a stake in the product, and the IFC’s equity investments and other methods provide that. It will also help with job growth across regions.Currently, we are witnessing rising capital expenditures to a degree not seen for a very long time. We were told manufacturing jobs would never come back, but the demand is there. Creating an institution that establishes permanence for job growth in manufacturing should not be an exception but a norm.
Abigail Regitsky: We need a political coalition to get the policies in supply to support the clean energy agenda. An IFC could support a factory that leverages hydrogen in a green way, or something even more nascent. These moves require a lot of capital, but we can create a lot of economic returns and jobs if we see the long-term linkage and support it.
What would you say might be the conservative case for industrial policy for advanced manufacturing? And what specific aspects of the advanced manufacturing ecosystem specifically do you see opportunities and needs?
Chris Griswold: It’s the same as the general case—it’s a common sense, good idea. Fortunately, there is much more consensus on this now than there was just a few years ago. Some specific arguments that should appeal to both sides include:
- The national security imperative to bolster our currently vulnerable supply chain and industrial base.
- Having national economic resiliency to keep up with competitors. It’s almost unanimous at this point that it will be difficult to compete without an effective advanced manufacturing sector and resilient supply chain. Offshoring all of our capacity has diminished our know-how and degraded our ability to innovate ourselves back out of this situation. We can’t just flip the innovation switch back on—it takes time to get our manufacturing ecosystem up to speed with the pace of technological progress.
- Deindustrialization has hurt working communities and created regional inequality. It has made not just our country weaker in general, but it has harmed many specific working-class local communities. Working class people without a college degree have been hit the hardest. Working class communities of color have been harmed in unique ways. At the heart of these large discussions is a moral imperative about workers and their families. They matter. We must do more to support local economies, which means caring about the composition of those economies.
Abigail Regitsky: It’s the idea of losing the “know-how” or “learning-by-building” phase of innovation. This is crucial for developing solutions to solve climate change. With climate, time is of the essence; when you are able to tie manufacturing to the innovation process, it fosters a faster scale up of new technology. We need the manufacturing know-how to scale up emerging technologies and reduce emissions to zero by mid-century.
Panel 2: Ideas for Action
Our first panel hosted Dr. Elisabeth Reynolds (WHNEC), Joseph Hamel (ASPR), and Katie Rae (MIT’s The Engine). The questions and responses are summarized below:
In the last panel, we heard from a variety of perspectives on this deep and comprehensive issue, what are a few priorities you have for improving the manufacturing base?
Elisabeth Reynolds: The last panel presented the imperative and opportunity of today’s moment perfectly. The administration is working to reframe the nation’s thoughts on industrial policy. All of those problems outlined existed before the pandemic. What we’re addressing now is a new commitment and understanding that this is not just about national security—it’s about economic security. We don’t need to build and make everything here, but we need to build and make a lot here, from commodities to next-gen technology. We have to support small and medium-sized businesses. The administration’s plans compliment the Industrial Finance Corporation bill and the initiatives included in it. There is a real effort to include and support communities, schools, and people who have not been included. We’refocusing on the regional level—we are aiming to have workforce training at the regional level to build a pipeline for the next generation of workers in manufacturing. Another critical component is the climate agenda, which manufacturing facilities should leverage demonstration funding, tax credits, and procurement to facilitate, especially on the latter, with the role of government as a buyer. Finally, each of these issues, must be approached through an equity lens, in terms of geographic, racial, small vs. big business, and more. We need to create a level playing field, that is where America will thrive.
“President Biden recently issued an Executive Order 14017 directing the US government to undertake a comprehensive review of six critical US industrial base sectors. ASPR is the lead for the public health and biological preparedness industry base review. What can you tell us about these efforts to date?”
Joseph Hamel: These efforts are focused on furthering the relationships and leveraging partnerships that were discovered during pandemic response, from the Food and Drug Administration to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and National Institute of Standards and Technology, it is important to explore the right level of coordination. We are conducting a review of essential medicines to identify the most critical and relevant, then exploring potential threats and ways to invest andimprove the supply chain for these drugs. We’re bringing in clinicians, manufacturers and distributor partners to ask questions like “what is the most vulnerable item in our global supply chain and how can we act on it? We’re also establishing an innovation laboratory with FDA to evaluate a wide array of products that are subject to shortage and geographic production dependencies. We are also investigating overlooked capacities for the assembly of these products and leveraging opportunities inside and outside of government so manufacturers can realize new capabilities at scale. We need a more resilient global supply chain, as was demonstrated in the pandemic. And we have to think about doing this with lower-cost, lower-footprint environmental impact so that we can become competitive inside a larger ecosystem.
A few weeks ago the Day One Project held a listening session with several startups in cleantech, semiconductor, and bioeconomy industries that governments overseas provide more incentives, from subsidies to more available tools, to manufacture there than in the United States. What is the most important way to make it easier for small and medium sized companies to manufacture in the United States?
Katie Rae: The Engine was founded to go after the world’s biggest problems. Advanced manufacturing is one of them—ensuring foundational industries are built here. This collides with everything, including our supply chains. The impact is not theoretical—how do we get vaccines to everyone? There’s been a lot of innovation, but our current system didn’t want to support the ideas because they were out of favor for investments. We had the ideas, but we didn’t have the financing, this was a market failure. We need funding to bring these ideas to life. When startups begin scaling, they need capital to do so. It is not inherently provided by the private market, so governments are not picking winners and losers but rather ensuring that money goes to a list of potential winners.
Elisabeth Reynolds: The comments about the financing gap are exactly right. We have less support for the scale up of cutting-edge technologies at their later stage of development. We need more time and capital to get these ideas there. Katie’s team is focused on finding this capital and supporting the commercialization into government. We also have a growing shift in the mindset of the country—first thought has been to take manufacturing offshore, but the equalization of the costs is bringing some of this production back to our shores.
If you were to ask the audience to work on a specific domain, what would you challenge them to do?
Elisabeth Reynolds: We should build in on the positive programs we have; Joe’s is a great example. We also can’t forget about the examples of work outside of government. We innovate well across a wide range of places and the government needs to be a partner in supporting this.
Katie Rae: Loan guarantee programs in procurement is a must-have. Other governments will do it and our companies will relocate their headquarters there.
Joseph Hamel: Furthering investments in platform technology development. We need to leverage what is growing as a bioeconomy initiative and use these applications to create end products that we never thought were achievable. We should explore material science applications and innovation in quality by design, up front.
Interview with Erika DeBenedictis
2022 Bioautomation Challenge: Investing in Automating Protein Engineering
Thomas Kalil, Chief Innovation Officer of Schmidt Futures, interviews biomedical engineer Erika DeBenedictis
Schmidt Futures is supporting an initiative – the 2022 Bioautomation Challenge – to accelerate the adoption of automation by leading researchers in protein engineering. The Federation of American Scientists will act as the fiscal sponsor for this challenge.
This initiative was designed by Erika DeBenedictis, who will also serve as the program director. Erika holds a PhD in biological engineering from MIT, and has also worked in biochemist David Baker’s lab on machine learning for protein design at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Recently, I caught up with Erika to understand why she’s excited about the opportunity to automate protein engineering.
Why is it important to encourage widespread use of automation in life science research?
Automation improves reproducibility and scalability of life science. Today, it is difficult to transfer experiments between labs. This slows progress in the entire field, both amongst academics and also from academia to industry. Automation allows new techniques to be shared frictionlessly, accelerating broader availability of new techniques. It also allows us to make better use of our scientific workforce. Widespread automation in life science would shift the time spent away from repetitive experiments and toward more creative, conceptual work, including designing experiments and carefully selecting the most important problems.
How did you get interested in the role that automation can play in the life sciences?
I started graduate school in biological engineering directly after working as a software engineer at Dropbox. I was shocked to learn that people use a drag-and-drop GUI to control laboratory automation rather than an actual programming language. It was clear to me that automation has the potential to massively accelerate life science research, and there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit.
Why is this the right time to encourage the adoption of automation?
The industrial revolution was 200 years ago, and yet people are still using hand pipettes. It’s insane! The hardware for doing life science robotically is quite mature at this point, and there are quite a few groups (Ginkgo, Strateos, Emerald Cloud Lab, Arctoris) that have automated robotic setups. Two barriers to widespread automation remain: the development of robust protocols that are well adapted to robotic execution and overcoming cultural and institutional inertia.
What role could automation play in generating the data we need for machine learning? What are the limitations of today’s publicly available data sets?
There’s plenty of life science datasets available online, but unfortunately most of it is unusable for machine learning purposes. Datasets collected by individual labs are usually too small, and combining datasets between labs, or even amongst different experimentalists, is often a nightmare. Today, when two different people run the ‘same’ experiment they will often get subtly different results. That’s a problem we need to systematically fix before we can collect big datasets. Automating and standardizing measurements is one promising strategy to address this challenge.
Why protein engineering?
The success of AlphaFold has highlighted to everyone the value of using machine learning to understand molecular biology. Methods for machine-learning guided closed-loop protein engineering are increasingly well developed, and automation makes it that much easier for scientists to benefit from these techniques. Protein engineering also benefits from “robotic brute force.” When you engineer any protein, it is always valuable to test more variants, making this discipline uniquely benefit from automation.
If it’s such a good idea, why haven’t academics done it in the past?
Cost and risk are the main barriers. What sort of methods are valuable to automate and run remotely? Will automation be as valuable as expected? It’s a totally different research paradigm; what will it be like? Even assuming that an academic wants to go ahead and spend $300k for a year of access to a cloud laboratory, it is difficult to find a funding source. Very few labs have enough discretionary funds to cover this cost, equipment grants are unlikely to pay for cloud lab access, and it is not obvious whether or not the NIH or other traditional funders would look favorably on this sort of expense in the budget for an R01 or equivalent. Additionally, it is difficult to seek out funding without already having data demonstrating the utility of automation for a particular application. All together, there are just a lot of barriers to entry.
You’re starting this new program called the 2022 Bioautomation Challenge. How does the program eliminate those barriers?
This program is designed to allow academic labs to test out automation with little risk and at no cost. Groups are invited to submit proposals for methods they would like to automate. Selected proposals will be granted three months of cloud lab development time, plus a generous reagent budget. Groups that successfully automate their method will also be given transition funding so that they can continue to use their cloud lab method while applying for grants with their brand-new preliminary data. This way, labs don’t need to put in any money up-front, and are able to decide whether they like the workflow and results of automation before finding long-term funding.
Historically, some investments that have been made in automation have been disappointing, like GM in the 1980s, or Tesla in the 2010s. What can we learn from the experiences of other industries? Are there any risks?
For sure. I would say even “life science in the 2010s” is an example of disappointing automation: academic labs started buying automation robots, but it didn’t end up being the right paradigm to see the benefits. I see the 2022 Bioautomation Challenge as an experiment itself: we’re going to empower labs across the country to test out many different use cases for cloud labs to see what works and what doesn’t.
Where will funding for cloud lab access come from in the future?
Currently there’s a question as to whether traditional funding sources like the NIH would look favorably on cloud lab access in a budget. One of the goals of this program is to demonstrate the benefits of cloud science, which I hope will encourage traditional funders to support this research paradigm. In addition, the natural place to house cloud lab access in the academic ecosystem is at the university level. I expect that many universities may create cloud lab access programs, or upgrade their existing core facilities into cloud labs. In fact, it’s already happening: Carnegie Mellon recently announced they’re opening a local robotic facility that runs Emerald Cloud Lab’s software.
What role will biofabs and core facilities play?
In 10 years, I think the terms “biofab,” “core facility,” and “cloud lab” will all be synonymous. Today the only important difference is how experiments are specified: many core facilities still take orders through bespoke Google forms, whereas Emerald Cloud Lab has figured out how to expose a single programming interface for all their instruments. We’re implementing this program at Emerald because it’s important that all the labs that participate can talk to one another and share protocols, rather than each developing methods that can only run in their local biofab. Eventually, I think we’ll see standardization, and all the facilities will be capable of running any protocol for which they have the necessary instruments.
In addition to protein engineering, are there other areas in the life sciences that would benefit from cloud labs and large-scale, reliable data collection for machine learning?
I think there are many areas that would benefit. Areas that struggle with reproducibility, are manually repetitive and time intensive, or that benefit from closely integrating computational analysis with data are both good targets for automation. Microscopy and mammalian tissue culture might be another two candidates. But there’s a lot of intellectual work for the community to do in order to articulate problems that can be solved with machine learning approaches, if given the opportunity to collect the data.
An interview with Martin Borch Jensen, Co-founder of Gordian Biotechnology
Recently, I caught up with Martin Borch Jensen, the Chief Science Officer of the biotech company Gordian Biotechnology. Gordian is a therapeutics company focused on the diseases of aging.
Martin did his Ph.D. in the biology of aging, received a prestigious NIH award to jumpstart an academic career, but decided to return the grant to launch Gordian. Recently, he designed and launched a $26 million competition called Longevity Impetus Grants. This program has already funded 98 grants to help scientists address what they consider to be the most important problems in aging biology (also known as geroscience). There is a growing body of research which suggests that there are underlying biological mechanisms of aging, and that it may be possible to delay the onset of multiple chronic diseases of aging, allowing people to live longer, healthier lives.
I interviewed Martin not only because I think that the field of geroscience is important, but also because I think the role that Martin is playing has significant benefits for science and society, and should be replicated in other fields. With this work, essentially, you could say that Martin is serving as a strategist for the field of geroscience as a whole, and designing a process for the competitive, merit-based allocation of funding that philanthropists such as Juan Benet, James Fickel, Jed McCaleb, Karl Pfleger, Fred Ehrsam, and Vitalik Buterin have confidence in, and have been willing to support. Martin’s role has a number of potential benefits:
- Many philanthropists are interested in supporting scientific research, but don’t have the professional staff capable of identifying areas of research that we are under-investing in. If more leading researchers were willing to identify areas where there is a strong case for additional philanthropic support, and design a process for the allocation of funding that inspires confidence, philanthropists would find it easier to support scientific research. Currently, there are almost 2,000 families in the U.S. alone that have $500 million in assets, and their current level of philanthropy is only 1.2 percent of their assets.
- Researchers could propose funding mechanisms that are designed to address shortcomings associated with the status quo. For example, at the beginning of the pandemic, Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison launched Fast Grants, which provided grants for COVID-19 related projects in under 14 days. Other philanthropists have designed funding mechanisms that are specifically designed to support high-risk, high-return ideas by empowering reviewers to back non-consensus ideas. Schmidt Futures and the Astera Institute are supporting Focused Research Organizations, projects that address key bottlenecks in a given field, and are difficult to address using traditional funding mechanisms.
- Early philanthropic support can catalyze additional support from federal science agencies such as NIH. For example, peer reviewers in NIH study sections often want to see “preliminary data” before they recommend funding for a particular project. Philanthropic support could generate evidence not only for specific scientific projections, but for novel approaches to funding and organizing scientific research.
- Physicist Max Planck observed that science progresses one funeral at a time. Early career scientists are likely to have new ideas, and philanthropic support for these ideas could accelerate scientific progress.
Below is a copy of the Q&A conducted over email between me and Martin Borch Jensen.
Tom Kalil: What motivated you to launch Impetus grants?
Martin Borch Jensen: Hearing Patrick Collison describe the outcomes of the COVID-19 Fast Grants. Coming from the world of NIH funding, it seemed to me that the results of this super-fast program were very similar to the year-ish cycle of applying for and receiving a grant from the NIH. If the paperwork and delays could be greatly reduced, while supporting an underfunded field, that seemed unambiguously good.
My time in academia had also taught me that a number of ideas exist, with great potential impact but that fall outside of the most common topics or viewpoints and thus have trouble getting funding. And within aging biology, several ‘unfundable’ ideas turned out to shape the field (for example, DNA methylation ‘clocks’, rejuvenating factors in young blood, and the recent focus on partial epigenetic reprogramming). So what if we focused funding on ideas with the potential to shape thinking in the field, even if there’s a big risk that the idea is wrong? Averaged across a lot of projects, it seemed like that could result in more progress overall.
TK: What enabled you to do this, given that you also have a full-time job as CSO of Gordian?
MBJ: I was lucky (or prescient?) in having recently started a mentoring program for talented individuals who want to enter the field of aging biology. This Longevity Apprenticeship program is centered on contributing to real-life projects, so Impetus was a perfect fit. The first apprentices, mainly Lada Nuzhna and Kush Sharma, with some help from Edmar Ferreira and Tara Mei, helped set up a non-profit to host the program, designed the website and user interface for reviewers, communicated with universities, and did a ton of operational work.
TK: What are some of the most important design decisions you made with respect to the competition, and how did it shape the outcome of the competition?
MBJ: A big one was to remain blind to the applicant while evaluating the impact of the idea. The reviewer discussion was very much focused on ‘will this change things, if true’. We don’t have a counterfactual, but based on the number of awards that went to grad students and postdocs (almost a quarter) I think we made decisions differently than most funders.
Another innovation was to team up with one of the top geroscience journals to organize a special issue where Impetus awardees would be able to publish negative results – the experiments showing that their hypothesis is incorrect. In doing so, we both wanted to empower researchers to take risks and go for their boldest ideas (since you’re expected to publish steadily, risky projects are disincentivized for career reasons), and at the same time take a step towards more sharing of negative results so that the whole field can learn from every project.
TK: What are some possible future directions for Impetus? What advice do you have for philanthropists that are interested in supporting geroscience?
MBJ: I’m excited that Lada (one of the Apprentices) will be taking over to run the Impetus Grants as a recurring funding source. She’s already started fundraising, and we have a lot of ideas for focused topics to support (for example, biomarkers of aging that could be used in clinical trials). We’re also planning a symposium where the awardees can meet, to foster a community of people with bold ideas and different areas of expertise.
One thing that I think could greatly benefit the geroscience field, is to fund more tools and methods development, including and especially by people who aren’t pureblooded ‘aging biologists’. Our field is very limited in what we’re able to measure within aging organisms, as well as measuring the relationships between different areas of aging biology. Determining causal relationships between two mechanisms, e.g. DNA damage and senescence, requires an extensive study when we can’t simultaneously measure both with high time resolution. And tool-building is not a common focus within geroscience. So I think there’d be great benefit to steering talented researchers who are focused on that towards applications in geroscience. If done early in their careers, this could also serve to pull people into a long-term focus on geroscience, which would be a terrific return on investment. The main challenges to this approach are to make sure the people are sincerely interested in aging biology (or at least properly incentivized to solve important problems there), and that they’re solving real problems for the field. The latter might be accomplished by pairing them up with geroscience labs.
TK: If you were going to try to find other people who could play a similar role for another scientific field, what would you look for?
MBJ: I think the hardest part of making Impetus go well was finding the right reviewers. You want people who are knowledgeable, but open to embracing new ideas. Optimistic, but also critical. And not biased towards their own, or their friends’, research topics. So first, look for a ringleader who possesses these traits, and who has spent a long time in the field so that they know the tendencies and reputations of other researchers. In my case, I spent a long time in academia but have now jumped to startups, so I no longer have a dog in the fight. I think this might well be a benefit for avoiding bias.
TK: What have you learned from the process that you think is important for both philanthropists considering this model and scientists that might want to lead an initiative in their field?
MBJ: One thing is that there’s room to improve the basic user interface of how reviews are done. We designed a UI based on what I would have wanted while reviewing papers and grants. Multiple reviewers wrote to us unprompted that this was the smoothest experience they’d had. And we only spent a few weeks building this. So I’d say, it’s working putting a bit of effort into making things work smoothly at each step.
As noted above, getting the right reviewers is key. Our process ran smoothly in large part because the reviewers were all aligned on wanting projects that move the needle, and not biased towards specific topics.
But the most important thing we learned, or validated, is that this rapid model works just fine. We’ll see how things work out, but I think that it is highly likely that Impetus will support more breakthroughs than the same amount of money distributed through a traditional mechanism, although there may be more failures. I think that’s a tradeoff that philanthropists should be willing to embrace.
TK: What other novel approaches to funding and organizing research should we be considering?
MBJ: Hmmm, that’s a tough one. So many interesting experiments are happening already.
One idea we’ve been throwing around in the Longevity Apprenticeship is ‘Impetus for clinical trials’. Fast Grants funded several trials of off-patent drugs, and at least one (fluvoxamine) now looks very promising. Impetus funded some trials as well, but within geroscience in particular, there are several compounds with enough evidence that human trials are warranted, but which are off-patent and thus unlikely to be pursued by biopharma.
One challenge for ‘alternative funding sources’ is that most work is still funded by the NIH. So there has to be a possibility of continuity of research funded by the two mechanisms. Given the amount of funding we had for Impetus (4-7% of the NIA’s budget for basic aging biology), what we had in mind was funding bold ideas to the point where sufficient proof of concept data could be collected so that the NIH would be willing to provide additional funding. Whatever you do, keeping in mind how the projects will garner continued support is important.
Biden, You Should Be Aware That Your Submarine Deal Has Costs
For more than a decade, Washington has struggled to prioritize what it calls great power competition with China — a contest for military and political dominance. President Biden has been working hard to make the pivot to Asia that his two predecessors never quite managed.
The landmark defense pact with Australia and Britain, AUKUS, that Mr. Biden announced this month is a major step to making that pivot a reality. Under the agreement, Australia will explore hosting U.S. bombers on its territory, gain access to advanced missiles and receive nuclear propulsion technology to power a new fleet of submarines.
Why and How Faculty Should Participate in U.S. Policy Making
If the U.S. Congress is to produce sound policies that benefit the public good, science and technology faculty members must become active participants in the American policy-making process. One key element of that process is congressional hearings: public forums where members of Congress question witnesses, learn about pressing issues, develop policy initiatives and conduct oversight of both the executive branch and corporate practices.
Faculty in science and technology should contribute to congressional hearings because: 1) legislators should use data and scientifically derived knowledge to guide policy development, 2) deep expertise is needed to support effective oversight of complex issues like the spread of misinformation on internet platforms or pandemic response, and 3) members of Congress are decision makers on major issues that impact the science and technology community, such as research funding priorities or the role of foreign nationals in the research enterprise. A compelling moment during a hearing can have a profound impact on public policy, and faculty members can help make those moments happen.
Nuclear Information Project: In The News
This chronology lists selected news stories and publications by others that have made use of information and analysis from the Nuclear Information Project (numerous other examples of use of our work are not included because they were not easily available via links). To the extent possible, the documents are located on the FAS web site, but external links might go dead over time. If you need assistance to locate missing items, please contact individual project staff via the “about” page. Also check out the Twitter accounts of Hans Kristensen (@nukestrat), Matt Korda (@mattkorda), and Eliana Johns (@elianajjohns).
2023
- Apr 26: Associated Press, “Biden, Yoon warn N. Korea on nukes, unveil deterrence plan.”
- Apr 24: The Cipher Brief, “America Beefs Up Potential Response as Threat of Russian Nukes Loom.”
- Apr 19: New York Times, “3 Nuclear Superpowers, Rather Than 2, Usher In a New Strategic Era.”
- Apr 13: Washington Post, “The most shocking intel leak reveals new Chinese military advances.”
- Apr 13, ShareAmerica (US Department of State), “How NATO allies advance arms control and nonproliferation.”
- Apr 3: Newsweek, “The Risk of Nuclear War Fatigue.”
- Apr 3: Reuters, “Analysis: China’s intensifying nuclear-armed submarine patrols add complexity for U.S., allies.”
- Apr 3: Omaha World-Herald (kpvi.com), “StratCom chief Cotton warns of Russia, China nuke threat — but calmly.”
- Apr 3: The Guardian, “‘Damaged nuclear bomb’ at Dutch base was dummy weapon, Pentagon says.”
- Apr 3: Common Dreams, “Is This or Isn’t This a Photo of a Broken US Nuclear Weapon?”
- Apr 3: Tribune Express, “‘US nuclear bomb may have been damaged in accident’.”
- Apr 3: The Guardian, “US nuclear bomb may have been damaged in accident at Dutch base, report says.”
- Mar 30: Japan Times, “World’s usable nuclear arsenal rose in 2022, study says.”
- Mar 28: Time, “U.S. Skeptical of Putin’s Pledge to Put Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Belarus.”
- Mar 28: Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Stops Sharing Data on Nuclear Forces With Russia.”
- Mar 28: Japan Times, “North Korea unveils smaller nuclear warheads that may fit on variety of missiles.”
- Mar 26: Reuters, “Putin says Moscow to place nuclear weapons in Belarus, US reacts cautiously.”
- Mar 25: Reuters, “Putin says Moscow to place nuclear weapons in Belarus, US reacts cautiously.”
- Feb 21: ABC News, “End of an era? What Putin’s ‘suspension’ of the New START nuclear treaty means.”
- Feb 21: Moscow Times, “Explainer: What Is New START and What Does Russia’s Suspension Mean?”
- Feb 21: Associated Press, “New START: last US-Russia arms control treaty in jeopardy.”
- Feb 21: Business Insider, “Putin put the last major nuclear arms treaty with the US on ‘life support,’ risking pulling the world back to a ‘dangerous’ time of uncontrolled arsenals, nuke experts say.”
- Feb 21: Slate, “Putin’s Newest Provocation.”
- Feb 21: CNN, “Putin pulls back from last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the US.”
- Feb 15: Montana Public Radio, “Why are there so many nuclear missiles in Montana?”
- Feb 7: Wall Street Journal, “China Has More ICBM Launchers Than U.S., American Military Reports.”
- Feb 7: ABC News, “Map: Here’s how close the Chinese spy balloon flew to the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”
- Feb 2: Newsweek, “Putin Issues Ominous Threats as Tension With West Mounts.”
- Jan 29: Indian Express, “India’s nuclear-policy shifts from Pakistan to Chinas.”
- Jan 28: Times of India, “India modernising nuke arsenal with eye on China, says American report.”
- Jan 20: Russia Matters, “Russia in Review, Jan. 13-20, 2023.”
- Jan 5: Vox, “The treaties that make the world safer are struggling.”
- Jan: Arms Control Today, “Pentagon: Chinese Nuclear Arsenal Exceeds 400 Warheads.”
2022
- Dec 26: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “The 2022 nuclear year in review: A global nuclear order in shambles.”
- Nov 17: New York Times, “The Surprising Afterlife of Unwanted Atom Bombs.”
- Nov 2: Washington Post, “Russian military leaders’ talk of nuclear attack rattles U.S. calculus.”
- Nov 1: Tom Nicholas, “The Nuclear Question America Never Answers,” The Atlantic, November 1, 2022.
- Oct 26: Politico, “U.S. speeds up plans to store upgraded nukes in Europe.”
- Oct 25: Voice of American News, “Experts: North Korea’s Expected Nuclear Missile Test Likely to Involve Miniature Warheads.”
- Oct 17: NPR, “Russia’s nuclear arsenal is huge, but will Putin use it?”
- Oct 13: Business Insider, “Putin’s nuclear threats are stirring fears of a nightmare scenario. Here’s what’s in his arsenal and what could happen if he orders the unthinkable.”
- Oct 10: CNN, “North Korea says missile tests are practice for ‘tactical nuclear strikes’ on South Korea.”
- Oct 6: Washington Post, “Here are the nuclear weapons Russia has in its arsenal.”
- Oct 5: The Guardian, “Poland suggests hosting US nuclear weapons amid growing fears of Putin’s threats.”
- Oct 5: New York Times, “If Russia Uses a Nuclear Weapon, How Should The World Respond?”
- Oct 4: Washington Post, “Putin threatens nuclear war. The West must deter disaster.”
- Sep 22: The Washington Post, “Why Russia’s Nuclear Threats Are Difficult to Dismiss: QuickTake.”
- Sep 22: Al Jazeera, “Infographic: How many nuclear weapons does Russia have?”
- Sep 15: Exchange Monitor, “Mass production of refurbished nuclear weapons could begin soon, NNSA says.”
- Sep 10: Washington Examiner, “North Korea shreds America’s nuclear delusions.”
- Sep 4: Modern Diplomacy, “Lightning-Speed Deal. Germany to Purchase F-35 for Nuclear Sharing.”
- Aug 29: Aljazeera, “Infographic: The impact of nuclear tests around the world.”
- Aug 25: Task & Purpose, “The US military is still missing 6 nuclear weapons that were lost decades ago.”
- Jul 6, Reuters, “Russia’s Medvedev warns United States: messing with a nuclear power is folly.”
- Jun 22, CNN, “Why Kaliningrad, Russia’s toehold in Europe, could be the next flashpoint in its war against Ukraine.”
- Jun 19, CBC, “Might Vladimir Putin use a nuclear weapon? The calculations are changing.”
- Jun 15, Le Monde, “La Corée du Nord poursuit le renforcement de son arsenal balistique et nucléaire.”
- Jun 14, Washington Post, “Global nuclear arsenal expected to grow for first time since Cold War.”
- Jun 14: NK News, “North Korea has assembled 20 nuclear warheads, think tank estimates.”
- Jun 13: CNN, “World’s nuclear arsenals on the rise as concerns grow over China and North Korea.”
- Jun 13: Newsweek, “Risk of Nuclear Conflict at Highest Point Since Height of Cold War.”
- Jun 13: Al Jazeera, “Global stockpile of nuclear weapons expected to rise: SIPRI.”
- Jun 13: Deutsche Welle, “Nuclear weapons: Disarmament is a thing of the past.”
- Jun 13: France24, “World headed for new era of nuclear rearmament.”
- Jun 13: The Hill, “Nuclear arsenals expected to grow for first time since Cold War: think tank.”
- Jun 13: Der Spiegel, “Nuklearmächte modernisieren ihre Arsenale.”
- Jun 13: The Guardian, “Global nuclear arsenal expected to grow for first time in decades.”
- Jun 13: Associated Press, “‘Worrying trend’: Post-Cold War drop in nukes could be over.”
- Jun 12: Reuters, “Global nuclear arsenal to grow for first time since Cold War, think-tank says.”
- Jun 11: FP, “Learning to Think Nuclearly Again.”
- Apr 26: The Independent, “Ministry of Defence refuses to say whether US nukes are returning to British soil.”
- Apr 25: Omaha World-Herald, “Do we need ‘baby nukes’ launched from subs? StratCom chief says yes.”
- Apr 21: Background Briefing, interview with Ian Masters, “Putin’s Nuclear Saber-Rattling With the Launch of His Satan 2 ICBM.”
- Apr 21: CNN, “Putin rattles his ‘Satan II’ nuclear saber to hide Russian failures in Ukraine war: analysts.”
- Apr 18: Newsweek, “Putin’s Iskander Missiles Are Battle-Tested—and Can Carry Nuclear Warheads.”
- Apr 16: Business Insider, “US plan to upgrade its nuclear weapons facilities in the UK ‘quietly’ slipped into DoD military documents, says defense expert.”
- Apr 14: Business Insider, “Russia tries to scare Finland and Sweden away from NATO by threatening to deploy nukes in the Baltics, which it’s already done.”
- Apr 14: The Guardian, “Russia warns of nuclear weapons in Baltic if Sweden and Finland join Nato.”
- Apr 14, The Aviationist, “RAF Lakenheath Might Soon Host US Nuclear Weapons Again.”
- Apr 13, The Drive, “Nuclear Bombs May Be Headed Back To The United Kingdom.”
- Apr 11: Business Standard, “World’s stockpile of usable nuclear weapons is increasing, warns watchdog”
- Apr 7, Lyle Goldstein, Nikkei Asia, “U.S. should not lose focus on China’s nuclear buildup.”
- Apr 6, Zuri, “How the US monitors a nuclear attack.”
- Apr 5: New York Times, “How America Watches for a Nuclear Strike.”
- Mar 30: Seattle Times (KUOW), “‘This moment is kind of a glow up for nuclear weapons’ and Washington is playing a major role.”
- Mar 27: Business Insider, “US Air Force B-52 bombers in Europe are staying active, but less ‘in your face,’ as Russia wages war on Ukraine.”
- Mar 25: Washington Post, “Meet the nuke the U.S. keeps in Europe, waiting to not be used.”
- Mar 22: New York Times, “The Smaller Bombs That Could Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear War Zone.”
- Mar 22: Scientific American, “How Many Nuclear Weapons Exist, and Who Has Them?”
- Mar 22: Reuters, “Fact Check: Russia’s ‘Satan 2’ long-range missile has been in development for years”
- Mar 20: La Presse, “Oui, on peut agir contre le nucléaire”
- Mar 17: Live Science, “How many nuclear weapons exist?”
- Mar 16: BBC, “Ukraine war: Could Russia use tactical nuclear weapons?”
- Mar 11: SirusXM, interview with Michael Smerconish on US and Russian nuclear weapons and threats. His Twitter announcement here.
- Mar 11: Berlingske, “Han har dem i tusindvis. Han har truet med dem. Tør Putin også bruge dem? [He has thousands of them. He has threatened with them. Does Putin also dare use them?].”
- Mar 9: Business Insider, “‘All bets are off’: Russia has a massive arsenal of battlefield nukes, and there’s heated debate about whether a desperate Putin might use it.”
- Mar 9: Weekendavisen (Denmark), “Dommedagsmaskinen [The doomsday machine].”
- Mar 8: NPR, “Putin has threatened nuclear action. Here’s what Russia is actually capable of.”
- Mar 7: Zetland (Denmark), “Gå ikke i panik. Men lad os lige tale om de atomvåben [Don’t panic. But’s let’s just talk about those nuclear weapons].”
- Mar 4: Le Monde, “Comprendre la menace de l’arme nucléaire en 10 questions.”
- Mar 4: El Tiempo, “La amenaza nuclear se cierne sobre el mundo.”
- Mar 1: NPR, “As Russia’s Ukraine war intensifies, some warn nuclear escalation is possible.”
- Mar 1: Information (Denmark), “Putins raslen med atomsablen ligner et politisk motiveret træk, siger atomforsker [Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling looks like a political move, says nuclear analyst].”
- Feb 28: Los Angeles Times, “Russia’s nuclear threat explained.”
- Feb 28: Bloomberg TV, “Putin’s Nuclear Threat Is ‘Normal’ Russian Sabre-Rattling: Kristensen”
- Feb 28: Deutsche Welle, “How serious are Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats?”
- Feb 28: Truthout, “‘Low-Yield’ Nuclear Weapons Could Pose Greater Threat of Nuclear War.”
- Feb 28: France24, “Russia’s nuclear force, the world’s biggest.”
- Feb 27: New York Times, “Putin Declares a Nuclear Alert, and Biden Seeks De-escalation.”
- Feb 27: Al Jazeera, “Key questions after Putin’s nuclear announcement.”
- Feb 27: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Ukraine Update: Putin raises nuclear alert status.”
- Feb 27: Vox, “How to think about the risk of nuclear war, according to 3 experts.”
- Feb 27: Vice News, “Is There a Threat of Nuclear War with Russia? Experts Weigh In.”
- Feb 25: The Intercept, “Russia’s Ukraine War Heightens Urgency Around Biden’s Nuclear Weapons Strategy.”
- Feb 24: The Guardian, “Decision to invade Ukraine raises questions over Putin’s ‘sense of reality’.”
- Feb 19: Salon, “This is what would happen to Earth if a nuclear war broke out between the West and Russia.”
- Feb 17: Associated Press, “Satellite Photos Give A Bird’s-Eye View Of Ukraine Crisis.”
- Feb 16: New York Times, “On the Edge of a Polish Forest, Where Some of Putin’s Darkest Fears Lurk”
- Feb 16: The Atlantic, “China Now Understands What a Nuclear Rivalry Looks Like”
- Feb 7: Quincy Institute, “Achieving a Safer U.S. Nuclear Posture”
- Feb 2: Newsweek, “Exclusive: Ukraine Crisis Could Lead to Nuclear War Under New Strategy.”
- Jan 21: Inkstick, “400 Minutemen to Midnight.”
- Jan 16: The Wire China, “Open Source.”
2021
- Dec 31: Truthout, “One Year in, Biden’s Nuclear Policies Look a Lot Like Trump’s.”
- Dec 9: NPR/KUOW, “The secret world of nukes in Washington state.”
- Nov 17: Los Angeles Times, “China’s nuclear and military buildup raises the risk of conflict in Asia.”
- Nov 3: CBS, “China’s nuclear force growing faster than expected.”
- Nov 2: CNN, “China appears to be building missile silos that could launch nuclear weapons.”
- Nov 2: CNN, “Satellite images appear to show China is making significant progress developing missile silos that could eventually launch nuclear weapons.”
- Oct 29: Washington Post, “Sensors add to accuracy and power of U.S. nuclear weapons but may create new security perils.”
- Oct 29: The Center for Public Integrity, “The US Nuclear Arsenal Is Becoming More Destructive and Possibly More Risky.”
- Oct 27: Air Force Times, “The F-35 is one step closer to carrying nuclear bombs. What’s next?”
- Oct 24: iNews: “Fear of ‘devastating’ nuclear war as world’s major powers enter a new arms race.”
- Oct 5: The Hill, “US discloses size of nuclear stockpile for first time since 2018.”
- Oct 5: Associated Press, “State Department discloses number of nukes in US stockpile.”
- Sep 7: Michael Krepon, “Time to shift from the Kabul-blues to the China arms control challenge,” armscontrolwonk.com.
- Aug 27: Nature, “US achieves laser-fusion record: what it means for nuclear-weapons research.”
- Aug 26: Foreign Policy, “How Finding China’s Nuclear Sites Upset Pro-Beijing Trolls.”
- Aug 20: Malcolm Davis, “China military watch,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
- Aug 12: Financial Times (editorial), “China’s worrying build-up of missile silos.”
- Aug 7, The Economist, “Open-source intelligence challenges state monopolies on information”
- Aug 7: Financial Times, “China flexes nuclear muscle to burnish its big power credentials”
- Aug 3: Washington Post, “Commercial satellites — not U.S. intelligence — revealed China’s missile program”
- Jul 31: The Economist, “China is rapidly building new nuclear-missile silos”
- Jul 30: Omaha World-Herald, “Should StratCom worry about China’s ‘Bouncy Castles of Death’?”
- Jul 30: Washington Post, “More missile silos have been found in China. That’s an ominous sign.”
- Jul 30: Associated Press, “U.S. warns China is building more nuclear missile silos”
- Jul 29: New York Times, “The Daily: Why Is China Expanding Its Nuclear Arsenal?”
- Jul 28: BBC, “China expanding its nuclear capabilities, scientists say”
- Jul 28: CNN, “China appears to be expanding its nuclear capabilities, US researchers say in new report”
- Jul 28: Al Jazeera, “China is building a 2nd base for nuclear missiles, say analysts”
- Jul 28: Hindustan Times, “China building second nuclear missile silo field, claims report; US concerned”
- Jul 27: Yahoo News, “Disturbing find uncovered in Chinese desert”
- Jul 27: The Telegraph, “New China weapons silo base is ‘most significant expansion ever’ of Xi’s nuclear arsenal”
- Jul 27: Insider, “Scientists discover a massive field of nuclear silos in China, signaling a significant nuclear expansion in the country”
- Jul 27: The Independent, “Huge desert plot in China to ‘hold up to 110 nuclear silos’”
- Jul 27: Newsweek, “China Spotted Building 110 Secret Nuclear Missile Silos in Desert”
- Jul 27: Wall Street Journal, “China Appears to Be Building New Silos for Nuclear Missiles, Researchers Say.”
- Jul 26: New York Times, “A 2nd New Nuclear Missile Base for China, and Many Questions About Strategy.”
- Jun 29: Business Insider, “Democrats take aim at the US’s new $264 billion ICBM amid search for cash to boost the military”
- May 28: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “The UK’s new nuclear posture: What it means for the global nuclear order.” Video discussion with Heather Williams and Julian Borger. Background: UK Nuclear Notebook 2021.
- May 28: Bellingcat, “US Soldiers Expose Nuclear Weapons Secrets Via Flashcard Apps.“
- Apr 30: The Drive, “Trucks Get Parked Over Air Force Nuclear Missile Silos During Tests… Just In Case.”
- Apr 6: Steven Pifer, “Nuclear arms control in the 2020s: Key issues for the US and Russia,” Valdai Discussion Club, April 6, 2021.
- Apr 4: The Guardian (Observer editorial), “The Observer view on Boris Johnson’s plans to increase nuclear weapons.”
- Apr 2: The National Interest, “Does America Need New ICBMs (Or Any at All)?”
- Mar 30: Press The Button Podcast, “The Inherent Danger of ICBMs”
- Mar 22: Der Spiegel, “Darum bauen die USA neue Atomwaffen”
- Mar 17: Democracy Now!, “U.K. Lifts Cap on Nuclear Arsenal as U.S. Considers Plan for $100 Billion “Cold War-Era” Missile”
- Mar 14: Omaha World-Herald, “Russia, China could pose nuclear threat if arsenal isn’t rebuilt, StratCom chief says”
- Mar 10: The Daily Beast, “Scientists Are Worried About U.S. Plan to Build an ‘Outdated’ $100B Nuclear Weapon: Report”
- Mar 10: Common Dreams, “New Report to Expose War Industry Lobby Behind $264 Billion US Nuclear Missile ‘Boondoggle’”
- Mar 10: The Guardian, “‘Cold war-era weapon’: $100bn US plan to to build new nuclear missile sparks concern”
- Mar 4: POGO, “Joe Biden’s Nuclear Triad.”
- Mar 1: Associated Press YouTube, “Expert uncovers new Chinese nuclear missile sites.”
- Mar 1: Associated Press, “China said to speed up move to more survivable nuclear force.” This report was also carried on Military Times and ABC News.
- Feb 18: Business Insider, “A NATO war game had the Soviet Union readying for nuclear war in a terrifying Cold War close call, new documents show.”
- Feb 12: The Guardian, “Mike Pence’s ‘nuclear football’ was potentially at risk during Capitol riot.”
- Feb 11: Forbes.com, “Target: Iceland! Russian Bombers Practice Striking Key NATO Base.”
- Feb 8: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Why is America getting a new $100 billion nuclear weapon?”
Feb 5: The Drive, “Majority Of Voters Don’t Want Billions Spent On New ICBMs To Overhaul America’s ‘Nuclear Sponge’” - Feb 5: Defense News, “Majority of voters support ICBM replacement alternatives, new poll finds.”
- Jan 23: Pindex (YouTube video), “A $1.2 Trillion Plan Could Kill 98%, w Stephen fry. It’s Hidden By Coronavirus.”
- Jan 21: The Drive, “The Air Force’s New Report On Ballistic And Cruise Missiles Misses Its Target.”
- Jan 21: Forbes, “Joe Biden Could Rescue The Last Nuclear Treaty—But Don’t Expect Him To Negotiate A New One.”
2020
- Dec 29: The Drive, “Imagine Following This On The Highway: A Truckload Of Nuclear Training Bombs.”
- Dec 16: SCMP, “Is China really ready to back nuclear arms-free Southeast Asia.”
- Dec 15: Business Insider, “Here’s what happens to the ‘nuclear football’ if Trump decides to skip Biden’s inauguration.”
- Dec 14: Defense News, “Report estimates Chinese nuclear stockpile at 350 warheads.”
- Dec 11: Shepard Media, “Interview: Federation of American Scientists [on B61-12 drop test from F-35A jet].”
- Dec 10: Forbes, “The Steward of America’s Nukes Is Sending Mixed Messages About B-1 Bombers – And That’s Dangerous.”
- Nov 27: The State, “Is job-right nuclear plant in jeopardy? Biden expected to re-examine SC factory.”
- Nov 23: Kitsap Sun, “Biden signals push to extend New START nuclear arms treaty.”
- Nov 17: Star Tribune (Associated Press), “Pentagon says it shot down unarmed missile in sea-based test.”
- Nov 2: Kitsap Sun, “Will U.S., Russia extend New START nuclear weapons treaty?”
- Oct 12: Washington Post, “Threat from nuclear weapons and missiles has grown since Trump entered office.”
- Oct 11: New York Times, “Trump’s Virus Treatment Revives Questions About Unchecked Nuclear Authority.”
- Oct 11: Defense One, “North Korea Unveils ‘Very Destabilizing’ ICBM.”
- Oct 9: Business Insider, “Trump says the US nuclear arsenal is now ‘tippy top’ thanks to him, but nuke experts say he’s out of touch with reality.”
- Oct 2: Pranay Vaddi and James Acton, A ReSTART for U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control: Enhancing Security Through Cooperation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 22, 2020.
- Sep 28: Politico, “Trump administration orders assessment on bolstering nuclear warheads as talks with Russia stall.”
- Sep 10: France 24 (AFP), “Did Trump disclose secret US nuclear weapon in interview?”
- Sept 2: Fox News, “World’s nuclear capabilities are decreasing in overall numbers but growing deadlier.”
- Sept 2: Air Force Magazine, “Soofer: No New ‘Tactical’ Nukes for USAF.”
- Sept 1: CNN (AP), “Pentagon says China planning big increase in nuclear arsenal.”
- Sept 1: Reuters, “Pentagon concerned by China’s nuclear ambitions, expects warheads to double.”
- Sept 1: Wall Street Journal, “Pentagon Says China Could Double Nuclear Weapons in Decade.”
- Aug 19: Toby Dalton and Tong Zhao, “At a Crossroads? China-India Nuclear Relations After the Border Clash,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 19, 2020.
- Aug 6: CBC News, “75 years after Hiroshima bombing, it’s falling to descendants to keep survivors’ stories alive.”
- Aug 6: Axios. “How the world’s nuclear stockpiles have shifted since Hiroshima.”
- Aug 6: Cambridge News, Little warning for Londoners if city came under nuclear attack.”
- Aug 6: The Drive, “This Was The Largest Conventional Explosion The United States Ever Set Off.”
- Aug 5: Washington Post, “In the 75 years since Hiroshima, nuclear testing killed untold thousands.”
- Aug 5: EurAsian Times, “China Readying Its Early Warning Radars To Check Deep-Strikes By Agni Missiles, Rafale Jets – Reports.”
- Aug 5: Business Insider, “The deadly explosion that devastated Beirut appears to have been far more powerful than the ‘Mother of All Bombs’.”
- Aug 4: Task and Purpose, “No, that mushroom cloud in Beirut doesn’t indicate a nuclear bomb went off.”
- Jul 29: Roll Call, “Trump team’s case for new nuke cites risks in current arsenal.”
- Jul 22: WION, “India’s nuclear strategy focus shifts from Pakistan to China: Report.”
- Jul: Carol Giacomo, “Getting Back On Track To Zero Nuclear Weapons,” Arms Control Today, July/August 2020.
- Jun 22: Las Vegas Sun (Editorial), “President’s nuclear fantasy threatens Nevadans’ health, national security.”
- May 31: Business Insider, “India has lots of nuclear weapons: Here is what we know.”
- May 23: The Guardian, “US security officials ‘considered return to nuclear testing’ after 28-year hiatus.”
- May 4: Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, Congressional Research Service, May 4, 2020.
- Apr 23: Politico, “How the nuclear force dodged the coronavirus.”
- Apr 14: John Krzyzaniak, “How nuclear forces worldwide are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April14, 2020.
- Apr 10: Raw Story (AFP), “Hit by virus, Pentagon warns enemies: don’t test us.”
- Apr: James Acton, “Is It A Nuke? Pre-Launch Ambiguity And Inadvertent Launch,” CEIP, April 2020.
- Mar 26: Deutsche Welle, “US set to upgrade controversial nukes stationed in Germany.”
- Mar 23: Newsweek, “The U.S. Military’s Behind-The-Scenes Moves To Protect Nuclear Readiness Amid Coronavirus.”
- Mar 17: National Defense Magazine, “Political Battle Brewing Over New Nuclear Program.”
- Feb 27: Defense One, “A New Nuclear Warhead? STRATCOM Chief Can’t Answer Yes Or No.”
- Feb 22: The Guardian, “Pentagon reveals deal with Britain to replace Trident.”
- Feb 12: Daily Beast, “Why Does Trump Want To Spend Billions On New Nukes.”
- Feb 12: Slate, “Trump’s Gargantuan Military Budget Is Full Of It.”
- Feb 7: Naval News, “W76-2 low yield warhead deployed on US Navy SSBN submarines.”
- Feb 6: National Interest, “Donald Trump is about to make one big giant ‘nuclear’ mistake.”
- Feb 5: The Hill, “Air Force test-launches intercontinental ballistic missile.”
- Feb 4: USNI News, “Pentagon confirms low-yield nuclear warhead on ballistic missile sub.”
- Feb 4: New York Times (AP), “U.S. adds ‘low-yield’ nuclear warhead to its submarine arsenal.”
- Feb 4: Defense News, “Trump’s new nuclear weapon has been deployed.”
- Jan 30: Politico, “It’s a MAD, MAD world.”
- Jan 30: Naval Technology, “US Navy deploys low-yield Trident W76-2 nuclear submarine warhead.”
- Jan 30: Air Force Magazine Daily Report, “US Deploys New Low-Yield Nuclear Submarine Warhead.”
- Jan 29: NPR, “U.S. has deployed new, small nukes on submarines, according to group.”
- Jan 29: The Drive, “Navy missile sub has begun its patrol armed with controversial low yield nukes.”
- Jan 29: The Guardian, “Deployment of new US nuclear warhead on submarine s dangerous step, critics say.”
- Jan/Feb: Tong Zhao, “Opportunities for nuclear arms control engagement with China,” Arms Control Today, January/February 2020.
- Jan 13: The Drive, “The Air Force’s B-52H Bomber Force Has Said Goodbye To Its Nuclear Bombs.”
- Jan 13: Newsweek, “With A New Weapons In Donald Trump’s Hands, The Iran Crisis Risks Going Nuclear.”
- Jan 7: Kitsap Sun, “Bangor subs to get new kind of nuclear weapon.”
- Jan 6: CNN, “Iran drives another stake into the heart of the nuclear deal.”
2019
- Dec 20: Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Invites China for Talks on Nuclear Arms.”
- Dec 17: Reuters, “U.S. Congress pressures Trump to renew Russia arms control pact.”
- Dec 16: Gerald Brown, “Conflict and Competition: Limited Nuclear Warfare and the New Face of Deterrence,” Global Security Review, December 16, 2019.
- Dec 15: Radio Free Europe, “Can Russia And The U.S. Agree To Keep A Lid On Their Nuclear Arsenals?”
- Nov 22: KOMO News, “‘Horrific catastrophe’: What would happen to Seattle in a nuclear attack?”
- Oct 22: CNS News, “Senate Bill Seeks Alternatives to US Base in Turkey, Where Nuclear Bombs Are Housed.”
- Oct 19: Associated Press, “Some worries about nuclear weapons at Turkey base.”
- Oct 18: Newsweek, “U.S., Russia and Europe hold back-to-back nuclear war games across the globe.”
- Oct 16: CNN, “Trump appears to confirm open secret about US nuclear weapons in Turkey.”
- Oct 8: Business Insider Australia, “US officials are considering pulling nuclear weapons from Turkey, effectively severing the US-Turkey alliance.”
- Oct 5: Science Daily, “Global Climate Catastrophe If Nuclear War Between India and Pakistan.”
- Sep 13: Business Insider, “Trump keeps threatening US enemies with destructive power great than nuclear weapons – experts say that’s ‘crazy talk’.”
- Aug 12: National Interest, “Russia has a nuclear-powered cruise missile. Yes, you read that right.”
- Aug 11: The Express (UK), “Russia radiation spike ‘caused by test of Putin’s new missile dubbed Flying Chernobyl’.”
- Aug 6: The Canary, “Former US colonel blasts end of nuclear treaty as ‘extremely dangerous’.”
- Aug 5: ARD (Das Erste), “Die Story: Das Atomwaffen-Kartell: Ende der Abrüstung? [The Story: The Nuclear Weapons Cartel: The End of Disarmament?].”
- Jul 21: ABC ‘s Future Tense, “Western Spies Face a Difficult Future: A Conversation with Matt Korda.”
- Jul 15: KPFA Flashpoints, “Matt Korda on US Nuclear Policy.”
- Jul 10: Popular Science, “North Korea’s missile program and nuclear weapons: What we know (and don’t).”
- Jul 10: The National Interest, “Super Weapon? The Air Force Wants a (New) Nuclear Armed Cruise Missile.”
Jul 8: KTOO News (Alaska), “40 years after closure, volunteers restore historic Cold War site.” - Jul 2: CSIS ChinaPower, “China’s Nuclear Strategy and Capabilities: A Conversation with Hans Kristensen.”
- Jun 17: Euro News, “World’s nuclear arsenal down but risk of nuclear conflict up: SIPRI.”
- Jun 17: Defense News, “Here’s how many nuclear warheads exist, and which countries own them.”
- Jun 14: TASS, “No unanimity among US intelligence community over claims of nuclear test in Russia —expert.”
- Jun 12: The National Interest, “Could a Low-Yield, Submarine-Launch Nuclear Missile Stop a Russian First Strike?”
- Jun 11: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Decision to keep nuclear weapons data classified hurts US national security.”
- Jun 6: Slate, “How Trump Could Restart the Nuclear Arms Race,”
- Jun 3: Honolulu Civil Beat, “Kauai Plays A Growing Role Testing Technology For Tomorrow’s Nuclear Weapons.”
- Jun: Arms Control Today, “U.S. Reverses Nuclear Stockpile Transparency.”
- May 20: Daily Beast, “Pass the Codes: Inside the Secret Dinners Where Congress Figures Out How to Stop a Nuclear Apocalypse.”
- May 20: Center for Public Integrity, “Survey: Most Americans Want to Curb the President’s Power to Launch Nuclear Attacks.”
- May 10: The Aviationist, “Tracking The U.S. B-52 Bombers Deploying To Qatar In Response To Iranian Threat In The Persian Gulf.”
- May 10: Defense One, The D Brief, “Shanahan, tapped; ICBMs, test-fired; Network breaches, way up; school lockdowns, soaring; And a bit more.”
- May 9: Foreign Policy, “The U.S. Can’t Escape the Middle East.”
- May 7: PRI, “Nukes? What nukes? US military’s ‘neither confirm nor deny’ policy complicates activists’ trial.”
- May 4: The Telegraph, “US reversal of nuclear transparency policy puts UK in ‘awkward position’ say experts.”
- May 2: Reuters, “Special Report: China’s furtive underwater nukes test the Pentagon.”
- May: Vince Manzo, Center for Naval Analysis, “Nuclear Arms Control without a Treaty? Risks and Options After NEW START.”
- Apr 29: Lawrence Korb,”What the FY 2020 Defense Budget Gets Wrong.”
- Apr 25: National Interest, “U.S. Air Force B-52 Bombers Practiced a Nuclear Strike on Russia Last Month.”
- Apr 17: Milbank Monitor, “Small enough to use? ‘Low yield’ US nukes begin rolling off the production line.”
- Apr 15: Russia Matters, “Russia Analytical Report, April 8-15, 2019.”
- Apr 10: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Why did Defense end its contract with the legendary Jason group?”
- Apr 4: Exchange Monitor, “B83 Bomb Can Go 5-7 More Years Without Major Refurb, NNSA Says.”
- Mar 21: The Nation, “Making Nuclear Weapons Menacing Again.”
- Mar 21: Popular Mechanics, “U.S. Bombers Are Flying Over Europe, Baiting the Russian Bean.”
- Feb 26: Defense One, “Top Nuke General: Russia Is Exploiting Gaps In Key Arms-Control Treaty.”
- Feb 2: CBC, “‘Into the Wild West:’ Demise of Cold War-era nuclear arms treaty undermines global security.”
- Feb 1: NPR, “The U.S. And Russia Are Stocking Up On Missiles And Nukes For A Different Kind Of War.”
- Feb: Russia Matters, “Military and Security: New START.”
- Jan 31: Bloomberg, “With Putin and Trump in Charge, the Risk of Nuclear War Returns.”
- Jan 28: The National Interest, “China’s Missiles are a Dumb Reason for America to Quit the INF Treaty.”
- Jan 28: NPR, “Trump Administration Begins Production Of A New Nuclear Weapon.”
- Jan 28: The Guardian, “US nuclear weapons: first low-yield warheads roll off the production line.”
- Jan 25: Business Insider, “We ranked the world’s nuclear arsenals — here’s why China’s came out on top.”
- Jan 25: Warrior Maven, “Navy Stealthy Columbia Subs Launch First Patrol in 2031-With New Missile Variant.”
- Jan 24: Omaha World Herald, “Russia, China have hypersonic missile tech that U.S. can’t defend against, StratCom chief warns.”
- Jan 14: Business Insider, “Russian media threatens Europe with 200-megaton nuclear ‘doomsday’ device.”
- Jan: Atomic Reporters, “2019 Hawaii Journalism Workshop: Resource Library.”
2018
- Dec 13, The National Interest, “India has 140 Nuclear Warheads – And More Are Coming.”
- Dec 11: Quartz, “Every significant military facility in Israel and Turkey was just exposed by a Russian mapping service.”
- Dec 10: Popular Mechanics, “Oops! Mapping Service Blurs Out Military Bases, But Accidentally Locates Secret Ones.”
- Dec 7: Wall Street Journal, “Looming Demise of a nuclear treaty threatens to upend others [headline later changed to: As One Arms Treaty Falls Apart, Others Look Shakier].”
- Dec 5: Think Big, “Russia threatens ‘retaliation’ after U.S. declares plan to withdraw from arms treaty.”
- Dec 5: CNBC, “America and Russia, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers, are threatening to make more weapons. Here’s how many nukes each nation has.”
- Dec 2: Oak Ridge Today, “NNSA modernizing weapons as U.S. nuclear stockpile shrinks.”
- Nov 21: Daily Beast, “Trump, Who Loves Nukes and Hates Treaties, Is Putting Us on the Road to the Apocalypse.”
- Nov 20: Business Insider, “These are the 9 nuclear-armed countries and the 31 allies they’ve vowed to defend with the world’s most devastating weapons.”
- Nov 9: Insider, “Finland and Norway are telling airline pilots to be ready to fly without GPS and some think Russia is up to something.”
- Nov 1: The Diplomat, “India Conducts Nighttime User Trial of Agni-I Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile.”
- Oct 23: Time, “Has Trump Met the Burden of Proof for Ripping Up an Arms Deal With Russia?”
- Oct 22: KIRO-7 News, “Trump’s threat to withdraw from nuclear missile treaty alarms activists.”
- Oct 21: NPR, “President Trump Says U.S. Will Leave Arms Control Treaty With Russia.”
- Oct 19: New York Times, “U.S. to Tell Russia It Is Leaving Landmark I.N.F. Treaty.”
- Oct 19: VOX, “This is exactly how a nuclear war would kill you.”
- Oct 18: Task and Purpose, “Satellite Photos Reveal A Strategic Russian Military Upgrade On NATO’s Doorstep.”
- Oct 17: CNN, “New satellite images suggest military buildup in Russia’s strategic Baltic enclave.”
- Oct 12: CNBC, “Russia hits a snag in developing a hypersonic weapon – after Putin said it was already in production.”
- Oct 5: TASS, “INF treaty compliance issues should be solved at presidential level — US expert.”
- Oct 3: Kelsey Davenport and Alicia Sanders-Zakre, “Inaugural Issue: The North Korea Denuclearization Digest,” Arms Control Association, October 3, 2018. This piece was also republished by IndepthNews.net.
- Oct 2: The Guardian, “US Nato envoy’s threat to Russia: stop developing missile or we’ll ‘take it out’.”
- Sep: Tytti Erästö and Dr Tarja Cronberg, “Opposing trends: The renewed salience of nuclear weapons and nuclear abolitionism,” SIPRI, September 2018.
- Sep 14: Business Insider, “Russia reportedly warned Mattis it could use nuclear weapons in Europe, and it made him see Moscow as an ‘existential threat’ to the US.”
- Sep 6: The Free Beacon, “U.S. Lacks Nuclear Weapon for Hardened Underground Targets.” The claim in the article’s headline is incorrect.
- Sep 5: The Economic Times (India), “Pakistan could emerge as world’s 5th largest nuclear weapons state: Report.”
- Aug 23: Warrior Maven, “New Air Force B-2 “Earth Penetrating” Nuclear Weapon Changes Combat Strategy.” This article as also published in the National Interest.
- Aug 21, The Verge, “How do you find a nuclear-powered missile that’s lost at sea?”
- Aug 21: CNBC, “Russia is preparing to search for a nuclear-powered missile that was lost at sea months ago after a failed test.”
- Aug 10: Adam Ni and Bates Gill, “China’s New Missile Force: New Ambitions, New Challenges (Part 1).” China Brief, Jamestown Foundation, August 10, 2018.
- Aug 6: mysanantonio.com (Business Insider), “About 14,525 nuclear weapons exist today in the arsenals of these 9 nations.”
- Aug 3: Task and Purpose, “No, A Huge Meteor Did Not Threaten A US Base With Destruction.”
- Aug 3: The Aviationist, “Report: Meteor Made 2.1 Kiloton Explosion Over Air Force Space Command Base Thule, Greenland.” This article was reprinted in the Business Insider.
- Aug 3: Metro (London), “An asteroid exploded near a US early warning radar base and we’re lucky it didn’t spark nuclear Armageddon.”
- Jul 31: Times of India (Shanakya Code blog), “Growing Chinese Nuclear Arsenal: Is China changing its doctrine?”
- Jul 27: The National Interest, “FACT CHECK: Do Russia and the U.S. Really Control 90 Percent Of The World’s Nukes?”
- Jul 24: CNBC, “There are 14,500 nuclear weapons in the world: Here are the countries that have them.”
- Jul 23: checkyourfact.org, “FACT CHECK: DO RUSSIA AND THE US CONTROL 90 PERCENT OF THE WORLD’S NUKES?” Republished in The National Interest.
- Jul 23: Business Insider, “Russia just showed off a potentially world-ending nuclear ‘doomsday’ torpedo that the US can’t stop.”
- Jul 19: Newsweek, “RUSSIA TESTS NEW ‘INVINCIBLE’ MISSILES AS PUTIN WARNS NUCLEAR TREATY WITH U.S. WILL EXPIRE.”
- Jun 19: Defense News, “Which nations increased the size of their nuclear arsenal in 2017?”
- Jun 19: 9NEWS (Australia), “Is Russia upgrading nuclear bunker?”
- Jun 18: Moscow Times, “Report: World Cup City Renovates Nuclear Weapons Bunker.”
- Jun 18: Daily Mail, “Putin upgrades nuclear weapon bunkers: Satellite images show work at storage sites as Russia escalates its stand-off with NATO.”
- Jun 18: Radio Free Europe, ” Report: Russia Rebuilding Key Weapons Storage Bunker In Kaliningrad.”
- Jun 18: South China Morning Post, “China adds to nuclear arsenal amid military modernisation drive.”
- Jun 18: Independent, “Satellite images appear to show Russia upgrading nuclear weapons bunker at Kaliningrad.”
- Jun 18: Stars and Stripes, “Russian bunkers near Poland could be storing nuclear weapons, report says.”
- Jun 18: CNN, “Russia may have upgraded nuclear bunker in Kaliningrad, report says.”
- Jun 18: The Guardian, “Kaliningrad photos appear to show Russia upgrading nuclear weapons bunker.”
- Jun 13: ABC News (Australia), “Chart of the day: Eight countries have more nuclear weapons than North Korea.”
- Jun 12: Newsweek, “WHICH COUNTRIES HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS?”
- Jun 8: Wall Street Journal, “Step One in Disarming North Korea: Knowing What’s in Kim’s Arsenal.”
- Jun 7: Williston Observer, “Will nukes accompany F-35s to Vermont?”
- Jun 4: Warrior Maven, “Pentagon Completes Draft Plans for New Low-Yield Sea-Launched Nuclear Weapon.” This article was also reprinted by Fox News.
- Jun 1: Zia Mian and M.V. Ramana, “On the 20th anniversary of the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1, 2018.
- May 26: WND, “‘Mysterious’ Cutback By Nuclear Sub Patrols.”
- May 23: Warrior Maven, “Air Force F-35 Integrates Precision-Guided B61 Mod 12 Nuclear Weapon.” This article was also reprinted by Fox News.
- May 23: Business Insider, “Russia displays massive nuclear force with a sub launching 4 missiles with the power of 160 Hiroshimas.”
- May 12: Radio Canada, “Fin de l’accord sur le nucléaire entre les États-Unis et l’Iran : et maintenant? [End of the nuclear agreement between the United States and Iran: what now?]”
- May 9: BBC, “What are nuclear weapons?”
- May 7: Asia Times, “What China wants from North Korea.”
- May: Abhijnan Raj, “Pakistan’s Sea-Base Nuclear Deterrent and its Asymmetric Escalation Strategy,” Observer Research Foundation, Issue Brief No. 240, May 2018.
- Apr 26: Rick Wayman, “U.S. Charm Offensive Takes Center Stage in Geneva,” IDN-InDepthNews, April 26, 2018.
- Apr 21: Hays Daily News, “North Korea to suspend nuclear and missile tests.”
- Apr 18: Jack Thompson, “Superpower Constrained,” Strategic Trends 2018, Center for Security Studies, April 18, 2018.
- Apr 17: Eugene Rumer, “A Farewell to Arms…Control,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 17, 2018.
- Apr 6: American Military News, “China launches carrier in response to US Navy’s strike group in South China Sea.”
- Apr 2: Steve Fetter, et al., “Nuclear weapons dangers and policy options,” Physics Today, Vol. 71, No. 4, April 2, 2018.
- Mar 30: NPR, “Passport Services Will Be Missed When Russian Consulate In Seattle Closes.”
- Mar 27: Business Insider, “Beijing just flexed its navy in the South China Sea, but in a ridiculous way that the US could quickly smoke.”
- Mar 27: Defense News, “US nuclear stockpile decreasing in size, but not capability.”
- Mar 26: KUOW (Seattle), “If this Seattle building is a nest of Russian spies, why didn’t the U.S. close it sooner?”
- Mar 6: Amy Woolf, “U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues,” Congressional Research Service, March 6, 2018.
- Mar 2: Motherboard, “Vladimir Putin’s Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile Is ‘Batshit Crazy’.”
- Mar 2: Boston Herald, “Vladimir Putin boasts of new nuclear weapons.”
- Mar 2: New York Times, “Putin Flaunted Five Powerful Nuclear Weapons. Are They a Threat?”
- Mar 1: MSN News Observer, “The Kremlin Is Crowdsourcing Names for Putin’s New Nuclear Warheads.”
- Mar 1: Wall Street Journal, “Putin Unveils Nuclear Weapons He Claims Could Breach US Defenses.”
- Feb 26: John Mecklin, “Daniel Ellsberg on dismantling the doomsday machine,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 26, 2018.
- Feb 21: Voice of America, Plugged in with Greta Van Susteren on Nuclear Posture Review.
- Feb 20: Asia Times, “Is China Really Threatening American with Nuclear Weapons?”
- Feb 17: World Net News, “U.S., Russia Both Meeting Treaty Goals.”
- Feb 12: Washington Post, “A Pentagon chart misleadingly suggests the U.S. is falling behind in a nuclear arms race.” Includes FAS’ corrected modernizations chart from the Trump Nuclear Posture Review.
- Feb 2: The Sun, “Bad Korea Move: Dona’d Trump’s nuclear report on North Korea is published with one very embarrassing error..so can YOU spot it?”
- Feb 1: Time Magazine, “Donald Trump Is Playing a Dangerous Game of Nuclear Poker.”
- Jan 26: The Nation (AFP), “New tactical nukes in US arsenal raise risks.”
- Jan 18: CNN, “India test-fired Agni-V, a nuclear-capable ICBM.”
- Jan 17: BuzzFeed, “Nuclear Anxiety Is Becoming A Hallmark of the Trump Era. Here’s What Could Happen In The Worst-Case Scenario.”
- Jan 16: Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Plans New Nuclear Weapons.” Uses FAS nuclear data in chart.
- Jan 16: Walter Pincus, The Cipher Brief, “North Korea ‘Bloody Nose’ Could Turn into Torrent.”
- Jan 14: Fox News (Associated Press), “Administration plan sees deterrence in new nuclear firepower.”
- Jan 12: Business Insider, “A leaked Pentagon document shows that the Trump administration wants to expand the US nuclear arsenal.”
- Jan 9: Daily Mail, “Trump administration will ‘increase risk of nuclear war’ with new plans to develop smaller warheads that are less destructive and a loosening of ‘first-use’ constraints, experts warn.”
- Jan 9: The Guardian, “US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more ‘useable’ warheads.”
- Jan 5: The Diplomat, “Dr. Strangelove and the Insane Reality of Nuclear Command-and-Control.”
- Jan 3: 9News, “Verify: Sure, the U.S. has a bigger ‘nuclear button.”
2017
- Dec 18: The Guardian, “US could broaden its use of nuclear weapons, Trump administration signals.”
- Nov 14: Boston Globe, “Senators scrutinize Trump’s power to launch nuclear strike.”
- Nov 14: World News Daily, “Scientists Caution Against Staging Nukes in South Korea.”
- Nov 14: Riccardo Antonucci, L’intellettuale Dissidente (Italy), “L’Anti-Impero: uno sguardo sull’armata Russa [The Anti-Empire: a look at the Russian army].”
- Nov 13: TV2000 (Italy), “Nucleare, il mondo a rischio [Nuclear, the world at risk].” Program uses FAS nuclear weapons data (begins at 13:14) and has interview with Kristensen (begins at 17:06). Interview was done in Castiglioncello in September after briefing to Pugwash-USPID conference on international security in the Trump era.
- Nov 11: Casper Star Tribune, “The Air Force may pump $5b into Cheyenne for a new generation of nuclear weapons.”
- Nov 3: CNN, “N. Korea accuses U.S. of ‘nuclear strike drill’ after bomber flights.”
- Oct 31: Milliyet.com.tr, “ABD’nin Türkiye’de 50 nükleer silahı var [US has 50 nuclear weapons in Turkey’.”
- Oct 30, Los Angeles Times, “Can Trump be trusted with the nuclear launch codes? Can any president?”
- Oct 26: New York Times, “Trump’s Nuclear Arsenal.”
- Oct 7: La Tercera (Argentina), “Director del Proyecto de Información Nuclear de la FAS: “Es poco probable que el Nobel de la Paz afecte a las políticas de Trump” [Director of the FAS Nuclear Information Project: “It is unlikely that the Nobel Peace Prize will affect Trump’s policies”].”
- Oct 6: geo.tv news (AFP), “Who are the members of the nuclear club?”
- Oct 5: National Interest, “Everything You Need to Know: Russia’s ‘Tactical’ Nuclear Weapons.”
- Sep: Todd Harrison and Evan Linck, “Options for the Ground-Based Leg of the Nuclear Triad,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 2017.
- Sep 29: iProfesional (Portugal), “¿Cuál es el país con mayor número de armas nucleares? [What is the country with the highest number of nuclear weapons?]”
- Sep 26: NBC News, “How Many Nuclear Weapons Exist? U.S. Calls for Total Elimination of Nukes.”
- Sep 25: CNN, “Where are the world’s nuclear weapons?”
- Sep 25: Times of India, “Pak nukes hidden at nine places, at risk of being stolen by terrorists.” The headline builds on our article on Pakistan’s evolving nuclear weapons infrastructure, but exaggerates and misrepresents what our article says.
- Sep 23: “Allerta Nucleare: Cosa Sono Le Nuovo Bombe USA B61-12 Destinate All’Italia. Intervista A Hans Kristensen,” interview with Franco Dinelli about the upcoming deployment of the B61-12 guided nuclear bomb in Italy, posted on Pandorata.it.
- Sep 16: The national Interest (The Buzz), “Ohio-Class Ballistic Missile Submarines: The U.S. Military’s Ultimate Weapon?”
- Sep 4: Xiahua, “Interview: Three trends observed as U.S. updates its nuclear arsenal: Expert.”
- Aug 24: PBS News Hour, “Can the president launch a nuclear strike on his own?” End of video shows FAS estimate of US nuclear warhead inventory, unfortunately without giving credits.
- Aug 21: The Edge Markets (Reuters), “What will Kim do next?”
- Aug 19: La Tercera (Chile), “Hans M. Kristensen, experto en armas nucleares: ‘Asia del Sur es una de las áreas más peligrosas’ [Hans M. Kristensen: nuclear weapons expert: “South Asia is one of the most dangerous area].“
- Aug 17: Newburgh Gazette, “Open to dialogue if North Korea ready to disarm.”
- Aug 12: 9News (NBC Denver), “Meet the researcher counting the world’s nukes.”
- Aug 12: Montichiari Week (Italy), “Bombe atomiche a Ghedi: i segreti degli Usa [Atomic bombs in Ghedi: the secrets of the US].”
- Aug 11: info.51.ca (Canada), “美國與朝鮮若開打 恐釀二戰以來最慘重傷亡 [The United States and the DPRK if the fight between World War II after the worst casualties].”
- Aug 10: FactSheck.org, “Trump Misfires On Nuclear Weapons Boast.”
- Aug 10: CTV Your Morning (Canada), “How to Defuse North Korea Tensions.”
- Aug 10: Fiscal Times, “Here’s the Real State of the $1 Trillion U.S. Nuclear Upgrade.”
- Aug 9: Time, “Here’s how many nuclear weapons the U.S. has.”
- Aug 9: Liberation (France), “Corée du Nord : les Etats-Unis se divisent.”
- Aug 8: Washington Post, “North Korea now making missile-ready nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say.” Includes graphic based on FAS nuclear weapons estimates.
- Aug 8: volksfreund.de, ” [Relics of the Cold War].”
- Aug 8: The Straits Times, (Singapore), “China ‘back in favor’ with Trump.”
- Aug 7: Saarbruecker Zeitung (Germany), “Wie sicher lagern die Atombomben? [How safe are the nuclear weapons?].”
- Jul 24: Toby Dalton, Dawn Herald, “How not to talk about nuclear weapons.”
- Jul 21: The Fiscal Times, “The Terrifying Nuclear War Game the US Shouldn’t Play.” The publication is a reprint under a new headline of my article The Flawed Push For New Nuclear Weapons Capabilities from June 29.
- Jul 17: ETH Zurich: “Trends in World Nuclear Forces, 2017.”
- Jul 13: Hindustan Times, “India shifting nuclear focus from Pakistan, developing missiles that can hit all of China: US experts.”
- Jul 13: NDTV, “India Planning Missile To Target All of China From South Bases: US Report.”
- Jul 4: War Is Boring, “‘Super-Fuzed’ Warhead on U.S. Nuclear Subs Risk Sparking and Accidental Nuclear War.” This story is a re-run of an article that War is Boring first published on March 20, 2017.
- Jul 3: Euronews, “NATO fears could push Europe towards more nuclear weapons.”
- Jul 3: Deuche Welle, “SIPRI: Nuclear arms decline amid modernization efforts.”
- Jun 30: Russia Matters, “Review of NASIC Report 2017: Nuclear Force Developments.” This publication is a reprint of my article first published here.
- Jun 25: pressenza.com (NIRS), “At US Press Briefing, Experts Explain Why A Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Is In The Works And What It Could Achieve.”
- May 30: Newsweek, “Russia conflict with NATO and U.S. would immediately result in nuclear war, Russian lawmaker warns.”
- May 26: Center for Public Integrity, “Trump seeks to spend more on nuclear weapons but buys little added capability.”
- May 25: Popular Mechanics, “The B-52 Is Getting Out Of The Nuke Dropping Business.”
- May 22: Foxtrot Alpha, “How To Dismantle A Nuclear Weapon.”
- May 19: Fact Sheet: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Total Inventory, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Note: The fact sheet uses FAS data from before the Obama administration announced retirement of an addition 500 warheads. The updated numbers are here.
- May 10: Daily Star, “Shock warning US is plotting to nuke Russia in ‘surprise first strike’.” Highly misleading headline that does not reflect the conclusions of our article.
- May 8: Barents Observer, “Satellite images show expansion of nuclear weapons sites on Kola.”
- May 4: Adam Mount, “The Case Against New Nuclear Weapons,” Center for American Progress.
- Apr 26: Foreign Policy In Focus, “These Nuclear Breakthroughs Are Endangering The World.”
- Apr 20: Eric Heginbotham, et al., China’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrent Major Drivers and Issues for the United States, RAND Corporation, April 20, 2017.
- Mar 23: Daily Beast, “Turkey’s Frightening Trifecta: ISIS, Erdogan & U.S. Nukes.”
- Mar 22: Science, “More precise U.S. nukes could raise tensions with Russia.”
- Mar 20: Fact Sheet: Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories in 2017, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. The fact sheet uses FAS data from here.
- Mar 19: Detroit News, “U.S. cuts nukes while Trump tweets for expansion.”
- Mar 19: Michael Krepon, Arms Control Wonk, “Low Yield Nuclear Weapons (Again).”
- Mar 12: Warrior (scout.com), “New US “Super-Fuze Triples the Destructive Power of Submarine Launched Nuclear Weapons.”
- Mar 10: War Is Boring, “‘Super-Fuzed’ Warhead on U.S. Nuclear Subs Risk Sparking and Accidental Nuclear War.” This article was also published in The National Interest.
- Mar 9: TASS, “US Strategic Chief says Russia’s tactical nuclear weapon arsenal outnumbers US.”
- Mar 3: Barents Observer, “Larger portion of Russia’s nukes will be on subs in Arctic waters.”
- Feb 26: Obama World-Herald, “StratCom chief Hyten: Nuclear arsenal should be modernized, not expanded.”
- Feb 24: International Business Times, “Nuclear Weapons In World: Trump Says US Needs More Nukes, But Here’s How Many We Have Now.”
- Feb 24: Reuters, “Experts Dispute Trump’s Assertion That U.S. Nuclear Arms Capability Is Lagging.”
- Feb 24: The National Interest, “Russia’s Nuclear Weapons: Everything You Always Wanted To Know (But Were Afraid To Ask).
- Feb 23: The Intercept, “Donald Trump’s Remarks Signal He Could Start a New Nuclear Arms Race.”
- Feb 22: Washington Post, “Making America great again apparently includes Cold War-era nuclear dominance.”
- Feb 21: Ohama World-Herald, “StratCom-led exercise readies U.S., allies in face of threats.”
- Feb 16: NBC News, “Ignore That Spy Ship Off the Coast. The Russians Aren’t Coming.”
- Feb 12: Scout (Warrior), “Russian Nuclear Weapons 101.”
- Feb 12: Daily Beast, “Republicans Move to Strip Away Nuclear Test Ban Funding.”
- Feb 9: attn.com, “President Trump Denounces This Important Treaty as a ‘Bad Deal’.”
- Feb 2: Roll Call, “Pentagon Panel Urges Trump Team To Expand Nuclear Options.”
- Jan: Maj Gen Roger W. Burg, USAF (Ret.), America’s Nuclear Backbone, Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
- Jan 26: Yahoo News UK, “Submarine crash in 1974 ‘could have started World War 3’ – but it was covered up.”
- Jan 20: NBC News, “Donald Trump is Getting the Nuclear Football.”
- Jan 19: FactCheck.org, “Obama and Russia’s Nuclear Stockpile.”
- Jan 19: Politico, “Trump’s nuclear wake-up call.”
- Jan 12: Popular Mechanics, “Obama Administration Cuts Back Size of Nuclear Arsenal.”
- Jan 10: Joe Cirincione, “Obama’s last chance to reduce the risk of nuclear disaster,” Politico, January 10, 2017
2016
- Dec: Gudrun Persson (ed.), Russian Military Capabilities in a Ten-Year Perspective – 2016, Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI), March 2016.
- Dec 1: Stars & Stripes, “On nuclear weapons, Trump face [sic] questions of modernization.”
- Nov: Dave Johnson, “Nuclear weapons in Russia’s approach to conflict,” Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, November 2016.
- Nov 30: Tim Street, “President Trump: Successor to the Nuclear Throne,” Oxford Research Group, November 30, 2016.
- Nov 26: Raw Story, “Which nations could be be next to join the global nuclear club?”
- Nov 25: McClatchyDC, “Trump’s finger soon will hover over the nuclear button. Will he be ready?”
- Nov 19: Hindustan Times, “‘Pak has 130-140 nuclear weapons, modifying F16s to deliver nukes’.”
- Nov 18: IBT (India), “Pakistan has 130-140 nuclear warheads, state US scientists.”
- Nov 18: NDTV (India), “Where and How Pakistan Is Storing Nuclear Weapons According To US Scientists.”
- Nov 18: WION (India), “Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile: US scientists’ report reveals defence facilities near Indian border.”
- Nov 14: Defense News, “Israel’s Strategic Fight Over New Submarines.”
- Nov 14: Pennsylvania State University Vanguard, “Nuclear Policy.”
- Nov 11: The Guardian, “Nuclear weapons: how foreign hotspots could test Trump’s finger on the trigger.”
- Nov 10: heavy.com, “Can Donald Trump Start a Nuclear War? 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know.”
- Nov 10: BuzzFeedNews, “5 Bid Decisions President Trump Must Make On Nuclear Weapons.” Article also uses FAS estimates on nuclear weapons.
- Nov 4: John DeMaggio, The Hill, “North Korea grows nuclear expense of US security.”
- Nov 3: Omaha World-Herald, “Gen. John Hyten assumes leadership of StratCom today — then he’ll confront an array of unprecedented threats.”
- Oct 31: Omaha World-Herald, “A nuclear decision: As global tension builds, voters must choose which candidate they trust with the codes.”
- Oct 28: National Public Radio, “‘A Dangerous Situation’ As U.S.-Russia Tensions Spill Over To Nuclear Pacts.”
- Oct 10: Aviation Week & Space Technology, “Why Trump Is Wrong On U.S. Nuclear Modernization.”
- Oct 4: Washington Post (Fact Checker), “Clinton, Kaine go too far in touting a nuclear deal with Russia.”
- Oct 2: Washington Times, “Israel nuclear arsenal estimate was high.”
- Sep 25: CBS (After 60), “Breaking down Russia and U.S. nuclear capabilities.”
- Sep 25: CBS News (60 Minutes), “Risk of Nuclear Attack Rises.”
- Sep 23: Economic Times (India Times), “Military failure could push Pakistan to initiate nuclear attack against India.”
- Sep 21: PolitiFact, “Hillary Clinton overstates impact of New START on Russia’s nuclear arsenal.”
- Sep 20: Times of India, “Pakistan may use tactical nuke if it’s unable to push back Indian army: Hans Kristensen.”
- Sep 19: Times of India, “Any military action by India will be condemned by Washington, says former Obama adviser.” References our 2012 report on non-strategic nuclear weapons.
- Sep 19, Dawn Stover, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Does Israel really have 200 nuclear weapons, or was Colin Powell exaggerating?”
- Sep 18: CBS News, “Analyzing the Nuclear Capabilities of the U.S.” Discussion on “After 60” after 60 Minutes feature on The New Cold War.
- Sep 14: NBC News, “U.S. Bombers Send China, Russia, North Korea a Message.”
- Sep 13: New York Times (AP), “US Flies Bombers Over SKorea in Show of Force Against North.”
- Sep 13: FactCheck.com, “Clinton Misrepresents Trump Quote.”
- Sep 9: Los Angeles Times, “North Korea’s latest nuclear test could be a key step in its weapons program.”
- Sep: Fred Kaplan, “Rethinking Nuclear Policy: Taking Stock of the Stockpile,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2016.
- Aug 29: Steinar Høibråten Hanne Breivik, Reaktordrevne fartøyer og deres eventuelle kjernevåpen en oversikt ved årsskiftet 2015/2016 [Nuclear propelled vessels and their possible nuclear weapons: An overview at the winter 2015/2016], FFI Rapport 16/01536, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), August 29, 2016.
- Aug 26: War is Boring, “The United States Is Getting More and More Irritated at Russia’s Nuke Treaty Violation.”
- Aug: Steve Pifer and James Tyson, Third-Country Nuclear Forces and Possible Measures for Multilateral Arms Control, Brookings Institution, August 2016.
- Aug 18: Radio Sputnik (Scotland), “Are US Shifting Nukes in Turkey?” In this interview I debunk the false rumor that the US has moved nuclear weapons from Turkey to Romania.
- Aug 17: Der Spiegel, “US-Präsidentschaftswahl: Angst von Trump und den Atomwaffen [US Presidential Election: Fear of Trump and Nuclear Weapons].”
- Aug 10: Scout Warrior, “Air Force 3-Star: Nuclear-Armed Cruise Missile, LRSO, Essential to Saving US Lives & Preventing Major Power War.”
- Aug 7: ozy.com, “Trump Presidency May Not Blow Up The World, Says History.”
- Aug 5: Radio Sputnik (Washington, DC), “US B61 Nuclear Upgrades Threaten International Security.”
- Aug 5: Voice of America, “How Safe are US Nuclear Weapons in Turkey?”
- Aug 4: New York Times, “Debate Over Trump’s Fitness Raises Issues of Checks on Nuclear Power.”
- Aug 3: Quartz, “Count them up: All the nuclear weapons president Donald Trump would have at his disposal.”
- Aug 3: Counterpunch, “Massive Deployment of US WMD Spotlighted by Peace Group.”
- Aug 2: Amy Woolf, “U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Turkey,” Congressional Research Service Insight, August 2, 2016. Uses FAS estimate of US nukes in Turkey, via references to various news stories using the estimate.
- Aug 1: Paul K. Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons,” Congressional Research Service, August 1, 2016
- Jul 28: Jonathan Power, Jordan Times, “Too many U.S. nuclear bombs.”
- Jul 26: Crosscut, “Reminder: Puget Sound has a ton of nuclear weapons.”
- Jul 23: Los Angeles Times: “How a stockpile of America’s nuclear weapons got tangled up in a Middle East crisis.”
- Jul 20: CBC News, “How secure are NATO nukes in Turkey?”
- Jul 20: Washington Times, “Inside the Ring: Nuclear Security in Turkey.” The Turkey portion is the third item down in the article.
- Jul 20: Jyllands-Posten (Denmark), “Tyrkiet er en højrisikozone at have atomvåben i [Turkey is a high risk area for nuclear weapons storage].”
- Jul 20: Sheryl Rofer, “Are Nuclear Weapons Stored in Turkey Under Treat?,” War on the Rocks, July 20, 2016.
- Jul 20: NBC News, “Incirlik Air Base: Post-Coup Power Cut Remains at U.S. Site.”
- 20 Jul: Lawfare, “Today’s Headlines and Commentary.”
- Jul 20: Aviation News & Space Technology, “Turkey Coup Raises Questions About NATO’s B61 Nuke Posture.”
- Jul 19: TruNews, “Nuclear Caliphate.” My portion of the interview begins at 19;00 minutes.
- Jul 19: ZF (Romania), “SUA au 50 de bombe nucleare în Turcia, la baza militară blocată în timpul puciului. Mai sunt în siguranţă acolo? [50 US nuclear bombs in Turkey, military base blocked during the coup. Are the still safe there?].”
- Jul 18: A. Trevor Thrall, “The Coup and the Crackdown: Turkey and American Foreign Policy,” Cato Institute Blog, July 18, 2016.
- Jul 18: Sputnik News, “Attempted Military Coup in Turkey Puts American Nukes a Risk.”
- Jul 18: 9news.com, “Truth Test: Clinton draws contrast with Trump in two ads.”
- Jul 17: Eric Schlosser, “The H-Bombs in Turkey,” The New Yorker, July 17, 2016.
- Jul 17: The Guardian, “Turkey coup attempt raises fears over safety of US nuclear stockpile.”
- Jun 30: Tong Zhao, “China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent,” Carnegie-Tsinghua, June 30, 2016.
- Jun: Defense News, “2016 World Nuclear Forces.” Uses our nuclear weapons estimates from the SIPRI Yearbook in an animated graphics video.
- Jun 28: Walter Pincus, The Cipher Brief, “Financing Nuclear Modernization: Tough Decision for the Next President.”
- Jun 17: Senator Dianne Feinstein and Ellen Tauscher, “A Nuclear Weapon That America Doesn’t Need,” New York Times, June 17, 2016. Feinstein and Tauscher use my blog “Forget LRSO; JASSM-ER Can Do The Job” as the source for the new nuclear cruise missile cost estimate.
- Jun 15: The Anti Media, “Here’s What You Need to Know About the Cold War 2.0 Because It’s Already Here.”
- Jun 14: Paul K. Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons,” RL34248, Congressional Research Service, June 14, 2016.
- Jun 14: The Diplomat, “Does Pakistan Have More Nuclear Warheads Than India?”
- Jun 14: The Seoul Times, “N. Korea Has 10 Nukes: SIPRI.”
- Jun 13: Financial Express, “Countries possessing nuclear weapons not ready to give up arsenal: SIPRI.”
- Jun 13: Times of Israel, “Nuclear powers shrinking, modernizing arsenals – watchdog.”
- Jun 13: Sputnik International (Russia), “Global Nuclear Arsenals Decline Thanks To Russia, US.”
- Jun 13: US News & World Report, “Watchdog: Nuclear powers shrinking, modernizing arsenals.”
- Jun 13: Hindustan Times, “‘China’s nuclear arsenal is becoming bigger, more modern’.”
- Jun 13: The Express Tribune, “Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to increase significantly over next 10 years: SIPRI.”
- Jun 13: Economic Times (India), “India, Pakistan nuclear arsenal on rise as it decreases slowly elsewhere.”
- Jun 13: Christian Science Monitor, “New nuclear weapons report dampens hope for global disarmament.”
- Jun 13: Radio Free Europe, “Report: U.S., Russia Slowly Reducing Nuclear Arsenals.”
- Jun 13: Deutsche Welle, “Think tank: Nuclear powers see to modernize nuclear weapons.”
- Jun 13: euronews.com, “Fewer nuclear weapons but a far cry from disarmament.”
- Jun 13: National Defense Magazine, “Analysis: It’s Time for a Reexamination of Nuclear Weapons Requirements.”
- Jun 12: Kingston Reif, “Examining the Flawed Rationale for a New Nuclear Air-Launched Cruise Missile,” Arms Control Association, Issue Brief, Volume 8, Issue 2, June 12, 2016.
- Jun 8: Sico van der Meer and Christine Parthemore, “Revive Arms Control and Start with Nuclear-Armed Cruise Missiles,” War on The Rocks, June 8, 2016.
- Jun 4: Jacksonville News, “Fact Check: Is Hillary Clinton responsible for ‘a massive reduction in nuclear weapons’?”
- May 31: Evan Montgomery, Extended Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, May 31, 2016.
- May 31: Chicago Tribune, “Taliban leader’s killing exposes deepening U.S.-Pakistan strains.”
- May 31: Bloomberg, “Taliban Said to Kill 16 in Worst Attack Since Leader Named.”
- May 27: The Week, “How Obama talks an anti-nuke talk, walks a pro-nuke talk.”
- May 27: New York Times (editorial), “Turning Words Into a Nuclear-Free Reality.” Refers to story about new stockpile numbers.
- May 27: Fiscal Times, “Obama Calls for No Nukes, but the US Still Has Big Plans for Nuclear Weapons.”
- May 27: PRI (Public Radio International), “71 years after Hiroshima, will we see a world free from nuclear weapons soon?”
- May 27: R. Jeffrey Smith, “A former senior U.S. general again calls for abolishing the nuclear forces he once commanded,” Center for Public Integrity, May 27, 2016.
- May 27: Washington Post, “Obama calls for end to nuclear weapons, but U.S. disarmament is slowest since 1980.”
- May 27: New York Times, “Reduction of Nuclear Arsenal Has Slowed Under Obama, Report Finds.”
- May 27: TASS, “Эксперт: США замедляют темпы демонтажа списанных ядерных боеголовок [Expert: US slows down the pace of dismantling retired warheads].”
- May 27: The Guardian, “Obama has ‘failed to deliver on nuclear disarmament promises’.”
- May 27: Japan Times, “Key dates in the nuclear arms race.”
- May 26: Stephen Pifer, Defense News, “LRSO Does Not Make Sense, Nor Do Its Proposed Numbers.”
- May 26: David Wright and Lisbeth Grondlund, US News and World Report, “Easing Away From the Nuclear Trigger.”
- May 26: The Guardian, “China to send nuclear-armed submarines into the Pacific amid tensions with US.”
- May 24: Joe Cirincione, Defense One, “The Nuclear Football Goes to Japan.”
- May 20, Radio Free Europe, “New Weaponry, More Spending, Tough Rhetoric Stokes Fear of New U.S.-Russia Arms Race.”
- May: Toby Dalton and George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Operations and Escalation Dominance, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 2016.
- May 11: The Diplomat, “Russia Developing New Nuclear Missile Capable of Penetrating US Defenses.”
- May 11: The Daily Beast, “Russia’s New Missile Means the Nuclear Arms Race Is Back On.” The article exaggerates the importance of Russia’s nuclear modernization and misunderstands how many nuclear weapons Russia and the United States have on alert.
- May 10: Jordan Wilson, “China’s Expanding Ability to Conduct Conventional Missile Strikes on Guam,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 10, 2016.
- May 10: Time, “President Obama Will Bring a Mixed Nuclear Message to Hiroshima.”
- May 9: Bonnie Glaser and Matthew Funaiole, “Submerged Deterrence: China’s Struggle to Field an SSBN Fleet,” Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, CSIS, May 9, 2016.
- May 6: The Diplomat, “Chinese Nuclear Strategist Believes China’s MIRVs Are Decoys.”
- May 3: Gael Tarleton and Joe Cirincione, “Scale back U.S. nuclear weapons and stop a new arms race,” Seattle Times, May 3, 2016. Uses FAS estimate that there are an estimated 1,350 nuclear warheads stored in Washington state, unfortunately without giving credit.
- Apr 30, KPLU (Seattle), “War And Peace: Sound Effect, Episode 68.”
- Apr 27: FactCheck.org, “Clinton Overstates Nuclear Achievement.”
- Apr: Will Saetren, “Costs of the Cold War: Rethinking the Need for a New Nuclear Cruise Missile,” Ploughshares Fund, April 2016.
- Apr 20: Peter Lee, Asia Times, “The case of the missing nukes and a disappearing US mission…in Asia.”
- Apr 19: Elisabeth Withfield, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Fuzzy math on Indian nuclear weapons.”
- Apr 18: Fiscal Times, “Why is the US Spending $1 Trillion on Nuclear Weapons?” Re-publishes my blog about Nuclear Transparency and the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan.
- Apr 13: Vox, “How deterrence is changing, explained by Defense Secretary Ash Carter.” Uses FAS estimates of world nuclear forces, unfortunately without giving credit.
- Apr 5: Will Lowry, “Fewer Warheads, More Spending: The Escalating Costs of Maintaining US Nuclear Weapons,” Tri-Valley CARE, April 5, 2016.
- Apr 4: Radio Free Europe, “U.S. Says Russia Increased Number of Deployed Warheads, Despite Treaty.”
- Apr 4: Moscow Times, “Russia Increases Nuclear Warheads While U.S. Decreases its Arsenal.”
- Apr 2: The Telegraph, “Nuclear Weapons: Which Countries Have What?” Video uses FAS estimate of world nuclear arsenals.
- Apr 1: Trevor Tim, The Guardian, “Obama says he’s working towards a nuclear-free world. That’s a lie.”
- Apr 1: Timeline, “Trump, wrong about so much, somehow hits a nerve about America’s willingness to use nukes.”
- Apr: Elbridge Colby and Wu Riqiang, “Seeking Strategic Stability for U.S.-China Relations in the Nuclear Domain,” National Bureau of Asian Research, NPR Special Report 57, April 2016, pp. 21-41.
- Mar 31: William Arkin, Vice News, “America’s Nuclear Weapons in Europe Are the Nuclear Elephant in the Room.”
- Mar 29: Minute Physics, “Why You Should Care About Nukes.” This great educational video, narrated by Max Tegmark from the Future of Life Institute at MIT, uses FAS estimate of world nuclear arsenals.
- Mar 24: MacArthur Foundation, “New Commitment to Address Nuclear Threats by Reducing Availability and Use of Weapons-usable Material,” Press Release, March 24, 2016. Uses FAS estimate of more than 15,000 nuclear weapons worldwide, unfortunately without giving credit.
- Mar 23: Amy Woolf, “Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons,” Congressional Research Service, March 23, 2016.
- Mar 11: Reuters, “Is it time for Britain to give up its nuclear weapons.”
- Mar 11: Kommersant (Russia), “Толкание плутониевого ядра [Pushing plutonium core].”
- Mar 10: Rick Wayman and Jackie Cabasso, Pressenza, “Day Four at the ICJ: Aspirational Rhetoric vs. Real Actions.”
- Mar 9: Keith Payne, “Why Do US Force Numbers Matter for Deterrence?,” National Institute for Public Policy, March 9, 2016.
- Mar 1: Andrew Krepinevich and Jacob Kohn, Rethinking Armageddon: Scenario Planning in the Second Nuclear Age, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, March 1, 2016.
- Mar 1: Popular Mechanics, “What We Can Tell About the Air Force’s New B-21 Bomber From Its First Official Image.”
- Feb 26: Reuters, “U.S. test-fires ICBMs to stress its power to Russia, North Korea.”
- Feb 26: Sohail Parwaz, Pakistan Today, “F-16s and Indian acrimony.”
- Feb 26: Elbridge Colby, “The Role of Nuclear Weapons in the U.S.-Russian Relationship,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 26, 2016.
- Feb 24: PBS Newshour, “As Pentagon overhauls nuclear triad, critics advice caution.” Uses FAS estimate of world nuclear arsenals at the end of program, unfortunately without giving credits.
- Feb 23: The Intercept, “Obama’s Russian Rationale for $1 Trillion Nuke Plan Signals New Arms Race.”
- Feb 11: Popular Mechanics, “The Alarming History of U.S. Nuclear Accidents at Sea.”
- Feb 5: Asahi Shimbun, “U.S. Fighter from Fukuoka involved in 1959 nuclear accident in South Korea.”
- Feb: Matthew Kroenig, Atlantic Council, “The Renewed Russian Nuclear Threat and NATO Nuclear Deterrence Posture.”
- Feb 1: Scientific American, “The Comet That Battered Jupiter, and Shock Congress.”
- Jan 28: The Economist, “Daily Chart: Doomsday and the History of Nuclear Weapons.”
- Jan 23: Associated Press, “Air Force withheld nuclear mishap from Pentagon review team.”
- Jan 20: L’Espresso (Italy), “Ecco la nuova bomba H che arriverà in Italia [Here is the new H bomb that will arrived in Italy].”
- Jan 19: Reuters, “North Korea nuclear test did not increase technical capability: US.”
- Jan 15: Sputnik News, “Nobel Peace Prize-Winner Obama Sends Mixed Messages on US Nukes.” Article is based on an interview with Radio Sputnik.
- Jan 14: Vice News, “Russia Sure Seems to Be Testing a Lot of Nuclear Missiles These Days.”
- Jan 14: Paul Kerr and May Nikitin, Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons, Congressional Research Service, January 14, 2016.
- Jan 13: Stephen Young, Defense News, “Commentary: US Is More Secure Without New, Nuclear-armed Cruise Missile.”
- Jan 6: Wired, “Science Can Tell if North Korea’s Test Was Really An H-Bomb.”
2015
- 2015: “Does China have an effective sea-based nuclear deterrent?,” CSIS, n.d. [first accessed 2015].
- Dec 24: Channel 1 (Russia), “Пентагон рассекретил документы конца 50-х о возможном применении ядерного оружия против СССР [Pentagon declassified documents of the late 50s on the possible use of nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union].”
- Dec 17: Center for Public Integrity, “India’s nuclear explosive materials are vulnerable to theft, U.S. officials and experts say.” Uses FAS estimate for Indian nuclear weapons stockpile.
- Dec 14: PolitiFact, “PolitiFact Sheet: Military Spending Under Obama and Congress.”
- Dec 11: McClatchy DC, “America’s modernized nuclear arms roil diplomatic waters.”
- Dec 11: James Doyle, “Department of Energy’s disinformation undercuts US credibility, nonproliferation efforts,” The Hill, December 11, 2015.
- Dec 9: Matthew R. Costlow, “Do more nukes really mean more nuclear crises? Not necessarily,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 9, 2015.
- Dec 8: Miles Pomper, et al., Ensuring Deterrence Again Russia: The View From NATO States, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies/Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey/Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America.
- Nov 20: The Buzz (The National Interest), “America’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Weapon Passes Critical Test.”
- Nov 19: Richard Woolgar-James, “China’s nuclear submarines: The end of ‘No First Use?,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Uses FAS estimate for Chinese nuclear weapons stockpile but without credit.
- Nov 17: New Scientists, “Is Russia building an underwater drone to deliver a dirty bomb?”
- Nov 15: Future of Life Institute, “The Risk of Nuclear Weapons.” Uses FAS estimate of world nuclear arsenals.
- Nov 7: New York Times (editorial), “The Pakistan Nuclear Nightmare.” The paper uses FAS’ latest estimate for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, but does not credit.
- Nov 5: PBS Newshour, “America’s nuclear bomb gets a makeover.” This prime-time program includes bits from several interviews, including one with FAS program director Hans Kristensen here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#161677
- Oct 28: World Affairs, “US Upgrade Security at Nuclear Bases Near Syria.”
- Oct 22: Reuters, “Obama meets Pakistan’s Sharif to stress nuclear worries, seek help on Taliban.”
- Oct 22: Pakistan Herald, “US to sell eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan: report.”
- Oct 22: Daily Pakistan, “Pakistan developing two new cruise missiles, nuclear submarine: US Think Tank.”
- Oct 22: Huffington Post (India), “Pakistan Set To Become World’s 5th Largest Nuclear Power, Says US-Based Think Tank.”
- Oct 22: International Business Times, “Indian strike on Pakistani terror camps could lead to nuclear war, say experts.”
- Oct 22: NDTV (India), “Pakistan Will Become Fifth Largest Nuclear Power By 2025: Report.”
- Oct 22: Associated Press, “Obama turns to political dimensions of Afghan war.”
- Oct 22: india.com (PTI), “Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile has grown since 2011, claims US report.”
- Oct 21: New York Times, “White House Set to Sell New Fighter Jets to Pakistan in Bid to Bolster Partnership.”
- Oct 21: Deccan Herald (India), “Pakistan has 110 to 130 nukes: US report.”
- Oct 21: Times of India, “Pakistan could be 5th largest nuclear power by 2025: Report.”
- Oct 2: Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues, Congressional Research Service.
- 2015: Taking the Lead, Ploughshares Fund Annual Report 2014.
- Sep 28: CNN Situation Room, “Vladimir Putin responds to reports of new U.S. nukes.”
- Sep 27: Robert Potter, “China’s Undersea Nuclear Submarine Capabilities,” IndraStra.com.
- Sep 25: ECN Magazine, “Pentagon Acknowledges Upgrading Nukes Abroad.”
- Sep 24: Sputnik News (Russia), “War of Words Unleashed: US Upgrading Nukes in EU, Agitates Russia.” The article is based on a radio interview with Kristensen.
- Sep 24: NRC Handelblad (Netherlands), “Moskou waarschuwt voor ‘verstoring nucleaire balans’ in Europa [Moscow warns of disturbing nuclear balance].” Subscription required.
- Sep 24: 444.hu (Hungary), “Washington szerint 2020 előtt tutira nem telepítenek új atomfegyvereket Németországba [Washington says nuclear weapons will deffinitely not be deployed in Germany before 2020].”
- Sep 23: Deutsche Welle, “Reports: US nuclear ‘upgrades’ in Europe.”
- Sep 22: Bundeswehr Journal (Germany), “Bald neue US-Atomwaffen am Standort Büchel? [Soon new US nuclear weapons at the Büchel site?].”
- Sep 22: Frontal-21 (ZDF, Germany), “Stationierung neuer US-Atomwaffen in Deutschland [Deployment of new US nuclear weapons in Germany].” The story includes a TV interview with Kristensen.
- Sep 22: Bild (Germany), “Neue US-Atomwaffen in Deutschland? [New US nuclear weapons in Germany?].”
- Sep 21: Focus (Germany), “Neue US-Atomwaffen werden in Deutschland stationiert – Russland übt scharfe Kritik [New US nuclear weapons to be deployed in Germany – Russia issues sharp criticism].”
- Sep 16, Radio Free Europe, “Impasse Over U.S.-Russia Nuclear Treaty Hardens As Washington Threatens ‘Countermeasures’.”
- Sep 15: NATO Watch, “Upgrades At US Nuclear Bases Acknowledge Security Risk.” A reposting of my blog from September 10, 2015.
- Sep 14: Eric Heginbotham, et al., The U.S.-China Military Scorecard: Forces, Geography, and the Evolving Balance of Power, 1996-2017, RAND Corporation, 2015. Direct link to PDF version is here.
- Sep 11: l’Expresso (Italy), “Le bombe atomiche in Italia non sono al sicuro [Nuclear bombs in Italy are not safe].”
- Sep 10, ECN Magazine, “US Upgrades Nuclear Weapons Sites in Europe.”
- Sep 6, Defense News, “Chinese Parade Proves Xi in Charge.”
- Sep 4: Press Examiner, “DF-26 IRBM may have ASM variant, China reveals at 3 September parade.”
- Sep 3: Defense News, “China’s Parade Puts US Navy on Notice.”
- Sep 3: Times of India, “India’s nuclear posture entering dynamic new phase: report.”
- Sep 2: Military Times (Associated Press), “A preview of new gear China’s military showing off at parade.”
- Aug 28: Times of India, “In 10 Years, Pakistan will have largest N-Stockpile after US and Russia: Report.” Note: that is not FAS’ estimate. If the current trend continues, we estimate, Pakistan could in 10 years potentially have a stockpile of roughly 230 warheads, significantly fewer than the 350 projected by the Stimson report.
- Aug 27: Washington Post, “Report: Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could become the world’s third-biggest.”
- Aug 27: Toby Dalton and Michael Krepon, A Normal Nuclear Pakistan, Stimson Center and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 2015.
- Aug 22: The National Interest, “Russia’s Blast from the Past: Beware the Tu-95 Bear Strategic Bomber.”
- Aug 18: INEWS (Rocky Mountain PBS), “Scientists Federation Insists that U.S. Is Cooking up a New Nuclear Bomb.”
- Aug 17: Politico, “Behind Putin’s nuclear threats.”
- Aug 11: Alex Littlefield and Adam Lowther, The Diplomat, “Taiwan and the Prospects for War Between China and America.”
- Aug 8: Scott Beauchamp, Al Jazeera, “Obama’s nuclear betrayal.”
- Aug 7: Sputnik News (Russia), “US Unlikely to Apologize for Japan Nuclear Bombings Soon.”
- Aug 6: CBS (Minnesota), “Good Question: How Many Nuclear Weapons Still Exist?”
- Aug 6: Sputnik News (Russia), “Nuclear-Armed States ‘Must Eliminate’ WMD to Honor Hiroshima, Nagasaki.”
- Aug 5: Guardian, “Hiroshima and the nuclear age – a visual guide.”
- Aug 5: 1TV (Russia), “Ядерную угрозу сегодня, по мнению экспертов, всё сильнее ощущают в Европе Смотрите оригинал материала на [The nuclear threat today, according to experts, is strongly felt in Europe].”
- Aug 4: Flight Global, “Concept of a nuclear-armed F-35C divides opinion.”
- Aug 4: Joe Cirincione, Al Jazeera, “The real nuclear danger isn’t Iran or North Korea.”
- Aug: Philip Webber and Stuart Parkinson, UK nuclear weapons: A catastrophe in the making?, Scientists for Global Responsibility, August/September 2015.
- Aug: Greg Schwartz, Freedom Magazine, “Nobody’s Free.”
- Aug: “Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance,” Arms Control Association.
- Jul 17: PolitiFact.com, “Cheney: Obama wants to get ‘rid of all nuclear weapons,’ has reduced U.S. nuclear capability significantly.”
- Jul 16: TASS, “Эксперт: США создают свою первую управляемую атомную авиабомбу [Expert: US to create first guided nuclear gravity bomb].”
- Jul 15: INEWS (Rocky Mountain PBS), “Reveal: Is U.S. Building New Nuclear Bombs or Simply ‘Modernizing’?”
- Jul 11: Sputnik News (Russia), “A New Arms Race? US Nuclear Test Might Trigger Response from Russia, China.”
- Jul 8: David Axe, War is Boring, “The H-6K is China’s B-52.”
- Jun 25: Adam Mount, National Interest, “Russia’s Lethal Nuclear Arsenal Gets and Upgrade: Should NATO Worry?” Also posted on Council on Foreign Relations blog.
- Jun 24: Bloomberg, “Vienna Forum Hears Warnings of a New U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Race.” Uses FAS estimate on Status of World Nuclear Forces.
- Jun 18: Dan Drollette, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Of weapons programs in Iran and Israel, and the need for journalists to report on both.”
- Jun 13: Sputnik News (Russia), “US Unlikely to Deploy Missiles to Europe.” The article was also published in Space Daily.
- Jun 9: Times of India, “India’s sensational cross-border raid.”
- Jun 4: Associated Press, “US might deploy missiles in Europe to counter Russia.”
- May 20: Voice of America, “China Advances Ballistic Missile Capability.”
- May 20: New York Times (editorial), “China Buys Into Multiple Warheads.” Uses FAS estimate for Chinese nuclear weapons.
- May 18: Business Insider, “China has outfitted missiles capable of reaching the US with multiple nuclear warheads.”
- May 18: The Diplomat, “China’s MIRVs: Sign of a Cold War to Come?” The article wrongly claims I said in my blog that the addition of MIRV represents a “major change” in China’s nuclear posture. I did not say that, but rather that it is important when seen in the context of other elements of China’s nuclear modernization, which is, far below the level underway in Russia and the United States.
- May 17: Independent (UK), “China upgrades it nuclear arsenal for first time in decades amid resistance to US interference in South China Sea dispute.” The headline is misleading because the MIRV upgrade is not the first upgrade of the Chinese nuclear arsenal in decades nor is the development directly linked to the South China Sea dispute.
- May 17: The Tribune (India), “Chinese re-engineers ballistic missile, surprises US: report.”
- May 16: NewsMax, “Report: China Added Multiple Warheads to Long-Range Weapons.”
- May 16: New York Times, “China Making Some Missile More Powerful.”
- May 12: Asia Times, “Pentagon report: China deploys MIRV missile.”
- May 10: Washington Post, “Obama’s quiet nuclear deal with China raises proliferation concerns.” Uses FAS estimate for size of Chinese nuclear stockpile without credit.
- May 9: The Hill, “How long would it take Iran to develop nukes? No one knows the answer for sure.”
- May 8: Zia Mian and Alexander Glaser, Princeton University, Global Fissile Material Report 2015: Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material Stockpiles and Production, Briefing to the NPT Review Conference, United Nations, New York, May 8, 2015.
- May 8: Epoch Times, “The US Is Hiding Its Nukes so Poorly, it Undermines the Point of Having Them.”
- May 5: Politi Fact Florida, “Marco Rubio says the United States is not modernizing its nuclear weapons.”
- May 5: International Relations and Security Network (ISN), “Is China Planning To Build More Missile Submarines?,” ETH Zurich. Reprints (with permission) my blog about U.S. estimates of China’s submarine production plans.
- May 1: Washington Post (Fact Checker), “Iran’s claim that Israel has 400 nuclear weapons.” References the 2014 FAS Nuclear Notebook on Israel as evidence, among others, that the Iranian claim is exaggerated.
- Apr 30: The Telegraph (UK), “General call on US and Russia to end to nuclear hair-trigger.”
- Apr 30: De-Alerting and Stabilizing the World’s Nuclear Force Postures, Global Zero Commission on Nuclear Risk Reduction, April 2015. See also appendix.
- Apr 29: The Week, “America readies its new ‘smart’ nuke.”
- Apr 11: National Public Radio, “New START Nuke Deal With Russia May Be Aging – But It’s Not Over.”
- Ape 9: The Independent (UK), “Trident debate: There are 16,000 nuclear missiles in the world – but who has them, and does Britain really need its own arsenal?”
- Apr 6: New York Times editorial, “Nuclear Fears in South Asia.” The New York Times references a Council on Foreign Relations web page for the size of Pakistan and China’s nuclear arsenals, but the CFR web page actually is based on our estimates.
- Apr 3: MintPress News, “Time is running out for Israel’s special place in America’s heart.”
- Apr 1: Christopher Twomey, Naval Postgratuate School, “China’s Offensive Missile Forces,” Testimony Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, April 1, 2015.
- Mar 29: i24 News, “Israel gave OK to release document on past nuclear weapons work.”
- Mar 24, John Mecklin, Foreign Policy, “Disarm and Modernize.”
- Mar 24: The Week, “America has a very expensive pan to replace very old nukes.”
- Mar 24: Tong Zhao and David Logan, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “What if China develops MIRV?“
- Mar 20: Lukasz Kulesa, “Putin’s Nuclear Bluff,” Survival, pp. 125-129.
- Mar: James E. Goodby and George P. Shultz (ed.), The War That Must Never Be Fought: Dilemmas of Nuclear Deterrence (California: Hoover Press, 2015).
- Mar 12: The Kashmir Monitor, “Pakistan still ahead of India in arms race.”
- Mar 11: Wall Street Journal, “Saudi Nuclear Deal Raises Stakes for Iran Talks.” Article is hidden behind pay-wall but apparently uses my SIPRI data in a chart of world nuclear forces.
- Mar 11: Hindustan Times, “Does Pakistan have a bigger nuclear arsenal than India?”
- Mar 10: Business Insider (Economist), “The threat of nuclear war is higher than at any time in the past 25 years.”
- Mar 10: First Post (India), “Pakistan has more nuclear weapons than India, shows inforgraphic [inc.].”
- Mar 10: Jeffrey D. McCausland, Stimson Center, “Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Operational Myths and Realities.”
- Mar 3: Daily Mail (UK), “Earth’s nuclear arsenal revealed: Interactive infographic lets you track growth of the world’s WMDs over 70 years.” The paper has copied and reproduced the entire Bulletin interactive web site on its own site, in violation of copyright laws.
- Mar 3: Fox News, “Mystery $55 million Air Force program sparks debate on cost.”
- Mar 2: Washington Post, “Pentagon’s $55 billion mystery plane is secret, but debate on cost is appearing.”
- Jan 30: Elbridge Colby, Center for a New American Security, “Nuclear Weapons in the Third Offset Strategy: Avoiding a Nuclear Blind Spot in the Pentagon’s New Initiative.”
- Jan 26: warisboring.com, “America Has a Very Expensive Plan to Replace Very Old Nukes.”
- Jan 21: ISN-ETHZ (Switzerland), “Rumors About Nuclear Weapons in Crimea.” Reprints FAS Strategic Security story with same title.
- Jan 17: The Week, “The dangers of our aging nuclear arsenal.”
- Jan 16, Pavel Podvig, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “What to do about Russian belligerence?”
- Jan: Alexey Arbatov, The ‘P5’ Process: Prospects for Enhancement, Deep Cuts Commission, Deep Cuts Working Paper No. 3, January 2015. Uses FAS estimate of Russian nuclear forces from SIPRI Yearbook.
- Jan 4: The Guardian, “US and Russia in danger of returning to era of nuclear rivalry.”
2014
- Dec 18: The Hill, “Could Russia’s economic meltdown lead to loose nukes?”
- Dec 17: David Wright, The Equation (Union of Concerned Scientists), “Then vs Now: Progress on Nuclear Weapons since the End of the Cold War.”
- Dec 12: SputnikNews.com, “New START Treaty Best Example of US-Russia Cooperation: Expert.”
- Dec 9: nettavisen.no (Norway), “- Nå er det høyere risiko for atomkrig [Now there is increased risk of nuclear war].”
- Dec 9: SputnikNews.com, “US, Russia Should Exclude Use of Nuclear Weapons: Experts.”
- Dec 8: Peter Mauer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, speech to Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons. Uses FAS-NRDC estimate of nuclear alert forces and analysis of slowing of nuclear reductions and widespread nuclear modernizations.
- Dec: Austrian Foreign Ministry, “Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.” Uses FAS estimate for worldwide nuclear weapons.
- Nov 14: CBS News, “Pentagon revamps nuclear arsenal after review finds systemic problems.”
- Nov: Gregory Koblentz, Council on Foreign Relations, “Strategic Stability in the Second Nuclear Age.”
- Nov 1: New York Times, Sunday Review, “Which President Cut the Most Nukes?”
- Oct 29: technowinki.onet.pl (Poland), “Polskie F-16 na nuklearnych ćwiczeniach NATO Steadfast Noon [Polish F-16s in NATO Nuclear Exercise Steadfast Noon.”
- Oct 23: International Relations and Security Network (Switzerland), reproduces blog on New START numbers.
- Oct 17: io9.com, GOP Presidents Are More Likely To Get Rid Of Nukes Than Democrats.”
- Oct 16: Politco, “What I Say, What I do: Doves Want Nuke Cuts Back on the Agenda.” Includes statement and link to blog about stockpile reductions.
- Sep 29: Aftenposten (Norway), “Atomvåpenstater konkurrerer om å modernisere sine våpenarsenal [Nuclear-armed states compete to modernize their nuclear arsenals].”
- Sep 23: New York Times (editorial), “Backsliding on Nuclear Promises.”
- Sep 22: Washington Post, “Pakistan is eying sea-based and short-range nuclear weapons, analysts say.”
- Sep 19: Los Angeles Times, “NATO nuclear drawdown now seems unlikely.”
- Sep 4: njtoday.net, “16,300 nukes still threaten life on earth.”
- Aug 27: Business Insider, “Here’s Where We Think The World’s Nukes Are Stored – And What It Says About Global Security.” A map and a table are available here.
- Aug 19: Aftenposten (Norway), “Pusser opp atomvåpen for 70 milliarder [Refurbish Nuclear Weapons for 70 billion]”.
- Aug 12: Scientific American, “‘Ambiguous’ Warfare Buys Upgrade Time for Russia’s Military.”
- Aug 7: C4ISRnet.com, “China may be developing satellite-killing ability.”
- Aug 6: Truthout.com, “The Cost of Teaching and Old Nuclear Weapon New Tricks.”
- Aug 6: Elizabeth Zolotukhina, SITREP (globalsecurity.org), “Russia’s INF Treaty Violation: More Questions Than Answers.”
- Jul 27: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, “The threat of nuclear annihilation.” Oliver uses my chart of U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles and my blog headline about how many warheads the Obama administration have cut from the stockpile.
- Jul 21: Global Security Newswire, “Senate Bill Mandates Study of Nuclear-Arms Storage Sites.”
- Jul 4: Brescia Today, “Ghedi, 20 bombe atomiche: in case di guerra sganciate dagli italiani [20 bombs at Ghedi: to be dropped by Italy in case of war].”
- Jul 3: Notizie Geopolitiche (Italy), “La Guerra fredda non è mai finita: bombe nucleari sul suolo italiano [The Cold War never ended: nuclear bombs still on Italian soil].”
- Jul 3: Messaggero Veneto (Italy), “‘Le atomiche sono qui’: il satellite lo conferma [“The nukes are there,” the satellite confirms].”
- Jul 2: International Business Times (Italy), “Nucleare, 70 testate presenti sul territorio italiano. A nostre spese [70 nuclear bombs present on Italian soil: At our expense.”
- Jul 2: Dire (Italy), “”In Italia 70 bombe nucleari americane”: è primato europeo [70 American nuclear bombs in Italy is European record].”
- Jul 2: Giornale di Brescia (Italy), “L’Espresso conferma: 20 bombe nucleari a Ghedi [L’Expresso confirms: 20 nuclear bombs are Ghedi].”
- Jul 1: L’Espresso (Italy), “Ecco le 70 bombe nucleari in Italia [There are 70 nuclear bombs in Italy].”
- Jun 26: Christian Science Monitor, “New test could hint at nuclear weapons inspections of the future.”
- Jun 18: Global Security Newswire, “Pyongyang Propaganda Video May Offer Clues on New Cruise Missile.”
- Jun 16: Moscow Times, “U.S. and Russia Determined to Keep Nuclear Weapon Arsenal, SIPRI Says.”
- Jun 16: skynews.com.au, “World nuclear weapons in decline.”
- Jun 15: AFP/Yahoo News, “World’s nuclear arsenal reduction slows down: Stockholm institute.”
- Jun 15: Chicago Tribune, “Fewer bombs, but nuclear states ‘determined’ to keep arsenals, SIPRI.”
- Jun 11: PressTV (Iran), “Leader nuclear fatwa addresses entire world: Analyst.”
- Jun 11: Global Security Newswire, “House Bill Seeks Answers on Costs of NATO Nuclear Burden-Sharing.”
- Jun 9: Uri Misgav, Haaretz, “The nuclear threat to Israel’s economy.”
- Jun 4: P.R. Shari, “India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Stirrings of Change,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
- May: Matthew Wallin, The 21st Century Nuclear Arsenal, American Security Project, May 2014.
- May 1: Zachary Keck, The Diplomat, “State Media: China Can’t Stop the F-35.” Calls my blog on China’s emerging SSBN fleet “in-depth and deeply informative”.
- Apr: Preparing for Deep Cuts: Options for Enhancing Euro-Atlantic Security and International Security, Deep Cuts Commission, April 2014.
- Apr 29: The Guardian, “Risk of nuclear accidents is rising, says report on near-misses.”
- Apr: Patricia Lewis, et al., Too Close for Comfort: Cases of New Nuclear Use and Options for Policy, Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs, April 2014.
- Apr 28: “50 Facts About Nuclear Weapons Today,” Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Brookings.
- Apr 15: Newsweek, “After Ukraine, Countries That Border Russia Start Thinking About Nuclear Deterrents.”
- Apr 12: Praveen Swami, The Hindu, “Dancing with the nuclear djinn.”
- Apr 8: military.com (AP), “US Will Cut Air Force Nuke Missile Force by 50.”
- Apr 8: Wall Street Journal, “Putin Invades, Obama Dismantles.” In addition to being facturally wrong on several points, the opinion piece distorts what I wrote in this blog.
- Mar 6: Global Security Newswire, “Experts See Russian Strides on Nuclear-Force Updates.”
- Mar [no date], indepthnews.org, “NATO and Russia Cought in Nuclear Arms Race.”
- Feb 28: Defense Tech, “Nuclear Bomb Upgrade Could Vilate Treaty.”
- Feb 28: Global Security Newswire, “‘Significant’ Alterations Seen in Updated B-61 Bomb: Report.” This article was also posted in theNational Journal.
- Feb 4: Lauren Caston, et al., The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force, RAND Corporation, February 2014.
- Feb: William S. Murray, “Underwater TELs and China’s Antisubmarine Warfare,” in Peter Dutton, et al (Ed.)., China’s Near Sea Combat Capabilities, U.S. Naval War College, China Maritime Studies, Vol. 11, February 2014.
- Jan 30: De Standard (Belgium), “‘België moet F-35 wel kopen’.”
- Jan 14: Trimming the Bloated Nuclear Weapons Budget, Arms Control Association, Issue Brief Vol. 5, Issue 3, January 14, 2013.
- Jan 12: Great Falls Tribune, “Navy may reduce nuke numbers: Move would give ICBMs breathing room.” Refers to FAS Nuclear Notebook published in the Bulletin of the Atomci Scientists.
- Jan 10: Financial Times, “US Nukes: Now It’s Our Turn to Catch Up to the Russians,” The headline does not reflect what I said in the interview, and the information in the table sourced as the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation appears to be derived fromthis FAS table.
- Jan 9: Seattle Times, “Judge rejects suit to halt dock addition at Trident base.”
- Jan 9: USA Today (Associated Press), “Nuclear launch officers tied to narcotics probe.”
- Jan 9: CBS News, “Chuck Hagel making rare visit to nuclear missile base.”
- Jan 7: Jon Wolfsthal, et al., The Trillion Dollar Nuclear Triad, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, January 2014.
- Jan 7: Defense One, “U.S. Will Start Cutting Its Submarine Missile Launchers Next Year.”
2013
- Dec: Jakob Hedenskog, et al., Russian Military Capability in a Ten-Year Perspective – 2013, Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), December 2013.
- Dec: Michael Krepon and Julia Thomson, Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in SouthAsia, The Stimson Center, December 2013.
- Dec 19: Voice of America: “Chinese Military’s Secret to Success: European Engineering.”
- Dec 17: Lisbeth Grondlund, Union of Concerned Scientists, “How Many Nuclear Weapons Does the U.S. Have? Don’t Ask Congress.”
- Dec 5: ABC News, “Cold War: Putin Talks Tough Over US Arctic Rivalvy.”
- Dec 1: Nikolai Sokov, Arms Control Wonk, “Allegations of Russian Arms Control Cheating are Unfounded, But a Good Reason to Revisit Treaty Options.”
- Nov 21: Global Security Newswire, “Annual U.S. Congress Report on China is Curiously Light on Nuclear Arms Info.”
- Nov 21: Richard Weitz, INS (Switzerland), “Chinese Nuclear Force Modernization and Its Arms Control Implications.”
- Nov 20: Epoch Times, “China’s Nuclear Submarines Are Less Than Advertised.”
- Nov 19: Associated Press, “Nuclear Weapons.” Second graphic (Nuclear World: Coountry Stockpiles and the Doomsday Clock) uses FAS data on wok nuclear stockpiles from our September Nuclear Notebook.
- Nov 10: Voice of Russia, “US to upgrade old nukes in Europe to ‘all-in-one’ bombs.”
- Nov 6: Der Spiegel, “Nuclear Arsenal: US To Turn Old Bombs Into All-Purpose Weapons.”
- Nov 6: Rutland Herald, “Rutland makes China’s best list – as nuke targets.”
- Nov 5: Flashpoints (The Diplomat), “State Media Boasts of China’s Ability to Nuke US Cities.”
- Oct: Gary Schaub, Adjusting the Architecture: Arms Control, Disarmament, and Non-Proliferation in NATO, Centre for Military Studies, University of Copenhagen, October 2013.
- Oct: Global Fissile Material Report 2013, International Panel on Fissile Materials, October 2013.
- Oct: Stephen J. Cimbala, “Missile Defense and Nuclear Deterrence: Moving Deterrence, or Backward?,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Fall 2013, pp. 73-87.
- Oct 22: Information (Denmark), “Eksperter frygter amerikansk atomvåbenulykke [Experts fear U.S. nuclear weapons accident.”
- Oct 18: Der Spiegel, “Militärtechnik: Experten werfen US-Regierung Entwicklung neuer Atomwaffen vor.”
- Oct 10: Reuters, “Western powers talk nuclear disarmament, upgrade what’s left.”
- Oct 3: RIA Novosti, “Slow START: US Increases Deployed Nuclear Forces – Scientists.”
- Oct 3: National Journal, “Updated New START Data Showing Larger U.S. Stockpile Not Alarming: Experts.”
- Oct 3: Slate.com, “The U.S. Increased Its NUclear Forces Over the Last Six Months.”
- Oct 3: Jon Harper, Asahi Shimbun, “Analysis: China’s nuke build-up is a concern, but a nuclear-armed Japan is not the answer.”
- Oct: Don’t Bank on the Bomb: A Global Report on the Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers, IKV Pax Christi & ICAN, October 2013.
- Sep 29: La Tercera (Chile), “Discusión de tema nuclear reabre debate sobre cantidad y seguridad de arsenales.”
- Sep 26: Japan Times, “Iran tries to shift scrutiny to Israeli nuclear weapons.”
- Sep 25: Huffington Post, “Scrutiny Of Iran’s Nuclear Program Likely To Highlight Israel’s Secret Atomic Weapons Stockpile.”
- Sep 25: News-Sentinel (AP), “Iran tries to shine light on Israeli nukes.”
- Sep 22: Ohama World-Herald, “Clock is ticking on aging B61 bomb, StratCom chief says.”
- Sep 20: RT (Russia Today), “UN nuclear meeting rejects Arab push for Israel to join weapons pact.”
- Sep 18: Times of India, “India’s development of ICBMs likely to fuel arms race with China.”
- Sep 18: The Standard (Hong Kong), “Syria and nukes on agenda for Obama-Netanyahu chat.”
- Sep 16: PressTV (Iran), “US report confirms Israel has at least 80 nuclear warheads.”
- Sep 16: Russia Today, “Israel has about 80 nukes, can about tripple inventory – report.”
- Sep 15: La Times, “Israel has 80 nuclear warheads, canmake 115-190 more, report says.”
- Sep 15: Israel Hayom, “‘Israel suspended nuclear weapons production in 2004’.”
- Sep 14: Haaretz (Israel), “Israel froze production of nuclear warheads in 2004, foreign experts say.”
- Sep 13: Mondiaal Nieuws (Belgium), Opinion, “Time to go! Kernwapens weg uit België [TIme to go! Nuclear Weapons Out of Belgium].”
- Sep 13: De Morgen (Belgium), “Boosheid om het geheime kernwapenakkoord van Defensie [Anger about the secret nuclear weapons agreement by defense ministry].”
- Sep 13: De Morgen (Belgium), “Leterme: “Geen weet van modernisering kernwapens [Leterme: No one knows about modernization].”
- Sep 13: RIA Novosti (Germany), “Nato-Länder wollen US-Kernwaffen auf ihrem Territorium modernisieren – Medien [NATO countries want to modernize US nuclear weapons on their territory].”
- Sep 13: De Redactie (Belgium), “‘Mogelijk akkoord staat haaks op alle afspraken’ [‘Possible agreement is contrary to all agreements’].”
- Sep 13: HLN (Belgium), “Kleine Brogel krijgt nieuwe en moderne kernwapens [Kleine Brogel gets new and modern nuclear weapons].”
- Sep 13: Knack (Belgium), “Tegen 2020 worden atoombommen in Kleine Brogel gemoderniseerd [By 2020 the nuclear bombs at Kleine Brogel will be modernized].”
- Sep 13: De Standard (Belgium), “Nieuwe kernwapens voor Kleine Brogel [New nuclear weapons for Kleine Brogel].”
- Sep 13: Mondiaal Nieuws (Belgium), “‘Tegen 2020 worden atoombommen uit Kleine Brogel gemoderniseerd’ [By 2020 atomic bombs from Kleine Brogel modernized].”
- Sep 13: Limburg (Belgium), “Nieuwe kernwapens op militaire basis Kleine-Brogel [New nuclear weapons on Kleine Brogel air base].”
- Sep 13: Le Soir (Belgium), “«De nouvelles armes nucléaires à Kleine-Brogel» [New Nuclear Weapons at Kleine Brogel].”
- Sep: James Acton, Silver Bullet: Asking the Right Questions About Conventional Prompt Global Strike, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2013.
- Sep 12: nos.nl (the Netherlands), “Minister Hennis wil niets zeggen over mogelijke nieuwe kernwapens [Minister Hennis to say anything about possible new nuclear weapons].”
- Sep 12: nos.nl (the Netherlands), “Oppositie: opheldering kernwapens [Opposition: clarification about nuclear weapons].”
- Sep 12: Trouw (the Netherlands), “‘Nederland akkoord met nieuw kernwapen op basis Volkel’ [The Netherlands agree to new nuclear weapons at Volkel Air Base.]”
- Sep 12: Knack (Belgium), “Geheim akkoord over nieuwe kernwapens voor Kleine Brogel [Secret agreement about new nuclear weapons for Kleine Brogel].”
- Sep 12: KRO Brandpunt Reporter (the Netherlands), “De Nederlandse atoombom [The Dutch Nuclear Bomb].”
- Sep 12: DutchNews.nl, “US and NL agreed in 2010 to update nuclear bombs, tv show claims.”
- Sep 3: The Economic Times (India), “Pakistan says it has robust control system for nuclear arsenal.” The article appears to use FAS estimate of approximately 120 Pakistani nuclear weapons, but without giving credit.
- Sep 3: Washington Post, “Top-secret U.S. intelligence files show new levels of distrust of Pakistan.” The article appears to use FAS estimate of approximately 120 Pakistani nuclear weapons, but without giving credit.
- Sep 2: Flashpoint (The Diplomat), “Nuclear Weapons Stockpiles: Past and Present.”
- Aug 28: Omroep Brabant (the Netherlands), “Brandpunt Reporter: ‘Atoombommen Volkel paar keer per jaar heen en weer gevlogen’ [Brandpunt Reporter: ‘Nuclear bombs at Volkel flown back and forth a couple of times a year].”
- Aug 28: Omroep Brabant (the Netherlands), “Angst voor nucleaire ramp Volkel reëel [Fear of nuclear disaster at Volkel real].”
- Aug 25: Tom Nichols (Naval War College), The National Interest, “The Coming Nuclear War with…the Soviet Union?”
- Aug 20: Vladimir Dvorkin, Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, “There Is a Need To Object. INF Treaty — Rudiments of Cold War.”
- Aug 19: Military Times,”Unit that failed nuclear missile inspection raring for second chance.”
- Aug 9: CNN, “The ‘radical’ nuclear missile test that made history.”
- Jul 26: Pavel Zolotarev, et al., “Russia and the USA at the Crossroads: Obama’s Initiatives and Russia’s Reaction,” Russian International Affairs Council, July 26, 2013.
- Jul: Security Briefing Book, Fifth Edition, Truman National Security Project, July, 2013.
- Jul 23: Anniston Star, “Rogers amendment pushes back at Obama nuke cuts.”
- Jul 16: Brookings Institution, Up Front Blog, “Allegations of Russian Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty Violation – Where’s the Beef?”
- Jul 12: Congressional Research Service, “The New START Treaty: Central Limits and Key Provisions.”
- Jul 11: Global Security Newswire, “New Intel Report Mum on Prior Nuclear Estimates.”
- Jul 9: Huntington News, “Still Preparing For Nuclear War.”
- Jul 6: Lawrence Krauss, The New York Times, “Lettin Go of Our Nukes.”
- Jun 30: IDN-InDepthNews, “ObamaMagic is Gone – Caution Outweighs Zeal.”
- Jun 21: Global Security Newswire, “Fresh U.S. Nuclear Guidance Relies on Some Cold War Elements.”
- Jun 20: NBC News, “Obama’s nuke-reduction goal is just the start of a slow process.”
- Jun 19: CNN, “Does cutting U.S. nukes really matter.”
- Jun 19: Washington Times, “In Brandenburg speech, Obama modifies old campaign goal of ‘a world without nuclear weapons.”
- Jun 18: Japan Times, Michael Richardson, “Cruise missile threat in Asia.”
- Jun 5: Daily Mail (AP), “‘Poor leadership, long hours and no career prospects’: U.S. Air Force crews with finger on the trigger of nuclear missiles complain of morale-sapping pressures.”
- Jun 4: US News & World Report, “Buying Submarines in an Age of Austerity.”
- Jun 4: Associated Press, “Nuclear missile crews cite morale-sapping pressures.”
- Jun 4: Asia News Network, “China defends use of nuclear warheads.”
- Jun 4: China Daily, “Warhead stockpile ‘defensive’.”
- Jun 3: Deutche Welle, “Asia countries pile up nuclear arms.”
- Jun 3: Bloomberg, “China’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows as India Matches Pakistan Rise.”
- Jun 3: Times of Israel, “Israel now has 80 nuclear warheads, report says.”
- Jun 3: Times of India, “Nuclear weapons: India keeps pace with Pakistan, but focuses on China.”
- Jun: Arms Control Today, “Pentagon Sees China Progressing on SLBM.”
- May 31: Der Spiegel, “US-Analyse zu Nordkorea: Kims Langstreckenraketen angeblich einsatzbereit.”
- May 30: Global Security Newswire, “North Korea, China Pursuing Nuke-Ready Cruise Missiles: Air Force.”
- May 28: forbes.com, “Nuclear Weapons: How Few Is Too Few?”
- May 16: breakingdefense.com, “Navy Sub Chief Rebuts Critics Claims On SSBN-X; Don’t Cut Our Boats.”
- May 16: Rear Adm. Richard Beckenridge, “Navy Responds to Debate Over the Size of the SSBN Force,” Navy Live, May 16, 2013. The director of the U.S. Navy Undersea Warfare office responds to my blog about U.S. SSBN deterrent patrols.
- May 8: Eastasia Review, “Russia Bidding Farewell To Soviet Nukes – Analysis.”
- May 7: Scientific American, “U.S. Nuclear Warheads Set to Get a Facelift.”
- May 7: Nature, “US warheads to get facelift.”
- May 3: Frank Pabian, “Making discoveries in virtual worlds via the Cloud,” Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, May 3, 2013.
- May 3: The Diplomat, “Could New SSBN Program ‘Sink’ U.S. Navy?”
- May: Michael D. Swaine, et al., China’s Military & the U.S.-Japan Alliance in 2030, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 2013.
- Apr: Stephanie Spies and John Warden, Forging a Consensus for a Sustainable U.S. Nuclear Posture, Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 2013.
- Apr 21: The Guardian, “Obama acused of nuclear U-turn as guided weapons plan emerges.”
- Apr 18: Barry Watts, Nuclear-Conventional Firebreaks and the Nuclear Taboo, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, April 18, 2013.
- Apr 13: Wall Street Journal, “U.S.-China Nuclear Silence Leaves a Void.” Uses FAS estimate of Chinese nuclear forces.
- Apr 12: Huffington Post (Reuters), “‘Speculative’ Pentagon Report on North Korea’s Nuclear Missile Sparks Fear as Officials Urge Skepticism.”
- Apr 11: armscontrolwonk.com, “For your (North Korea) reading pleasure.”
- Apr 11: Reuters, “Pentagon says North Korea can likely launch nuclear missile.”
- Apr 10: Congressional Research Service, “Next Steps in U.S. Arms Control With Russia: Issues for Congress.”
- Apr: Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, Implementation of the Conclusions and Recommendations for Follow-On Actions Adopted at the 2010 NPT Review Conference: Disarmament Actions 1-11, 2013 Monitoring Report, Monterey Institute, April 2013.
- Apr 2: DefenseTech.org, “Blast hints at North Korea’s nuke.”
- Apr: Alexei Arbatov and Vladimir Dvorkin, The Great Strategic Triangle, Carnegie Moscow Center, April 2013.
- Mar: Fact Sheet: Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories in 2013, The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
- Mar 21: CNN World, “Nuclear weapons: Who has what?”
- Mar 14: Wired, “That’s No Train! Air Force Eyes Subway For Nuclear Missiles.”
- Mar 12, Nuclear Weapons and U.S.-China Relations, Center for Strategic and Internaitonal Studies, March 2013.
- Mar 7: IISS Voices, “Why China sent its aircraft carrier to Qingdao.”
- Mar 6: Andrew F. Krepinevich, “U.S. Nuclear Requirements in an Era of Defense Austerity,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, testimony before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces.
- Mar 6: The Diplomat, “For America’s Military: Less Nukes.”
- Mar 4: Washington Post, “Budget cuts and bombs.” Uses “85 percent” eduction, which for U.S. stockpile appears to come from this FAS article.
- Mar 1: Turkey Wonk, “The Sequester and Future Nuclear Weapons in Turkey.”
- Feb 27, Global Security Newswire, “Nuclear Arms Count Might Have Fallen by Hundreds Under Obama.”
- Feb 26: Global Zero, “Get the Facts.” The newly revamped web site appears to use FAS estimates for world nuclear forces, but without credits.
- Feb 22: Jonathan Medalia, et al., Nuclear Weapons R&D Organizations in Nine Nations, Congressional Research Service, February 22, 2013.
- Feb 21: Eurasia Review, “High-Alert Nukes As If The Cold War Didn’t End – Analysis.”
- Feb 17: Eurasia Review, “Managing India’s Missile Aspirations – Analysis.”
- Feb 15: American Security Blog Flashpoint Blog, “A Nuclear Arsenal for the 21st Century.”
- Feb 14: Global Security Newswire, “Russia Might Still Use Sea-Fired Nuclear Cruise Missiles.”
- Feb 14: David Hoffman, Foreign Policy, “Sounds of Silence.”
- Feb 14: LiveScience, “Experts: North Korea Years From a Bomb.”
- Feb 14: nuclear-news.net, “Cutting down on risk of nuclear weapons that are on alert.”
- Feb 13: Foreign Policy, “How does America’s nuclear arsenal stack up against North Korea’s?”
- Feb 12: TV-2 Nyhederne at 22:00 Hours (Denmark).
- Feb 12: New York Times, “A Secretive Country Gives Countries Few Clues to Judge Its Nuclear Program.”
- Feb 8: R. Jeffrey Smith, Center for Public Integrity, “Obama administration embraces major new nuclear weapons cuts.”
- Jan 26: PRESSTV (Iran), “Obama against chinese nuclear great wall.”
- Jan 25: Discovery News, “3 Reasons N. Korea Can’t Nuke the U.S. (Yet).”
- Jan 22: David Hoffman, Foreign Policy, “Is nuclear arms control dead?”
- Jan 18: Times of India (TNN), “Pakistan has world’s fastest growing nuclear stockpile.”
- Jan 17: Steven Pifer, “Nuclear Arms Control: Another New START,” in Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Brook, Brookings Institution, January 17, 2013. The chaprter uses FAS estimates in Trimming Nuclear Excess for U.S. and Russian nuclear forces.
- Jan 13: actualidad.rt.com (Russia Today in Spanish), “Pánico nuclear: EE.UU. busca neutralizar el revelado arsenal atómico de China.”
- Jan 9: Financial Times, “The Price of Deterrence.” The interactive graphics (“The Trident decision: Options for replacing Trident“) uses FAS estimates for world nuclear forces from SIPRI Yearbook. Note: the estimates have since been updated here.
- Jan 6: Defense News, “New U.S. Law Seeks Answers on Chinese Nuke Tunnels.”
2012
- Dec 25: bloomberg.com (editorial), “Better Nuclear Bombs for a Safer World.” Refers to my B61-12 blog as an example of “well meaning but misguided” arms control advocates.
- Dec 20: Jeffrey Lewis, armcsontrolwonk.com, “Subcritical Experiments.”
- Dec 18: Global Security Newswire, “Russia, U.S. Slow Rate of Nuclear Drawdowns, Report Says.”
- Dec 18: Independent European Daily Express (UK), “Rate of U.S., Russian Nuclear Disarmament ‘slowing’.”
- Dec 17: Washington Post, “How many nukes does it take to be safe?”
- Dec 14: freebeacon.com, “Number the Nukes.”
- Dec 6: swissinfo.ch, “Swiss engange in UN disarmament effort.”
- Nov: Ramy Srour, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons: B61 Bombs and US-Russian Relations,” Instituto di Ricerche Internationazionali, Archivio Disarmo, November 2012.
- Nov 15: Global Secuity Newswire, “U.S. Should Seek Nuke Talks With China, Congressional Report Says.”
- Nov 14: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2012 Report to Congress.
- Nov 13: Popular Mechanics, “What China’s Nuclear Missile Subs Mean for the U.S.”
- Nov 13: Tom Z. Collina, Foreign Policy, “Red Balloon: Is China Inflating the China Threat.”
- Nov 7: Dunya Buletini (Turkey), “Almanya’da ABD nükleer bombaları korkutuyor! [U.S. nuclear bomb scares in Germany].”
- Nov 6: MDR (Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk) FAKT (Germany), “US-Atombomben in Deutschland nicht brandsicher” [U.S. nuclear weapons in Germany not fireproof]. Direct link to television program.
- Oct: Frank Miller, “The Need for a Strong U.S. Deterrent in the 21st Century,” The Submarine Industrial Base Council, n.d. [2012].
- Oct 22: politifact.com, “Mitt Romney says Pakistan is on path to overtake the U.S. in nuclear weapons.”
- Oct 12: Steven Pifer and Michael O’Hanlon, The Opportunity: Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms, Brookings Institution, October 12, 2012.
- Oct 14: Guardian (global security blog), “Cuba 50 years on – and the lessons for Iran.”
- Oct 12: New Scientists, “Threatwatch: Can we really spot covert nuclear tests?”
- Oct 12: scienceblog.com, “New Weapons Detail Reveals True Depth of Cuban Missile Crisis.”
- Oct 9: RIA Novosti, “NATO Members to Discuss Alliance’s Nuclear Policy.” Uses FAS estimate of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe but doesn’t credit.
- Oct 4: DiscoveryNews, “What’s up with Israel’s Nuke Program.”
- October: Critical Nuclear Choices for the Next Administration, American Security Project, October 2012.
- Oct 3: Project on Government Secretary, “Inspector General Warns of Budget Overruns in Nuke Refurbishment.”
- Oct 3: Voice of America (Moscow), “США и Россия раскрыли ядерные карты.”
- Oct 2: Albuquerque Journal, “Report: Nuke Refurbishing Behind Scedule.”
- Sep 25: Global Security Newswire, “Five Nations Believed to Hold Nonstrategic Nuclear Bombs, Experts Say.”
- Sep 19: Discovery News, “What is mystery weapon from 1981?”
- Sep 16: Washingon Post, “The B61 bomb: A case study in costs and needs.”
- Sep 13: Inside the Pentagon, “State Department’s Draft Report on Nuclear-Arsenal Cuts Prompts Debate.” Requires subscription.
- Sep 13: Global Security Newswire, “Seeking Kremlin Engagement, NATO Weighs Next Nuclear Posture Steps.”
- Sep 12: Arms Control Now (Oliver Meier), “No german pledge on nuclear-capable aircraft modernization.”
- Sep 7: Global Security Newswire, “Chinese Communist Newspaper Urges Bolstering Nuclear Deterrent.”
- Sep 5: Foreign Policy (Tom Hundley), “Race to the End.” Uses FAS estimate for the number of Chinese nuclear warheads but doesn’t credit.
- Sep 5: Pakistan Tribune, “India far behind Pakistan, China in nuclear technology: experts.” The article refers to our 2012 Nuclear Notebook on India but the headline hypes what we say in the article.
- Sep 4: India Today, “India’s nuclear arsenal failed by ‘unreliable’ missiles.” The article refers to our 2012 Nuclear Notebook on India but the headline is misleading for what we actually say in the article.
- Sep 3: Daily Mail Online (India), “India’s nuclear arsenal failed by ‘dud’ missiles.” The article refers to our 2012 Nuclear Notebook on India but the headline is misleading for what we actually say in the article.
- Aug 31: armscontrolwonk.com (Michael Krepon), “Worth the Wait.”
- Aug 27: Foreign Policy (Stephen Walt), “Inflating the China Threat.” Uses FAS estimate for the number of Chinese nuclear warheads but doesn’t credit.
- Aug 23: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. General Discounts Projections of Massive Chinese Nuke Stockpile.”
- Aug 23: Washington Free Beacon, “Chinese missile tests continue.”
- Aug 22: Global Seurity Newswire, “Jury Out: Do Advanced Conventional Weapons Make Nuclear War More Likely?”
- Aug 19: Washington Post (editorial), “Exploding Costs.”
- Aug 8: IDN-InDepthNews, “Halting Pakistan-India Nuclear Arms Race.”
- Aug 6: Aviation Week & Space Technology, “Nuclear Bomb’s Cost Increases Draw Congressional Scrutiny.”
- Aug 3: Global Security Newswire, “Pentagon Official Blames U.S. Bomb Cost Hike on ‘Incomplete’ DOD Agency Estimate.”
- Aug 3: China Brief (Jamestown Foundation), “Waypoint or Destination? The Jin-Class Submarine and China’s Quest for Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrence.”
- Aug 1: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Senate Panel Curbs Navy Efforts to Add Missile to Attack Submarines.”
- Jul 24: Economic Times (India), “India currently has 80 to 100 nuclear warheads: US esperts.”
- Jul 11: huffingtonpost.com, “Los Alamos Underestimates Radiaiton Leak Risk.”
- Jun 18: Washington Post blog, “West cuts nuclear warheads as it negotiates with Iran.” Uses FAS estimates produced for SIPRI.
- Jun 14: Times of India, “PM takes stock of nuclear arsenal.” Uses FAS estimates produced for SIPRI.
- Jun 6: Deuche Welle, “SIPRI report shows fewer – but newer – nuclear weapons.’ Uses FAS estimates produced for SIPRI.
- Jun 6: William Hartung and Christine Anderson, Bombs Versus Budgets: Inside the Nuclear Weapons Lobby (Center for INtwernational Policy, June 2012).
- Jun 5: Press TV (India), “2200 nuclear weapons in state of high operational alert: Report.”
- Jun 5: The Telegraph, “India and Pakistan ‘escalate nuclear arms race’.” Uses data from 2012 SIPRI Yearbook.
- Jun 4: Der Spiegel, “`Atomwaffen werden weniger – und moderner” [Fewer nuclear weapons – and more modern].Uses worldwide overview of nuclear forces from latest SIPRI yearbook.
- May 23: SES Turkey, “Turkey Supports Nuclear Status Quo in NATO.”
- May 16: Der Spiegel, “US Nuclear Weapons Upgrades: Experts Report Massive Cost Increase.”
- May 12: armscontrolwonk.com, Extending Deterrence from the Triad.”
- May 11: Global Security Newswire, “B-61 Bomb Project Expense Projection Hits $6 Billion, Report Says,”
- May 11: Miles Pomper, et al., “Delaying Decisions: NATO’s Deterrence and Defense Posture Review,” NTI, May 11, 2012.
- May: Ted Seay, “Escalation by Default: The Future of NATO Nuclear Weapons in Europe,” European Leadership Network, May 2012.
- May 11: Global Security Newswire, “NATO Should Use Summit to Address U.S. Tactical Nukes in Europe, Experts Say.”
- May 10: Global Security Newswire, “Cost Worries Could Derail Plan for Next Bomber to be Unmanned, General Says.”
- May 10: Paul Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin, Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues, Congressional Reserarch Service, May 10, 2012.
- May 8: David Hoffman, “The little nukes that got away – again,” Foreign Policy.
- May 4: Haaretz (Israel), “Israel’s atomic arsenal could fall victim to a new U.S. nuclear policy.”
- May 4: defpro.daily, “Steps Needed to Break Stalemate on Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons.”
- May 4: Nato Watch, “Moving Beyond the NUclear tatus Quo in Europe.”
- Apr: S. Samuel C. Rajiv, Deterrence in the Shadow of Terror: US Nuclear Policy in the Aftermath of 9/11, Institute for Defence Studies & Analysis (India).
- Apr 27: Saarländische Zeitung (online), Germany, “Atomwaffenexpert zu Besuch in Berlin.”
- Apr 17: huffingtonpost.com, “ICBM Coalition Of Rural Senators Fights Nuclear Weapons Cuts.”
- Apr: George Perkovich, et al., Looking Beyond the Chicago Summit: Nuclear Weapons in Europe and the Future of NATO, Carnegie Endowment, April 2012.
- Mar 27: huffingtonpost.com, “Barack Obama’s Broken Nuclear Promises Undermine Success.”
- Mar 26: BBC News, “Which countries have nuclear weapons.”
- Mar 15: Jeffrey Lewis, armscontrolwonk.com, “Honest Johns in Korea.”
- Mar 15: huffingtonpost.com, “Meet the Bangor 5.”
- Feb: Toby Fenwick, Dropping the Bomb: a post Trident future, CentreForum, February 2012.
- Feb 27, Boston Globe, “Smart Nuclear Reduction,” The opinion piece appears to rely on my blog about republican disarmers but it confuses warhead catories and the warhead numbers are off.
- Feb 22: Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues,” February 22, 2012.
- Feb 22: Bradenton Herald (McClatchy-Tribune News Service), “Just how many nuclear weapons should be enough?”
- Feb 18: National Public Radio (AP), “Boldest Nuclear Cutters Recently? It’s Been GOP.” Also carried in Seattle Times and Pakistan’sDaily Times.
- Feb 17: James Traub, Foreign Policy, “Fumbling the Nuclear Football.”
- Feb 15: Mother Jones, “Nuclear Weapons on a Highway Near You.” Advised the magazine on locations on nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered naval vessels.
- Feb 14: Congressional Reseaech Service, Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, February 14, 2012.
- Feb 14: Associated Press, “AP NewsBreak: US weighing steep nuclear arms cuts.”
- Feb 6: Adam Weinstein, Mother Jones, “Obama’s Golden Nuclear Option.”
- Feb: Addressing Nonstrategic Nuclear Forces, Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative, Carnegie Endowment, February 2010.
- Jan 29: Pervez Hoodbhoy, The Tribune (Pakistan), “Pakistan’s rush for more bombs – why?”
- Jan 27: Global Security Newswire, “Pentagon Unveils New Plan for Conventional Submarine-Based Ballistic Missile.”
- Jan 25: Voice of America, “Обама: политика экономики” [Obama: The Politics of Economics].
- Jan 20: Arms Control Association panel, “Briefing on the Future of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal: Issues and Policy Options.”
- Jan 19: Stephen Pifer, “Nuclear Arms Control in 2012,” Brookings Institution, January 2012.
- Jan 19: military.com, “New Strategy Could Presage Smaller US Nuclear Arsenal.”
- Jan 18: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Energy Department Plans to Waste Billions of Dollars on Unneeded Los Alamos Lab Facility, Project on Government Oversight, January 18, 2012.
- Jan 16: Indian Express, “Nukes only for strategic purpose: Army chief.”
- Jan 8: Seattle Times, “Plan for new Navy wharf at Bangor fires up nuke debate.”
2011
- Dec 20: Reuters, “Timeline on Iran bomb narrows, but barely.”
- Dec 19: Washington Post, “Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.” The graphic, which accompanies this article, uses FAS estimates of worldwide nuclear weapons inventories.
- Dec 13: Vox Populi, “Professor’s study on China’s nuclear arsenal draws heated reaction.”
- Dec 2: AFP, “US experts skeptical over China nucler force report.”
- Nov 30: Washington Post, “Georgetown students shed light on China’s tunnel system for nuclear weapons.”
- Nov 30: Vatan (Turkey), “‘Türk nükleer bombaları’ Ceylan taşıyacak.”
- Nov 28: Haberturk (Turkey), “Türkiye’deki nükleer silah sayısı azaldı” [Reduction of Nuclear Weapons in Turkey].
- Nov 23: Washington Post, “Medvedev threatens to target US missile shield in Europe if no deal is reached.”
- Nov 8: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Blueprint for New Nuclear Arms Cuts Expected by Year’s End.”
- Nov 4: Fact Sheet: U.S. Nuclear Modernization Programs, Arms Control Association. Uses FAS estimate on U.S. nuclear force levels without giving credit.
- Nov 4: Global Security Newswire, “China Seen Deploying New Nuke-Ready Ballistic Missiles.”
- Nov 4: Times of India, “Panic over China’s four new nuclear missiles.”
- Oct 30: Ian Kerns, Beyond the United Kingdom: Trends in the Other Nuclear Armed States, Discussion Paper 1 of the BASIC Trident Commission, October 30, 2011.
- Oct 28: Proceso (Mexico), “Estados Unidos: Adiós a la bomba B53″ [United States: Good Bye to the B53 bomb].
- Oct 28: Global Security Newswire, “Some Nuclear Experts Question Ramp-up in U.S. Tritium Production.”
- Oct 27: Washington Post, “U.S. keeps major lead over Russia in nuclear weapons.”
- Oct 26: Voice of America, “US-Russian nuclear surprises.”
- Oct 26: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Release New START Nuke Data.”
- Oct 26: military.com (Associated Press), “Biggest US Nuclear Bomb Dismantled in Texas.”
- Oct 26: USA Today, “U.S.-made ‘monster’ nuclear warhead B53 dismantled.”
- Oct 25: National Public Radio, “Cold War Bomb to be Dismantled.”
- Oct 25: Ekstra Bladet (Denmark), “Splitter verdens kraftigste atombombe ad” [Taking apart the world’s largest nuclear bomb].
- Oct 25: ABC News, “US dismantles last of big Cold War nuclear bombs.”
- Oct 25: Fox News (Associated Press), “US’s most powerful nuclear bomb being dismantled.”
- Oct 25: AFP, “US dismantles last big Cold War nuclear bomb.”
- Oct 25: San Francisco Chronicle (Associated Press), “US’s most powerful nuclear bomb being dismantled.”
- Oct 25: Daily Mail (UK). “Dismantling the mega-nuke.”
- Oct: Fiona Cunningham and Rory Medcalf, The Dangers of Denial: Nuclear Weapons in China-India Relations, Lowy Institute, October 2011.
- Oct 24: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. to Finish Disassembling Massive Nukes.”
- Oct 24: wired.com (Danger Room), “Last Nuclear ‘Monster Weapon’ Gets Dismantled.”
- Oct 24: Wall Street Journal, “How many nukes does China have?”
- Oct 17: Global Security Newswire, “Experts Divided on Impact to U.S. of Russia, China Nuke Modernization.”
- Oct 11: Huffington Post, “Global Zero Nuclear Summit Aims to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons Worldwide.”
- 2011: Ola Dahlman, et al., Detect and Deter: Can Countries Verify the Nuclear Test Ban (New York: Springer, 2011).
- Oct 3: IDN-InDepthNews.info (India), “Nuke-Free World Optimism Fading Away.”
- Sep 20: Albuquerque Journal, “Upgrading a Nuke With No Test Drive.
- Sep 20: Global Security Newswire, “Experts Question Indications of U.S. Nuclear “Hedge” Force Cuts.
- Sep 20: International Business Times, “China Launches Anti-Missile Military Weapon Raises Queries from Pentagon.”
- Sep 16: Albuquerque Journal, “The more qwe change our stockpile, the less we know it.
- Sep 13: New Scientists, “Laser fusion trio team up to develop clean power.”
- Sep: James Acton and Michael Gerson, Beyond New START: Advancing U.S. National Security Through Arms Control with Russia, Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 2011.
- Sep: Fissile Materials Working Group, interactive map. Uses estimates generated by FAS for world nuclear weapons arsenals and reproduced by the Ploughshares Fund and in the SIPRI Yearbook.
- Aug 23: Michael Krepon, armscontrolwonk.com, “Fail Safe.”
- Aug: Oliver Meier, Revising NATO’s Nuclear Posture: The Way Forward (ACA, BASIC, IFSH, August 2011).
- Aug 9: ABC Late NIght (Australia), interview on the occasion of Nagazaki Day.
- Aug 5: ABC One Plus One (Australia), interview on the occasion of Hiroshima Day.
- Aug 5: Lowy Institute (Australia), “5-minute Lowy Lunch: Obama’s nukes.”
- Aug 2: Dr. Phillip Karber, China’s Underground Great Wall: Challenge for Nuclear Arms Control, Asia Arms Control Project, Georgetown University, August 2, 2011.
- Jul 28: Asian Scientist, “Report by Atomic Scientists Underscore Rise of Pakistan’s Nuclear Program.”
- Jul 20: Global Security Newswire, “Experts: NATO Should Limit Role of Nukes, Remove U.S. Warheads.”
- Spring 2011: Pavel Podvig, Russia’s Nuclear Forces: Between Disarmament and Modernization, IFRI, July 2011.
- Jul 8: Global Security Newswire, “Mullen: Pakistani Nuclear Controls Should Avert Any Insider Threat.”
- Jul 7: DailyIndia.com (ANI), “‘Politically Unstable’ Pakistan has world’s fastest-growing nuclear stockpile: Experts.”
- Jul 1: Global Security Newswire, “Pakistan Seen as Having Fastest Expanding Nuke Stockpile.”
- Jul 1: Indian Express, “Pak has fastest growing n-arsenal: US study.”
- Jun: Joseph Cirincione, Strategic Turn: New U.S. and Russian Views on Nuclear Weapons, New America Foundation, June 2011.
- Jun 29: CNN (Situation Room), “Iran Testing Potential Nuclear Missile?”
- Jun 28: Andrew Cottey, Multilaterizing Nuclear Arms Control: An Agenda for the P5, BASIC, June 28, 2011.
- Jun 25: Scientific American, “Is Karazai’s Accusation that Coalition Forces are Polluting Afghanistan with Nuclear Material Accurate or an Over-Reaction?”
- Jun 20: Ariel Cohen, et al., “Reset Regret: Obama’s Cols War-Style Arms Control Undermines U.S.-Ruissian Relations,” Heritage Foundation. Uses but misrepresents our estimate from January 2010 of Russian nuclear forces by suggesting, which we don’t, that Russia has nuclear artillery shells and and nuclear land mines. Our 2011 estimate is available here.
- Jun: Bruce Blair and Matthew Brown, World Spending on Nuclear Weapons Surpasses $1 Trillion Per Decade, Nuclear Weapons Cost Study, Global Zero Technical Report, June 2011.
- Jun 16: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Nuke Overhaul Seen Adding New Abilities.”
- Jun 16: inosmi.ru (Bloomberg), ” Модернизация ядерных бомб может разозлить Россию [Modernization of nuclear bomb may irritate Russia].”
- Jun 15: Bloomberg, “Nuclear Bomb Overhaul May Counter Obama Pledge, Anger Russia.”
- June: Shaun Gregory, “Terrorist Tactics in Pakistan Threaten Nuclear Weapons Safety,” in CTC Sentinel, Vol. 4, Issue 6, pp. 4-7.
- Jun 8: The Australian, “South Asia nuclear weapons race hots up.”
- Jun 7: livemint.com (Wall Street Journal), “India, Pakistan continue to build nuclear weapons capacity: report.” Uses data from new SIPRI Yearbook.
- Jun 3: Voice of Russia, “START-3 Interim Report.”
- Summer 2011: Col David J. Baylor, USAF, “Considerations for a US Nuclear Force Structure below a 1,000-Warhead Limit,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Summer 2011, Vol. 5, No. 2, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL.
- Jun 1: Global Security Newswire, “Pakistan Seen Readying to Cross Nuclear Threshold.”
- May 29: Times of India, “Short-range nukes show Pak targeting Indian forces: Expert.”
- May 27: Baker Spring and Ariel Cohen, Beware the Next U.S.-Russian Arms Control Treaty, Heritage Foundation, May 27, 2011.
- May 24: India Today, “How safe is Pak nuclear arsenal?”
- May 21: The Sydney Morning Herald, “India may axpand nuclear program, says top adviser.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate of Indian nuclear stockpile but without credits.
- May 20: National Journal, “U.S. Nuclear Agency Releases Strategic Plan for Next Decade.”
- May 19: Global Security Newswire, “Former officials call for U.S., Russian nuclear transparency.”
- May 16: Gregory Kulacki, China’s Nuclear Arsenal: Status and Evolution, Union of Concerned Scientists, allthingsnuclear.org.
- May 15: Newsweek, “Pakistan’s Nucear Surge.”
- May 8, Times of India, “China least potent among N-powers, says Harvard study.” Uses but does not credit FAS/NRDC estimate of Chinese nuclear arsenal.
- May 5: Reuters, “Analysis: Count bin Laden have Reached Pakistan Nuclear Sites?”
- May 4: U.S. Strategic Nucler Forces: Background, Developments and Issues, Congressional Research Service, May 4, 2011.
- Apr: Steven Pifer, The United States, NATO’s Strategic Concept, and Nuclear Issues, ACA/BASIC/IFSH, April 2011.
- Apr: Mustafa Kibaroglu, Turkey, NATO & Nuclear Sharing: Prospects After NATO’s Lisbon Summit, ACA/BASIC/IFSH, April 2011.
- Apr 26: Time Magazine Battleland Blog, “NATO’s Nuclear Weapons: Here to Stay.”
- Apr 7: Gobal Security Newswire, U.S. Nuke Technology to Make British Trident Missile More Accurate.” The article makes use of, but doesn’t credit, information first published on the FAS Strategic Security Blog.
- Apr 6: Guardian, “Trident more effective with US arming device, tests suggest.” The article makes use of, but doesn’t credit, information first published on the FAS Strategic Security Blog.
- Apr 2: Julian Borger’s Global Security Blog (The Guardian), “‘Destabilizing’ Trident warhead already being tested in US,”
- Mar: Alexei Arbatov, Gambit or Endgame? The New State of Arms Control, Carnegie Endowment, Moscow, March 2011.
- Mar: James Acton, Low Numbers: A Ptractical Path to Deep Nuclear Reductions, Carnegie Endowment, Washington, D.C., March 2011.
- Mar 31: Defence Professionals, “Report: What NATO Countries Think About Tactical Nukes.”
- Feb: Fredrik Lindvall, et al., The Baltic Approach: A Next Step? Prospects for an Arms Control Regime for Sub-strategic Nuclear Weapons in Europe, Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), February 2011.
- Feb 21: Andrei Zargorski, Russian Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Posture, Politics and Arms Control, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, University of Hamburg, February 2011.
- Feb 19: Korea Joongang Daily, “U.S. has plan to hit WMD in north.” The article in several places misrepresents my 2009 reportObama and the Nuclear War Plan.
- Feb 10: Associated Press, “Expert: Pakistan building 4th plutonium reactor.”
- Feb 7: AFP, “Russia rebuffs U.S. call for quick arms talk.” Includes grap using FAS/NRDC estimates, but confuses “stockpiled” and “deployed” number of weapons.
- Feb 4: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Navy Rejected Key Command’s Specs for Next Nuclear-Armed Vessel.”
- Feb 2: Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, Congressional Research Service.
- Feb 1: The Times of India, “At 100, Pak ahead in N-arsenal.”
- Jan 31: Voice of America, “Report Says Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal Tops 100.”
- Jan 30: Washington Post, “Pakistan doubles its nuclear arsenal.”
- Jan 19: AFP, “Russian puts brakes on further nuclear cutbacks.”
- Jan 16: Global Security Newswire, “Tactical Nukes in Europe a ‘Tiny Fraction” of Cold War Arsenal, Report Says.”
- Jan 14: Global Security Newswire, “Top Diplomat Says Arms Control Revived After New START Passage.”
- Jan 12: Associated Press, “Gates gets tour of Chinese nuclear base.”
- Jan 6: Global Security Newswire, “China Reaffirms ‘No First Use’ Nuke Role.”
2010
- Dec 29: Global Fissile Material Report 2010: Balancing the Books, International Panel on Fissile Materials.
- Dec 25: Washington Post, “Military strength eludes China, which looks overseas for arms.”
- Dec 22, monstersandcritics.com (DPA), “Analysis: New START offers ‘modest’ nuclear reductions.”
- Dec 22: New York Times, “Senate Works on Treaty Amendments to Draw G.O.P. Votes.”
- Dec 22, Washington Post, “Senate poised to ratify new U.S.-Russia nuclear weapons treaty; vote would be major foreign-policy victory for Obama” (uses FAS/NRDC estimates in graph).
- Dec 22: Wall Street Journal, “Nuclear Arms Pact is Poised to Pass.”
- Dec 21: New York Times, “Arms Treaty With Russia Headed to Ratification.”
- Dec 21: Global Security Newswire, “Navy Said Likely to Back New Design for Ballistic Missile Submarine.”
- Dec 20: Miami Herald (McClatchy Newspapers), “McConnell slams START, but facts don’t back him up.”
- Dec 19: Senator John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on New START. Uses FAS/NRDC estimates of Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons.
- Dec 16: redorbit.com, “Federation of American Scientists Urges Nuclear Weapons Treaty Before New Year.”
- Dec 15: Senator Dianne Feinstein, “New START Treaty,” Congressional Record.
- Dec 9, Bob Alvarez, The Huffington Post, “Time for Nuclear Savings Bonds?”
- Dec 1: CNN, “WikiLeaks: Heated debate in Germany over nuclear weapons on its soil.”
- Dec: Michael Izbicki (ENS, USN), “What’s Wrong with America’s Nuclear Hawks?,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Winter 2010, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 134-143.
- Nov 30: Voice of America (Russia), “Гонка вооружений: старая угроза на новый лад [The arms race: the old threat in a new way].”
- Nov 27: Kitsap Sun, “Navy’s Trident Nuclear Warheads Hit the Highway, Bound for Texas.”
- Nov 26: Information (Denmark), “Obama må begrave sin vision om en atomvåbenfri verden” [Obama must bury his vision of a nuclear free world].
- Nov 24: Global Security Newswire, “NATO Sets Basis for Tactical Nuclear Cutbacks, But Path Remains Uncertain.”
- Nov 21: Julian Borger’s Global Security Blog, The Guardian, “NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons: the new doctrine.”
- Nov 20, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Los Angeles Times, “Indefensible.”
- Nov 19, New York Times, “Cost and Goals at Center of Arms Treaty Debate.”
- Nov 19: James Traub, Foreign Affairs, “The Bomb Squad.”
- Nov 11: The Economist, “Fewer dragons, more snakes.”
- Nov 11: A. H. Nayyar and Zia Mian, The Limited Military Utility of Pakistan’s Battlefield Use of Nuclear Weapons in Response to Large Scale Indian Conventional Attack, Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU), Brief NUmber 61, November 11, 2011.
- Nov 10: David Hoffman, Foreign Affairs, “The Nuclear Excess.”
- Nov: Micah Zenco, Toward Deeper Reductions in U.S. and Russian Nuclear Weapons (Council on Foreign Relations, November 2010).
- Nov: Jeffrey Lewis, Managing the Dangers from Pakistan’s Nuclear Stockpile (New America Foundation, November 2010).
- Oct 28: Russia Today, “Oops! US Air Force Looses 50 Nukes.”
- Oct 28: USA Today, “‘Glitch’ took US nuclear missiles offline.”
- Oct 14: The Guardian, “Germany demands Nato show greater commitment to nuclear disarmament.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe without credits.
- Oct 12: Global Security Newswire, “NATO Defense, Diplomatic Chiefs to Mull Strategy Document.”
- Oct 10: The Telegraph, “Pakistan’s nuclear arms push angers America.”
- Oct 7: Time Magazine, “NATO Ponders What to Do with Its Nuclear Weapons.”
- Sep 30: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. May Disable Some Submarine-Based Nuclear Arms Capacity.”
- Sep 27: Global Security Newswire, “Proposed Ballistic-Missile Submarine Nears Pentagon Review.”
- Sep 27: Fred Kaplan, Time Magazine, “No More Nukes?”
- Sep 22: Global Security Newswire, “Senate Panel Again Cuts Funds for Conventional Trident Missile.”
- Sep 14: Global Security Newswire, “NNSA Chief Sees Opportunity, Challenge in Merging Two Warhead Updates.”
- Sep 1: Bruce Blair, et al., “Smaller and Safer: A New Plan for Nuclear Postures,” Foreign Affairs, Technical Appendix, September 1, 2010, p. 56.
- Aug 26: Steven Andreasen, Malcolm Chalmers and Isabelle Williams, “NATO and Nuclear Weapons: Is a New Consensus Possible?,” RUSI, August 24, 2010.
- Aug 26: Jacob Kipp, “Russian Drivers of Russia’s Nuclear Force Posture,” NPEC, August 26, 2010.
- Aug: Samuel Black, “The Changing Political Utility of Nuclear Weapons: Nuclear Threats from 1970 to 2010,” Stimson Center, August 2010.
- Aug 17: Global Security Newswire, “Nations Look Increasingly to U.S. Conventional Forces for Deterrence.”
- Aug 10: Global Security Newswire, “Future Navy Submarine to Stick With Nuclear Mission.”
- Aug 8: Times of India, “India lags behind Pakistan in nuclear armoury: US expert.”
- Aug 6: Moeed Yusuf and Ashley Pandya, The Quest for Nuclear Disarmament in South Asia: A Reality Check, United States Institute for Peace, August 6, 2010.
- Aug 2: Times of India (TNN), “Pak has as much fissile material as India: Report.”
- Jul 30: Time, “Britain Takes Another Look at Its Nuclear Subs.”
- Jul 16: Jane’s Defence Weekly, “US nuclear stewardship plan could herald stockpile reduction.”
- Jul 15: Washington Post, “Obama plan outlines reductions in U.S. nuclear arsenal.”
- Jul 15: Los Angeles Times, “U.S. plans to increase nuclear spending.”
- Jul 15: China Post (Taiwan), “Obama plans to cut up to 40 percent of nukes in U.S.”
- Jul 14, Baltimore Sun Blog, “Even as Obama plan reduces nuclear arsenal, overall spending increases.”
- Jul 14: CSIS poniblogger’s blog, “Obama Administration’s Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan Details Stockpile Cuts, Infrastructure Investments.”
- Jul 13: Associated Press, “Obama plans to cut up to 40 percent of nukes.”
- Jul 13: Wired News, “Fewer Nukes, More Cash: Energy Dep’t Wants $175 Billion for Weapons Complex.”
- Jul 13: UPI, “DOE plan to cut nuke weapons by 40 percent.”
- Jul 13: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Details Planned Nuclear Stockpile Cut, Funding Priorities.’
- Jul 10: S D Pradhan, Times of India, “Growing Chinese Nuclear Power.”
- Jun 29: Discovery News, “Recycles Missiles Tapped to Launch Satellites.”
- Spring: Jing-dong Yuan, Chinese Perceptions of the Utility of Nuclear Weapons: Prospects and Potential Problems in Disarmament(French Institute for Interntional Relations (IFRI), Spring 2010).
- Jun: Mustafa Kibaroglu, “Reassessing the Role of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Turkey,” Arms Control Today, June 2010.
- Jun 13: Associated Press, “Air Force nuclear squadron in NM passes inspection.”
- Jun 3: The Times of India, “Pakistan’s nuke arsenal bigger than India’s.”
- Jun 3: Strategic Security Newswire, “Eight Nations Hold 7,540 Deployed Nukes, Report Finds.”
- May: Reducing and Eliminating Nuclear Weapons: Country Perspectives on the Challenges to Nuclear Disarmament (New Jersey: Princeton University, International Panel on Fissile Materials, May 2010).
- May: Malcolm Chalmers, Nuclear Narratives: Reflections on Declaratory Policy (London: RUSI, 2010)
- May 18: Global Security Newswire (Albuquerque Journal), NNSA Seeks $40M for Nuke Refurbishment Study.”
- May 12: Reuters, “Russia says may lift veil on nuclear arsenal.”
- May 10: Guardian (Associated Press), “Outdated, unwanted, US nuke hang on in Europe.” The article extensively relies on FAS/NRDC estimates but without giving credit.
- May 5: Associated Press, “Private sleuths once pierced nuclear veil.”
- May 5: Global Security Newswire, “Russia Seen Under Pressure to Disclose Arsenal Details.”
- May 4: Science Magazine, “U.S. Reveals 5113 Nukes in Stockpile, Estimate by ‘Nuclear Geek’ Was Off by Only 87.”
- May 4: The Guardian (Jualian Borger’s Global Security Blog), “Coming clean on nuclear weapons.”
- May 4: Bloomberg Businessweek, “Iran Faces Pressure to Prove Peaceful Aims of Nuclear Program.”
- May 4: Los Angeles Times, “U.S. discloses size of nuclear arsenal.”
- May 3: New York Times, “Europe Lacks Plan on Nuclear Arms.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe but without giving credit.
- May 4: Washington Post (AP), “US says it has 5,113 nuclear warheads.”
- May: Tara McKelvey, Boston Review, “A New Start: Prospects for Obama’s ‘Global Zero’.”
- Apr 29: Periodismo Humano (Spain), “EEUU guarda en Europa 200 bombas atómicas.”
- Apr 28: David Hoffman, Foreign Policy, “Obama’s Atomic Choices.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. non-deployed nuclear weapons, but without giving credit.
- Apr 26: Lt. Col. Michael Byrne, CDR Douglas Edson and Lt. Col. Andrea Hlosek, American Diplomacy, “A Nuclear Weapons Free NATO.”
- Apr 25: Daily Kos, “No “Reset Button” for Tactical Nuclear Weapons.”
- Apr 23; Washington Post, “NATO seeks limits on plan for nuclear disarmament.”
- Apr 22: New York Times, “U.S. Resists Push by Allies for Tactical Nuclear Cuts.”
- Apr 22: Washington Post, “NATO ministers want disarmament, within limits.”
- Apr 22: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Urged to Remove Tactical Nukes in Europe.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe but without giving credit.
- Apr 22, Assocated Press, “Clinton reaffirms US commitment to defend Europe.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe but without giving credit.
- Apr 22: Washington Post, “NATO ministers to discuss U.S. nuclear arms.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe but without giving credit.
- Apr: KLS Review (Malaysia), three interviews relating to China, April 2010. Requires subscription.
- Apr: Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2010, Project on Managing the Atom, April 2010.
- Apr 15: Dallas News, “Arms treaty to bring more work Pantex’s way.”
- Apr 15: Julien Mercille, Asia Times Online, “New treaty is a slow start.”
- Apr 14: Russia Today, “Keeping Pandora’s box shut.”
- Apr 13: Russia Today, “Nuclear summit addresses a post-Cold War world.”
- Apr 13: U.S. News & World Report, “A Change for U.S. Nuclear Strategy: Hans Kristensen on nuclear war planning and non-proliferation.”
- Apr 13: CNN Newsroom, 9 AM EST, Nuclear Summit coverage. Uses FAS map for estimated locations of nuclear weapons.
- Apr 13: Global Security Newswire, “Norway, Poland Urge Talks on Tactical Nukes in Europe.”
- Apr 13: Focus Online (Germany), “In Deutschland gelagerte US-Atombomben rücken in Blickpunkt.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe but apparently without giving credit.
- Apr 12: CNN The Situation Room, “President Obama Holds Nuke Summit.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimated for world nuclear weapons.
- Apr 12: Globe and Mail (Canada), “Q&A: Hans Kristensen, nuclear arms expert.”
- Apr 12: Discovery News, “Nuclear Summit 2010: It’s Kind of a Big Deal.”
- Apr 11: David Hoffman, Washington Post, “Despite new START, the U.S. and Russia still have too many nuclear weapons.”
- Apr 10: Yonhap News Agency (South Korea), “N. Korea has up to 6 nuclear weapons: Clinton.” For our actual weapons estimates, gohere.
- Apr 8: Jonathan Shell, CNN, “Nuclear balance of terror must end.”
- Apr 8: NATO Parliamentary Assembly, U.S.. Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Europe: A Fundamental NATO Debate, April 8, 2010.
- Apr 8: New York Times, “With Arms Pact, Disarmament Challenge Remains.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for warhead levels.
- Apr 8: Associated Press: “Nuclear treaty would cut only long-range arms.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for warhead levels.
- Apr 7: physicstoday.org, “Obama’s nuclear posture review.”
- Apr 7: Washington Post, “New nuclear arms policy shows limits U.S. faces.”
- Apr 7: Time, “Obama’s Nuclear Strategy: What’s Different?”
- Apr 6: Globe and Mail (Canada), “Obama’s new nuclear strategy maintains first-strike option.”
- Apr 1: Air Force Times, “New treaty could trim nuclear role of bombers.”
- Mar: Union of Concerned Scientists, “New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty Factsheet.”
- Mar 30: New York Times, “Arms Control May Be Different Things on Paper and on the Ground.”
- Mar 30: Time Magazine, “U.S.-Russia Nuke Treaty: Small Step on a Long Road.”
- Mar 29: Global Security Newswire, “China Weighs Engaging With U.S. on Nuclear Posture.”
- Mar 27: Washington Post, “U.S., Russia agree to nuclear arms control treaty.”
- Mar 26: Politico (in frederiksburg.com), “Lab chiefs share nuke safety doubts.”
- Mar 26: Los Angeles Times, “Russian, US presidents to finalize arms treaty, set date for signin.”
- Mar 25: New York Times, “Treaty Advances Obama’s Nuclear Vision.”
- Mar 25: Associated Press, “Treaty to cut US-Russia nukes; signing in 2 weeks.”
- Mar 24: Russia Today (The Alyona Show), “A New START.”
- Mar 22: Asian Tribune, “Pakistan lobbying hard for n-deal akin to India-US pact.”
- Mar: Gregory Kulacki, Japan and America’s Nuclear Posture, Union of Concerned Scientists, March 2010.
- Mar 22: Interfax (Russia), “”Если договор СНВ не будет подписан до мая, это станет плохим сигналом.” A not very good Google translation is here.
- Mar 20: ABC News, “What’s the Point of Nuclear Weapons on Instant Alert?”
- Mar 18: Breitbart (Kyodo News), “U.S. Air Force includes frozen nuke project in draft FY2011 budget+.”
- Mar: Malcolm Calmers and Simon Lunn, NATO’s Tactical Nuclear Dilemma, Royal United Services Institute, March 2010.
- Mar 15: Der Spiegel Online, “Washington Mulls Modernization of Aging Bombs.”
- Mar 14: armscontrolwonk.com, “NATO’s Nuclear Opacity.”
- Mar 14: Associated Press, “US cautious on removing nuclear arms from Europe.”
- Mar 12: Mark Stokes, China’s Nuclear Warhead Stoage and Handling System, Project 2049 Institute, March 12, 2010.
- Mar 11: National Public Radio, All Things Considered, “Japan Confirms Secret Nuclear Pacts With U.S.”
- Mar 11: Global Security Newswire, “China Seen Building Long-Range Missiles for Conventional Strikes.”
- Mar 11: Space War (AFP), “Top campaigner scoffs at Euro noises on US nukes.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe and size of global arsenal, but without giving credit.
- Mar 9: Global Security Newswire, “Pentagon Eyes More Than $800 Million for New Nuclear Cruise Missile.”
- Mar 6: Washington Post, “Obama must decide degree to which U.S. swears off nuclear weapons.”
- Mar 4: mil.huanqiu.com, “谷歌地球曝光094核潜发射筒打开状态图.”
- Mar 3: Sydney Morning Herald (AFP), “US nuclear arms treaty stalls over Russian demands.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for U.S. nuclear forces, but without giving credit.
- Mar 3: Stars and Stripes, “NATO allies want U.S. nuclear weapons out of Europe.”
- Mar 3: Globe and Mail, “Nuclear cuts, yes, but still plenty of U.S. bombs.”
- Mar: Daryl Kimball, Arms Control Association, “Elimate NATO’s Nuclear Relics,” Arms Control Today, March 2010″ Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, but without giving credit.
- Mar 2: Space War (AFP), “Five NATO nations call for nuclear rethink.” Uses earlier FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, but without giving credit.
- Mar 2: Russia Today, “US reducing nukes, arsenal to remain strong.”
- Mar 2: Johan Bergenäs, World Politics Review, “Bombs Away: Removing Tactical Nukes from Europe.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for US nuclear weapons in Europe but without giving credit.
- Mar 1: Global Security Newswire, “Obama Team Might Speed Up Disassembly of Older Nuclear Warheads.”
- Mar 1: AFP, “Obama plans ‘dramatic reductions’ in US nuclear weapons.”
- Mar 1: Julian Borger’s Global Security Blog, The Guardian Online, “Living up to nuclear expectations.’
- Mar 1: Adam B. Lowther, Air Force Research Institute, “Should the United States Maintain the Nuclear Triad?,” Air & Space Power Journal, March 1, 2010.
- Feb: Christopher A. Preble, From Triad to Dyad, Nuclear Proliferation Update, Cato Institute, February 2010. Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. nuclear warheads but without giving credit.
- Feb: NATO’s Nuclear Deterrent and its Relevance in the 21st Century, NATO Defence College, Senior Course 115, February 2010.
- Feb 28: The Guardian/Observer, “Barack Obama orders new nuclear review amid growing feud.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for US nuclear weapons in Europe without giving credits.
- Feb 27: FUTUR QUANTIQUE (France), “Des missiles de croisière nucléaires destinés à qui?”
- Feb 25: Der Spiegel Online, “German Foreign Minister Pushes for NATO Nuclear Drawdown.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for US nuclear weapons deployed in Europe without giving credits.
- Feb 25: The Cable (Foreign Policy), “Nuclear Posture Review delayed until mid to late March.”
- Feb 25: Pavel Podvig, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “What to do about tactical nuclear weapons.”
- Feb 22: The Guardian, “Five Nato states to urge removal of US nuclear arms in Europe.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for nuclear weapons in Europe, but without credits.
- Feb 22, Global Security Newswire, “Nuclear Agency Officials Defend Rate of Warhead Dismantlement.”
- Feb 22: Greg Thielmann, Arms Control Association, “New START Verification: Fitting the Means to the Ends.”
- Feb 20: AFP, “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpil.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for nuclear weapons in Europe but doesn’t credit.
- Feb 17: Global Security Newswire, “Peace Activists Trespass at Belgian Base Housing U.S. Nukes.”
- Feb 16: Der Spiegel, “Ex-NATO Head Robertson Skeptical of Removing Nukes from Germany.” The article as well as Mr. Robertson uses FAS/NRDC estimates for the number of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe and for Russian non-strategic weapons.
- Feb 15: James Carroll, The Boston Globe, “Nuclear sites vulnerable to break-ins.”
- Feb 11: Los Angeles Times (AP), “Official: Problems at Air Force nuclear weapons site in New Mexico were administrative.”
- Feb 10: Washington Post (AP), “Air Force decertifies nuclear warheads unit in NM.”
- Feb 10: Los Angeles Times (AP), “Squadron that handles nuclear warheads at New Mexico base is decertified by Air Force.”
- Feb 10, David J. Baylor, Lt Col, USAF, Considerations for U.S. Nuclear Force Structure Below a 1,000 Warhead Limit (Alabama: Air War College, Air University, February 10, 2010).
- Feb 9: Inside Defense, “Defense Officials Defer To NATO On Fate of U.S. Nuclear Arms in Europe.” Requires subscription.
- Feb 8: Franklin Miller, et al., Germany Opens Pandora’s Box, Centre for European Reform, February 8, 2009.
- Feb 8: Inside the Air Force, “Kirtland AFB unit loses nuclear mission.
- Feb 4: AOL News, “Belgian Activists Breach Security Around US Nukes.”
- Feb 4, RTBF (Belgium), “Des pacifistes filment leur incursion à Kleine Brogel.”
- Feb 4: De Morgen (Belgium), “Bomspotters op Kleine-Brogel filmden inval.”
- Feb 3: Washington Post, “Obama budget seeks 13.4 percent increase for National Nuclear Security Administration.”
- Feb 2: Carl Bildt and Radek Sikorski, New York Times/International Herald Tribune, “Next, the Tactical Nukes.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for non-strategic nuclear weapons.
- Jan: Simon Saradzhyan, Russia’s Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Their Current Configuration and Posture: A Strategic Asset or Liability? (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, December 2010).
- Jan 25: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Should Embrace Using Nukes for Nuclear Threat Only, Experts Say.”
- Jan 19: Global Security Newswire, “Nuclear Bomb Update Effort Slowed by Posture Review, Science Studies.”
- Jan 18: Air Force Times, “Report backs end of bombers’ nuclear role.”
- Jan 13: Taiwan News, “China says missile defense system test successful.”
- Jan 12: The Telegraph, “China tests new technology to shoot down missiles in mid-air.”
- Jan 12: The Guardian, “China ‘successfully tests missile interceptor.
- Jan 12: Time (AP), “China: Missile Defense System Test Successful.”
- Jan 7: Global Security Newswire, “U.S., British Might Share Firing Device to Update Nuclear Arms.”
- Jan 7: Time Magazine, “Obama’s Nuclear Arms Pledge Hits Stumbling Block.”
- Jan 4: Los Angeles. “Obama’s nuclear-free vision mired in debate.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for US nuclear arsenal and deployment in Europe without credits.
2009
- Fall: Dennis Gormley, MIIS, The Path to Deep Nuclear Reductions. Dealing with American Conventional Superiority, Institut Français des Relations Internationales, fall 2009.
- Dec: Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers, International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Widely uses FAS/NRDC estimates for strategic and non-strategic warhead numbers.
- Dec 27: Chicago Tribune, “Obama’s Nuke-Free Vision Drawing Fire.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for US nuclear arsenal without credits.
- Dec 22: Greg Thielmann with Luke Champlia, Arms Control Association, “Dealing With Long-Range Missile Threats: It’s All About Russia.”
- Dec 18: Russian Today, “Nuclear limbo? No new START.”
- Dec: Dana J. Johnson, et al., Triad, Dyad, Monad? Shaping the U.S. Nuclear Force for the Future, Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies.
- Dec 11: arstechnica.com, “Google opens satellite images, tools, to study deforestation.”
- Dec 7: Yonhap News Agency (South Korea), “N. Korea not yet developed nuke delivery system: expert.”
- Dec 2: Time.com, “What to Do About Europe’s Secret Nukes.”
- Dec: James Acton, “Extended Deterrence and Communicating Resolve,” in Strategic Insights, Volume VIII, Issue 5, Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009.
- Nov 30: Defense News, “China’s Subs Getting Quieter: But Still Louder Than Older Russian Submarines.”
- Nov 30: Global Security Newswire, “South Korean President Proposes Nuclear Summit With Kim Jong Il.”
- Nov 27: The Malaysian Insider, “The ‘secret’ US-Japan pact with loaded content.”
- Nov 23: Bob Van Der Zwaan and Tom Sauer, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Time to reconsider U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.”Uses FAS/NRDC estimates for US nuclear weapons in Europe without credit, and misrepresents data.
- Nov 23: Alexandra Bell and Benjamin Loehrke, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “The status of U.S. nuclear weapons in Turkey.”
- Nov 17: The Faster Insider, “How Nukes Are Like Toys Still in Their Box on ‘Antiques Roadshow’.”
- Nov 24, armscontrolwonk.com, “China’s Noisy New Boomer.”
- Nov 23: Reuters, “U.S., Russia study ways to extend START verification.”
- Nov 23: Kyodo News (Japan), “Japan lobbied for robust nuclear umbrella before power shift.”
- Nov 22: Daily Kos, “Playing Chess With Russia: An Update on the New START Agreement.”
- Nov 17: RTT News (India), “Pakistan Possesses More Nuclear Weapons Than India: Report.”
- Nov 16: Army Times, “237 nuke handling deficiencies cited since 2001.”
- Nov 16: Global Security Newswire, “Russia, U.S. Expect New Nuke Treaty in December.”
- Nov 14: Russia Today, “‘Deep nuke cuts impossible unless other nuclear states join US and Russia’.”
- Nov 13: Washington Post, “A nuclear power’s act of proliferation.”
- Nov 10: Russia Today, “‘Russian and US both have huge interest in signaling the Cold War is over’.”
- Nov 7: Asahi Shimbun, “Japan in call to U.S. to retain nukes.”
- Nov 6: The Guardian, “Germans press for removal of US nuclear weapons in Europe.” The article cites FAS research on the U.S. nuclear deployment in Europe, but without credits.
- Nov 4: Global Security Newswire, “Multilateral Input Needed on German Plan for U.S. Nukes, NATO Head Says.”
- Nov: Masa Takubo, Arms Control Today, “The Role of Nuclear Weapons: Japan, the U.S., and ‘Sole Purpose’”
- Fall: Michael Krepon, The French Institute of International Relations, “Numerology in the Second Nuclear Age.”
- Oct 29: International Panel on Fissile Materials, “Global Fissile Material Report 2009.” FAS and NRDC produced the worldwide list of nuclear weapons storage locations. An inventory narrative from the report is here.
- Oct 28: Russia Today, “US will welcome request to withdraw nukes from Germany.”
- Oct 28: New York Times, “Ridding Germany of U.S. Nuclear Weapon.” The article unfurtunately lists the number of nuclear bombs in Europe as 480 bombs (the number in 2001), instead of the current number of approximately 200.
- Oct 25: Deutche Welle, “Experts support Westerwelle’s quest to rid Germany of US nuclear arms.”
- Oct 23: Associated Press, “Pakistan: Bomber kills 7 near military complex.”
- Oct 22: defence.professionals (Germany), “New German administration likely to ask US to remove remaining nuclear weapons from Germany.”
- Oct 20, Global Security Newswire, “Russia, U.S. Urged to Address Nuclear Alert Postures.”
- Oct 20: Washington Post, “Lowering the alert levels in U.S. and Russia.”
- Oct 17: German Times, “Forgotten Bombs.”
- Oct 13: Huffington Post (Joe Cirincione), “Will Japan Go Nuclear?”
- Oct 12: India Daily, “Will Israel and India allow unsecured Pakistani nukes in the wake of audacious weekend assault by Islamic militants on Pakistan’s army headquarters?”
- Oct 12: Associated Press, “Security of Pakistan nuclear weapons questioned.”
- Oct 7: Mitsuo Takai, UPI Asia, “U.S.-China nuclear strikes would spell doomsday.”
- Oct 1: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Sea-Based Missiles Seen as “Core” Nukes, Maybe at ICBM Expense.”
- Oct: Catherine M. Kelleher and Scott L. Warren, Arms Control Today, “Getting to Zero Starts Here: Tactical Nuclear Weapons.”
- Sep 25: China Daily, “Nuke-free world urged.”
- Sep 22: Live Science, “Why It’s So Hard to Make Nuclear Weapons.”
- Sep 21: Associated Press (Beijing), “China says military arsenal comparable with West.”
- Sep 14: Outlook India, “‘Not A Fizzle, But Certainly Not What India Claims’.”
- Sep 11: Yonhap News (South Korea), “N. Korea appears to have 10 nuclear warheads: report.” The article headline misrepresents ourestimate.
- Sep 9: The Canberra Times, “Folly in India’s nuclear ways.”
- Sep 8: New York Times, “Pentagon Checks Arsenal in Race for Nuclear Treaty.”
- Sep 8: Global Security Newswire, “Pakistan Seeks Additional Nuclear-Weapon Capabilities, Analysts Assert.”
- Sep 6: Times of India, “May have to revisit nuclear no-first use policy: Army chief.”
- Sep 4: UPI, “Pakistan denies nuclear arsenal claim.”
- Sep 3: The Telegraph (UK), “Pakistan ‘developing’ advanced nuclear technology.”
- Sep 2: DNAIndia (PTI), “Army chief says Pakistan going ‘beyond nuclear deterrence’.”
- Sep 2: TimesNow.tv (India), “Army chief slams Pak for ‘secret nuclear expansion’.” Video of Indian Army chief statement here.
- Sep 2: Economic Times (India), “‘Pak busy increasing nuke stockpile’.”
- Sep 2: TimesNow.tv (India), “Debate: How should we respond to Pak’s nuclearisation?” (includes lengthy TV debate).
- Sep 1: India Today, “Pak nuclear storage site on satellite map.”
- Sep 1: Deccan Herald (Indian), “‘Pak enhancing its nuclear weapons capabilities’.”
- Sep 1: Times of India, “Pak’s ‘India specific’ nuke arsenal exposed.”
- Sep 1: IBN (India), “Pak increasing nuclear weapons: US scientist.”
- Sep: Sekai Magazine (Japan), “被爆国日本は核軍縮の足かせとなるのか.”
- Sep: Paul Schulte, “Alliance Requirements for Deterrence: Capabilities and Options for the Next Decade,” Strategic Insights, Volume VIII, Issue 4, Monterey Postgratuate School, September 2009.
- Aug 27: Global Security Newswire. “Pentagon Vetting Could Delay Warhead Modernization Plan.”
- Aug 26: C-SPAN, “U.S. Nuclear Policy.” [Note: The start of the video overlaps with another program. The FAS meeting starts about 2.5 minutes into the video.]
- Aug 21: Slate, “Will the Pentagon Thwart Obama’s Dream of Zero?”
- Aug 21: Nezavisimaya Gazeta (ng.ru), “For the collapse of Russia, and after…” The article makes extensive use of information on this FAS Strategic Security Blog but without giving credit.
- Aug 18: Global Security Newswire, “Inside Obama Administration, a Tug of War Over Nuclear Warheads.”
- Aug 5: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Could Pull Back Europe-Based Nukes, State Department Official Says.”
- Aug 3: bgfactor.org (Russia), “От 1945 г. САЩ са произвели 66 500 атомни бомби и ядрени бойни глави” [Since 1945 the United States Built 66,500 Nuclear Weapons].
- Aug: Svend Aage Christensen, “The Marshal’s Baton: There is no bomb, there was no bomb, they were not looking for a bomb,” Danish Institute for International Studies, August 2009.
- Aug: Physics Today, “Obama and Medvedev set new limits on nuclear arsenals; further cuts likely.”
- Jul 29: De Morgen (Belgium), “Tactische kernwapens hebben geen nut meer in Europa.”
- Jul 28: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Defense Official Skeptical of Revising Nuclear Deterrence Strategy.”
- Jul: Dennis Gormley, et al., “Four Emerging Issues in Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation: Opportunities for German Leadership,” Monterey Institute. Study prepared for the Policy Planning Staff Foreign Office, Federal Republic of Germany.
- Jul 10: xinjunshi.com (China), “中印对峙:中国大量最新杀手锏被逼提前服役!” [Google translation: Confrontation between China and India: China’s trump card forced a large number of up-to-date service in advance!].
- Jul 9: San Francisco Chronicle (op-ed by Senator Feinstein), “Russian nuclear agreement a good start.”
- Jul 9: Asia Times Online, “Mixed signals over Chinese missiles.”
- Jul 9: CIGI (Canada), “Thank goodness the nuclear accountants are back.”
- Jul 8: Nukes of Hazards Blog, “Keith Payne vs. Keith Payne.”
- Jul 8: Politics Daily, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons, the Menace No One Is Talking About.”
- Jul 8: The Sun Daily (Malaysia), “‘Joe One’ sparks nuclear arms race.”
- Jul 8: USA Today, “U.S., Russia settle on nuclear arsenal cuts.”
- Jul 7: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Arms Control Proponents Laud Obama-Medvedev Pact as ‘Progress’.”
- Jul, NHK (Japan), “No More Hibakusha.” Uses estimates for nuclear weapons.
- Jun-Jul: Scott Sagan, “The Case for No First Use,” Survival, Vol. 51, No. 3, pp. 163-182.
- Jun 30: Global Security Newswire, “‘Global Zero’ Backers Propose U.S.-Russian Nuclear Cuts to 1,000 by 2018.”
- Jun 29, segye.com (South Korea), columnish, “Urgent Need for Action.” The columnist says FAS estimates Israel has 100-200 nuclear weapons of which about 10 percent ar thermonuclar. The actual estimate is around 80 warheads.
- Jun 24: New Scientists, “Bombers vs verifiers: A nuclear race worth winning.”
- Jun 16: Associated Press, “China acknowledges incident between sub, US ship.”
- Jun 12: Jamestown Foundation, Andrew S. Erickson, Michael S. Chase, “China’s SSBN Forces: Transitioning to the Next Generation.”
- Jun 11: Reuters, “North Korea, Iran joined on missile work: U.S. general.”
- Jun 10: Global Security Newswire, “Talk of U.S. Plans to Secure Pakistani Nuclear Weapons Called ‘Wildly Hypothetical’.” Refers to our warhead estimate for Pakistan.
- Jun 10: Global Security Newswire, “Iran Could Put U.S. in Missile Range by 2015, Air Force Report Warns.”
- June: U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, “An Undersea Deterrent?”
- Spring: Disarmament Policy (Acronym Institute), “From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence: A New Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Eliminating Nuclear Weapons.”
- May 30: National Journal Magazine, “Road To Zero Nukes Remains Fraught.”
- May 28: The Australian, “Beijing’s missile stockpile growing.” The article uses our warhead estimates, while describing a new Jane’s report that appears to recycle old news about China’s nuclear modernization.
- May 26: Rolling Stone, “Another North Korean Dud?”
- May 26: New York Times, “North Korean Nuclear Claim Draws Global Criticism.”
- May 26: New York Times, “Seismic Readings From North Korea Blast Appear to Point to a Small Nuclear Test.”
- May 25: ABC News, “U.S. reacts to N.K. nuclear tests.” You’ll have to wait for the commercial to end.
- May 25: wirednews.com, “North Korea’s Nuke: How Big?”
- North Korea Conducts Nuclear Test, UN Council to Meet Today.”
- May 24, Taipei Times, “China calls on US, Russia to cut their nuclear arsenals.”
- May 15: Congressional Research Service, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues.”
- May 15, Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Holds Blueprint for Securing Pakistani Nukes, Sources Say.” Uses our estimate for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, but doesn’t credit.
- May 15: Trend News (Azerbaijan), “Inaccuracy in counting nuclear warheads can complicate U.S.-Russia negotiations: expert.”
- May 13: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Needs 15 Years to Dismantle Retired Warheads; Backlog Could Increase Under Obama.”Refers to FAS/NRDC dismantling estimate described in USA Today article but cuts out FAS.
- U.S. warhead disposal in 15-year backlog.”
- May 7: Toronto Star, “Pakistan calls fears over nuclear security overblown.”
- May 6: William Perrry, et al., American’s Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, May 6, 2009. The report uses our estimates in its list of estimated world nuclear warhead arsenals (p. 111).
- May 6: Global Security Newswire, “U.S., Russia Could Discuss Nonstrategic Nuke Cutbacks After START Talks.”
- May 5: Paul Bernstein (SAIC), “The Evolution of United States Nuclear Strategy and War Planning1945-2000 – A Primer,” unpublished briefing to MORS (Military Operations Research Society) Nuclear Online Workshop.
- May 1: National Security Archive, “‘How Much is Enough?’: The U.S. Navy and ‘Finite Deterrence’.”
- May: Steven Pifer, “Beyond START: Negotiating the Next Step in U.S. and Russian Strategic Nuclear Arms Reductions,” Brookings Institution.
- Apr: William Perry, et al., U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, April 2009.
- Apr 28: Associated Press (on yahoo news), “Russia: START replacement talks set for May.” Uses estimates for U.S. and Russia deployed strategic nuclear forces, but without credit.
- Apr 27: Global Security Newswire, “New U.S. Global Strike Command to Juggle Nuclear, Conventional Missions.”
- Apr 18: Wall Street Journal, “China, Friend or Foe?”
- Apr 17: Pravda, “Russia’s nuclear attack on U.S. may start with major banks.”
- Apr 17: RIA Novosti, “12 Russian targets for U.S. nuclear missiles.”
- Apr 16: bigness.ru, “Ядерный удар по США должен начаться с банков.”
- Apr 16: RIA Novosti (comment), “Pentagon’s new concept: what will Russia respond with?”
- Apr 16: RIA Novosti, “Senior Russian senator hits out at U.S. nuclear deterrence report.”
- Apr 15: Russia Today, “An alternative nuclear posture?” FAS’s Hans Kristensen interview about FAS/NRDC study on a new nuclear policy toward elimination of nuclear weapons.
- Apr 15: Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman, Russian Duma International Affairs Committee (on Russia Today). Kosachev and journalist misrepresent FAS/NRDC study by suggesting it recommends retargeting US nuclear forces against Russian industry.
- Apr 15: Aleksandr Pikaev (on Russia Today), ““Russia needs its intellectual response to US scientists’ nuclear report’.” Interview is onyoutube.com.
- Apr 15: Russia Today, “Nuclear deterrent needs reform – US think tank.”
- Apr 15: Kommersant (Russia), “U.S. scientists pinpoint new nuclear targets for President Obama.”
- Apr 15: Pravda, “U.S. retargets nuclear missiles to 12 Russian economic facilities.” This news report is highly misleading by misrepresenting what the study says.
- Apr 15: RIA Novosti, “U.S. experts propose minimal deterrence nuclear targeting policy.”
- Apr 14: Washington Post, “Report Urges Updating of Nuclear Weapons Policy.”
- Apr 10: Global Security Newswire,”Nuclear Analysts Propose ‘Minimal Deterrence’ Force Numbering 500 Warheads.”
- Apr 10: IRNA (Iran), “German FM urges removal of US atomic weapons from Germany.”
- Apr 10: RTBF (Belgium), “Steinmeier pour un retrait des armes nucléaires américaines d’Allemagne.”
- Apr 9: Global Security Newswire, “Nuclear Arsenal Reductions Face Serious Obstacles, Experts Say.”
- Apr 9: Time Magazine, “Reducing Nuclear Weapons: How Much Is Possible?”
- Apr 8: Science Daily, “Nuclear Policy On The Path Toward Nuclear Disarmament: New Report.”
- Apr 8: rightsidenews.com, “New Report Recommends Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Nuclear Disarmament.”
- Apr 6: CNN Situation Room, “Ridding the World of Nuclear Weapons.”
- Apr 6: Der Spiegel, “Abrüstungsplan entfacht Debatte um US-Atomwaffen in Deutschland.” Uses FAS/NRDC estimate for U.S. weapons in Europe, but credits secondary source.
- Apr 4: Secret Défense (Liberation, France), “Otan: le retour de la défense collective.” Uses estimate for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe in speculating that President Obama’s Prague speech would announce (which it didn’t) the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe.
- Apr 1: Chuck Hagel, et al., Op-Ed, Financial Times, “Scrapping Nuclear Arms is Now Realpolitik.” Uses estimate for total nuclear weapons.
- Apr: Stimson Center, Unlocking the Road to Zero: China and India.
- Apr: Jeffrey A. Larsen, “Arms Control in the Obama Administration,” in Strategic Insights, Volume VIII, Issue 2, Naval Postgraduate School, April 2009.
- Mar 30: World Council of Churches, Appeal to NATO. Letter includes estimate for U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.
- Mar 28: Associated Press (Moscow), “Hitting reset: US, Russia face tough nuclear talks.”
- Mar 24: New York Times (editorial), “Watershed Moment on Nuclear Arms.” Uses estimate for nuclear weapons in Europe, but without credits.
- Mar 23: International Herald Tribune, “France will compensate victims of nuclear tests.” Uses older estimate as “last year’s” estimate of French nuclear forces; the updated estimate is here.
- Mar 23: New York Times, “France Agrees to Pay Nuclear Test Victim.” Uses older estimate as “last year’s” estimate of French nuclear forces; the updated estimate is here.
- Mar 22: chinanews.com.cn, “美核潜艇巡航频繁 “8010核战计划”指向中俄(图).” Google translation here. Refers to AP story on March 16, 2009, about FAS blog on U.S. ballistic missile submarine patrols.
- Mar 20: Global Security Newswire, “Quickly Interpreting North Korea Launch Could Prove Difficult, U.S. General Says.”
- Mar 16: Russia Today, “For the U.S. Submarine Fleet, It’s Still a Cold War.”
- Mar 16: Tapped (The American Prospect), “It’s 3 AM; Do You Know Where Your Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarine Is?”
- Mar 16: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Missile Submarines Sustain Active Schedule.”
- Mar 16: Defense Professionals (def.pro.com), “U.S. Strategic Submarine Patrols Continue at Near Cold War Tempo.”
- Mar 16: Manila Standard Today (Philippines), “US, China send warships to Spratlys.”
- Mar 12: International Herald Tribune, “U.S. vessel’s standoff with Chinese sub ‘dangerous,’ analyst says.”
- Mar 12: Associated Press, “China’s top diplomat visiting Obama at White House.”
- Mar 12: The Virginian-Pilot, “Destroyer escorting ship involved in US-China incident.”
- Mar 12: Associate Press (Beijing), “China demands end of US Navy surveillance.”
- Mar 12: Taipei Times, “Taiwan ‘driving Chinese military goals’.”
- Mar 11: MarineBuzz.com, “China Warns U.S.Navy Ocean Surveillance Ship to Stay Away from Hainan Island.”
- Mar 11: Irish Times, “China accuses US navy ship of breaking maritime laws.”
- Mar 11: USA Today, “China demands end of US Navy surveillance.”
- Mar 11: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Subwatching Ship Claims Chinese Harassment.”
- Mar 10: USA Today, “Bad parallels seen in Chinese naval clash.”
- Mar 10: Der Spiegel Online, “China testet Obamas Entschlossenheit.”
- Mar 10: Los Angels Times, “China says U.S. provoked naval confrontation.”
- Mar 3: The Numbers Guy (Wall Street Journal Blog), “The Crash Calculations.”
- Mar 3: IEEE Spectrum, “What About The Nukes?”
- Feb: Carnegie Endowment, “World Nuclear Arsenals 2009.”
- Feb 27: Global Security Newswire, “Top U.S. General Spurns Obama Pledge to Reduce Nuclear Alert Posture.”
- Feb 24: Dominion Post editorial (New Zealand), “Editorial: Cut the bluster in nuclear talk.”
- Feb 22: StrategyPage.com, “The Russian Navy Crawls Out Of The Cellar.” Uses data from blog on Russian submarine patrols without (as usual) referencing the source.
- Feb 20, Time, “The nuclear risk: How long will our luck hold.”
- Feb 19: Time, “Why we should still fear a nuclear war.”
- Feb 18: Global Security Newswire, “Russia Restores Nuclear-Armed Submarine Patrols.”
- Feb 18: STRATFOR, “Geopolitical Diary: A Sign of Russia’s Renewed Confidence.”
- Feb 16: Time, “Did France’s Secrecy Cause a Nuclear Submarine Collision?”
- Feb 13: Washington Post, “U.S. Ahead of Moscow Treaty in Reducing its Nuclear Arsenal.”
- Feb 13: barentsobserver.com, “Only seven nuclear submarine patrols in 2008.”
- Feb 11: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Meets Moscow Treaty Nuclear Reduction Commitment Three Years Early.”
- Feb 11: Air Force Times, “Schwartz, Donley to talk nukes with lawmakers.”
- Feb 7: Indian Express, “China’s submarine patrols raise eyebrows in India.”
- Feb 6: China Journal (Wall Street Journal blog), “From the Depths: China Invests in Submarines.”
- Feb 5: Macau Daily Times, “China increases submarine patrols, says US report.”
- Feb 4: DOD Buzz, “China Doubles Sub Patrols; Threat Increase?”
- Feb 4: STRATFOR, “China: More Submarine Activity.”
- Feb 4: inquerer.net (Philippines), “China increases submarine patrols.”
- Feb 4:The Straits Times (Singapore, “China ops submarine patrols.”
- Feb 4: Jongo News (Shanghai/Hong Kong), “China increases submarine patrols – report.”
- Feb 4: Asia One News, “China ops submarine patrols.”
- Feb 4: Asia Times, “Beijing wants it both ways in space.”
- Feb 3: spacewar.com, “China increases submarine patrols – report.”
- Feb 3: Yahoo News, “China increases submarine patrols – report.”
- Feb 3: France 24, “China increases submarine patrols – report.”
- Feb 3: AFP, “China increases submarine patrols – report.”
- Feb 3: UPI, “China conducting far more sub patrols.”
- Feb 2: Omaha World-Herald, “Omaha has rivals for 2 commands.”
- Feb 1: AFP, “Obama, Pentagon pull in different directions on no nukes goal.”
- Jan 26: Global Security Newswire, “China Shows Nuclear Transparency in New Report.”
- Jan 26: Time Magazine, “Obama’s nuclear war.” The article’s graphic of the global nuclear balance uses estimates developed by FAS and NRDC but without giving credit.
- Jan 17: Asia Times Online, “Smart power play in Pyongyang.”
- Jan 16: scienceline.org, “Battling Over Aging Nuclear Warheads.”
- Jan 14: Air Force Times, “62nd Airlift Wing passes nuclear inspection.”
- Jan 13: Seattle Post Intelligencer (seattlepi.com), “McChord boasts high-grade nuclear airlift team.”
- Jan 9: Air Force Times, “Reports: Air Force worst in dealing with nukes.”
- Jan 6: nuclearweaponsfree.org, “Cold War “baggage” passed on to Obama.”
- Jan: Stephen Schwartz and Deepti Choubey, Nuclear Security Spending: Assessing Costs, Examining Priorities, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C.
2008
- Dec 25: The Nation (Pakistan), “‘Indian missiles can trigger N-conflict’.”
- Dec 21: Air Force Times, “Kehler: NSI failures part of solution.”
- Dec 16: Global Security Newswire, “World Faces ‘Cascade of Proliferation,’ Report Says.”
- Dec: Air Force Magazine, “A Flagging Nuclear ‘Enterprise’.” (Lists warhead estimates, which since 2001 has been produced jointly by NRDC and Kristensen (since 2005 with FAS)).
- Dec 4: bianet.org (Turkey), “İncirlik Üssü Gerçekleri.”
- Dec 3: Joe Cirincione/Boston Globe, “Need cash? Cut nuclear weapons budget.” (Uses warhead estimates).
- Dec 1: Focus Storia (Italy), “L’Arma Totale.” (Subscription required)
- Dec: WMD Insights, “China’s Strategic Modernization: Balancing Assessments.”
- Nov 17: Orienting the 2009 Nuclear Posture Review: A Roadmap (Washington, DC: Center for American Progress/Ploughshares Fund, November 17, 2008).
- Nov 7: Global Security Newswire, “Strategic Arms Funds Tilt Conventional in 2009.”
- Nov 3: Global Security Newswire, “Gates Nuclear Speech Fails to Sway Opponents.”
- Oct 29: Global Security Newswire, “Gates Sees Stark Choice on Nuke Tests, Modernization.”
- Oct 28: Las Vegas Sun (editorial), “Nuclear Weapons: Plans to revamp the nation’s arsenal should be carefully reviewed by Congress.”
- Oct 27: K L Security Review (Malaysia), “‘China’s Strategic Modernization.’ Will the Report Trigger a New Cold War Between China and the United States?”
- Oct 26: Associated Press, “U.S. Considering Implications of Nuclear Decline.”
- Oct 23: Japan Times, “’58 Taiwan Strait Crisis Saw Nukes in Okinawa.”
- Oct 9: TheTelegraph (UK), “US told to increase nuclear arsenal as China threat looms.”
- Oct 7: Inside the Air Force, “New Focus on Nukes.”
- Sep 29: wired.com, “Report: Time for a New Arms Race With China.”
- Sep 29: Omaha World-Herald, “Nuclear readiness high on StratCom chief’s agenda.”
- Sep 26: news.de (Germany), “«Atomwaffen verleihen Prestige».”
- Sep 26: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. Air Force Might Modify Nuclear Bomb.”
- Sep 25: objektifhaber.com (Turkey), “İNCİRLİK GÜVENLİ DEĞİL.”
- U.S. Nuclear Arms Paper Underlines Need for RRW.”
- Sep 12: OnlineOpinion.com.au, “Is the Navy talking up China’s nuclear submarine threat?”
- Sep: Arms Control Today, “NATO Mulls Nuke Modernization, Security.”
- Aug 29: Congressional Research Service, “Turkey: Selected Foreign Policy Issues and U.S. Views.”
- Aug 12: ISN Security Watch (Switzerland), “The Tactical Nuclear Weapons Game.”
- Aug 5: Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues”
- Jul 23: Air Force Times, “Minot’s latest alarm: napping with launch codes.”
- Jul 22: Wired News, “Pentagon Kills Russian Nuclear Strike Plan.”
- Jul 21: Discover, “CanYou Spot the Chinese Nuclear Sub?” (Describes discovery of Jin-class, but without giving credit).
- Jul 21: Global Security Newswire, “No Need for U.S. Nukes In Europe, Observers Say.”
- Jul 17: Global Security Newswire, “Navy Eyes New Weapon for Global Strike, Missile Defense.”
- Jul 2: Evrensel (Turkey), “İncirlik’in önemi İran’a yakın olması .”
- Jul 2: Global Security Newswire (NTI), “Netherlands Disputes U.S. Nuclear Security Report.”
- Jul 2: Washington Post, “Air Force Finds Lax Nuclear Security.”
- Jul 1: Der Spiegel, “Berlin Holds on to Obsolete Weapons.”
- Jul 1: Stars and Stripes, “110 B-61 warheads reported moved from RAF Lakenheath.”
- Jul: Joint Forces Quarterly, “China’s New Undersea Nuclear Deterrent: Strategy, Doctrine, and Capabilities.”
- Jul: Center for Defense Information, “An Examination of the Pentagon’s Prompt Global Strike Program: Rationale, Implementation, and Risks”
- Jul: James Rickard, “Sun Tzu, Nuclear Weapons and China’s Grand Strategy,” in Strategic Insights, Volume VII, Issue 3, Naval Postgraduate School, July 2008.
- Jun 30: Turkish Daily News, “Incirlik becomes major host for American nuclear weapons.”
- Jun 28: East Anglian Daily Times, “‘We’re staying put’, say air base chiefs.”
- Jun 28: Stars and Stripes, “U.S. nukes moved from Lakenheath, official claims.”
- Jun 27: Pugwash, “Pugwash Urges Removal of All NATO Nuclear Weapons.”
- Jun 27: Jerusalem Post, “Watchdog group: US nukes reportedly withdrawn from UK base.”
- Jun 27: BBC, “US weapons ‘withdrawn’ from base.”
- Jun 27: Star Tribune, op-ed, “Steve Andreasen: With nuclear weapons, a lot can go wrong.” Uses information from blog without crediting.
- Jun 27: East Anglian Daily Times, “Future of American air base at risk.”
- Jun 27: The Scotsman, “US nuclear weapons ‘leave British soil at last’ after half a century of controversy.”
- Jun 27: AFP, “US withdraws nuclear bombs from Britain: report.”
- Jun 27: The Times, “Last US nuclear weapons ‘withdrawn from UK’.”
- Jun 26: STRATFOR, “Nuclear Weapons: The Question of Relevance in the 21st Century.”
- Jun 26: Press TV (Iran), “US withdraws nuclear bombs from UK.”
- Jun 26: UPI, “Germany wants U.S. to remove nukes.”
- Jun 26: East Anglian Daily Times (UK), “Nuclear weapons removed from Suffolk.”
- Jun 26: The Telegraph (UK), “America removes nuclear weapons from Britain after 50 years.”
- Jun 26: Reuters, “U.S. pulls nuclear weapons from U.K.”
- Jun 26: The Guardian, “US removes it nuclear weapons from Britain.”
- Jun 24: Daily Times (Pakistan), “German Opp says US nuclear bombs must go.”
- Jun 23: Air Force Times, “German politicians seek nuclear weapon removal.”
- Jun 23, Reuters, “U.S. report shows gaps in European nuclear security.”
- Jun 23: ZDF (German National TV), “Wie sicher sind US-Atombomben in Deutschland?” (background)
- Jun 23: ZDF (German National TV), lead story in prime time evening news.
- Jun 23: International Herald Tribune, “German parties press U.S. to withdraw nuclear arms.”
- Jun 23: AFP (Brussels), “Security of US nuclear arms in Europe is not our problem: NATO.”
- Jun 23: Deutsche Welle, “Politicians Urge Removal of US Nuclear Weapons From Germany.”
- Jun 23: Der Spiegel, “German Politicians Want Nukes out of Europe.”
- Jun 23: Air Force Times, “Russia’s nuclear interest revived.”
- Jun 22: RAI News 24 (Italy), “Rapporto Usaf: le basi europee e italiane con armi nucleari Usa non sono sicure.”
- Jun 23: Partito Democratico (Italy), “Il Pentagono contro le proprie basi in Europa.”
- Jun 22: La Repubblica (Italy), “Usa, allarme basi nucleari ‘In Italia sono a rischio’.”
- Jun 21, Associated Press, “Report: European nuclear facilities need security upgrades.”
- Jun 21: Qui Brescia (Italy), “Ghedi, testate atomiche a rischio.”
- Jun 21, AFP, “Security lacking at nuclear weapons sites in Europe: US report.”
- Jun 21, Alalam (Iran), “Memo: US Nukes in Europe Not Secure.”
- Jun 21, Deutsche Welle, “European Nuclear Weapons Sites Lack Security, Says US Report.”
- Jun 21, Megachip.com (Italy), “USAF Report: “Most” Nuclear Weapon Sites In Europe Do Not Meet US Security Requirements” (reprints entire blog).
- Jun 21, De Morgen (Belgium), “Kleine Brogel.” (editorial or comment)
- Jun 21, De Morgen (Belgium), “Kleine Brogel niet veilig.”
- Jun 21: Stars and Stripes, “Air Force investigators: Most European bases with nukes lacking in security.”
- Jun 20, Belga (Belgian), “Kernwapens Kleine Brogel ? Niet goed beveiligd ?” (Belgian TV)
- Jun 20, De Standaard (Belgium), “Defensie reageert niet op Amerikaanse rapport nucleaire sites.”
- Jun 20, hbvl.be (Belgium), “Defensie reageert verveeld op veiligheidsrapport Kleine Brogel.”
- Jun 20: Der Spiegel, “Sicherheitmängel in europäischen Atomwaffenlagern.”
- Jun 19, LeVif.be (Belgium), “Des sites nucléaires US en Europe ne satisfont pas aux normes.”
- Review Questions Security Over U.S. Nukes in Europe.”
- Jun 19, De Standaard (Belgium), “Amerikaanse nucleaire sites in Europa voldoen niet aan normen.”
- Jun 19, Time Magazine, “Are US Nukes in Europe Security.”
- Jun 9: FederalTimes.com, “Roadrunner breaks computer speed barrier.”
- May 31: Washington Post, “Air Force Unit’s Nuclear Weapons Security Is ‘Unacceptable’.”
- May 30: Air Force Times, “Minot’s 5th Bomb Wing flunks nuclear inspection.” Also reproduced in USA Today.
- May 21: NewsMax.com, “Massive New Chinese Missile Base Uncovered.”
- May 20: Associated Press, “China: Earthquake buried 32 sources of radiation.”
- May 19: CNN, morning news report on Chinese earth quake.
- May 18: Monster and Critics, “Military nuclear facilities safe in quake zone, China says.”
- May 18: MSN India, “Chinese threat to India mounting?”
- May 17: Associated Press, “US monitoring China’s nuclear sites after quake.”
- May 17: Associated Press (Beijing), “China on alert for nuclear accidents after quake.”
- May 17: Peter Coates Int Blog, “Chinese and American Information Campaigns.” This blogger accuses FAS of getting help from the US Defense Intelligence Agency to produce the recent article about a Chinese missile site.
- May 17: The Hindu, “China missile base larger than expected: study”
- May 17: Indian Express, “China upgrading n-missile launch site nearest to India.”
- May 16, Times of India, “Massive Chinese missile site uncovered.”
- May 16, Washington Times, Inside the Ring, “China base.”
- May 16: International Herald Tribune, “Western experts monitor China’s nuclear sites for signs of damage.”
- May 16: New York Times, “Western experts monitos China’s nuclear sites for signs of earthquake damage.”
- May 16: DNA (India), “Chinese nuclear missile base has north India in sight.”
- May 16, Daily Times (Pakistan), “Satellite reveals extensive missile site in China: analyst.”
- May 15: Focus News (AFP), “Extensive missile site in China revealed by satellite: analyst.”
- May 13: Christian Science Monitor, “Global scrutiny follows reports of Chinese nuclear base.”
- May 9: National Public Radio, “China’s Underground Submarine Base Scrutinized.”
- May 9: Press Trust of India, “Navy to keep watch on Chinese nuclear submarine movements.”
- May 8: Rediff.com (India), “About those Chinese military capabilities.” Comments to claims made in this article.
- May 8: InformationWeek, “Google Among Sites Under Investigation In China For Illegal Mapping.”
- May 6: ARS Technica, “Upset by sensitive images, China cracks down on online maps.”
- May 5: Pravda, “US intelligence notices less activity in Russian nuclear submarines.”
- May 5: Thaindian News (Thailand), “India concerned at China’s growing n-submarine fleet.”
- May 3: The Sunday Express (India), “China’s new n-submarine base sets off alarm bells.”
- April 30: Japan Today, “China deploys new nuke-powered sub.”
- April 30: Kyodo News (Japan), “China deploys new nuke-powered sub at E. China Sea base.”
- April 29: guidemoscow.com, “Submarine patrols in 2007.”
- April 29: L’Association des Réservistes de la Marine, “Les SNLE russes ont effectué seulement 3 patrouilles de dissuasion en 2007.”
- April 28: Middle East Times, “Russia ‘no longer uses’ nukes sub deterrent.”
- April 29: United Press International, “Russia ‘no longer uses” nukes sub deterrent.”
- Apr 10: Peace Talk (Ploughshares Fund), “Lessons from the nuclear fly-by.”
- Apr 7: military.com, “Lessons From the Accidental Nuke Flyby.”
- Apr 3: Washington Observer, “五角大楼摆“乌龙”,核误运暴露台湾“核野心”?”
- Mar 31: Air Force Times, “Lost ballistic fuses spark investigations.”
- Mar 27: Air Force Times, “Details emerging on how fuses got to Taiwan.”
- Mar 27: The China Post (AFP), “Fuse components the brain of thermonuclear weapon: expert.”
- Mar 26: AFP, “US sent Taiwan nuclear missile components by mistake.”
- Mar 26: Aljazeera.net, “US admits Taiwan nuclear error.”
- Mar 26: Air Force Times, “ICBM fuses mistakenly sent to Taiwan in 2006.”
- Mar 22: The New York Times (AP), “Sarkozy Dedicates Nuclear Submarine.”
- Mar 21: International Herald Tribune (AP), “Sarkozy says France will cut nuclear arsenal.” Slightly different version here.
- Mar 18: San Francisco Chronicle, “Livermore: Major cuts planned at nuclear labs” (uses research but doesn’t credit).
- Mar 8: New Scientist, “Trident missiles delayed by mystery ingredient” (requires password, but full version is here).
- Mar 7: Global Security Newswire, “Chinese Nuke Arsenal Spiked Since 2006, Report Shows”
- Mar 7: Wired News, “Secret Ingredient Delays Missile Upgrade.”
- Mar 6: Global Security Newswire, “U.S. General Calls for Faster Action on Reliable Replacement Warhead.”
- Mar 4: Fox News (AP), “Commander: Update US Nuclear Arsenal.”
- Feb 28: Global Security Newswire, “Air Force Omits Nuke Error from 2007 Incident List.”
- Feb 26: Air Force Times, “Nuclear safety slipped for years before Minot.”
- Feb 25: Taipei Times, “PRC still expanding sub fleet: analysts.”
- Feb 25: International Herald Tribune, “Chinese Submarine Fleet is Growing, Analysts Say.”
- Feb 24: New York Times, “Chinese Submarine Fleet is Growing, Analysts Say.” A letter to the editor has been sent to correct errors, and will be linked when it appears.
- Feb 22: Popular Mechanics, “3 Things We Learned From the Accidental US Nuke Flyby.”
- Feb 20: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons and Missiles: Status and Trends, Congressional Research Service, updated February 20, 2008.
- Feb 15: KSLA News 12: “Mixed Signals on Barksdale AFB’s Nuclear Weapons Safety.” The video broadcast is available.
- Feb 14: Daily Kos, “Nukes on a plane and why they got there.”
- Feb 12: Air Force Times, “237 nukes handling deficiencies cited since 2001.”
- Feb 7: International Herald Tribune, “U.S. military officials wary of China’s expanding fleet of submarines.”
- Feb 4: Air Force Times, “Minot chief sets bar high after nuke gaffe.”
- Feb 2: Dickinson Press, “Commander says ‘goal is perfection’ after nuclear gaffe.”
- Feb 2: Ian Anthony, SPIRI, “The Future of Nuclear Weapons in NATO.”
- Feb: Noam Ophir, “The Core of the Matter: US Doctrine on Nuclear Weapons Use, 1988-2008,” in Strategic Assessment, Vol. 10, No. 4, Institute for National Security Studies, Tel Aviv University, February 2008.
- Jan 23: U.S. Nuclear Weapons: Changes in Policy and Force Structure, Congressional Research Service, updated January 23, 2008.
- Jan 16: Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, Congressional Research Service, updated January 16, 2008.
- Jan 13: Tampa Tribune, “Nuclear Bombs Down, Risk the Same.”
- Jan 9: Wired News, “China’s Subs: Six Patrols in 2007.”
- Jan 8: Global Security Newswire (NTI), “Chinese missile submarines remained quite in 2007.”
- Jan 8: GovernmentExecutive.com, “China’s largely inactive submarine fleet stirs.” Article listed as “today’s most popular.”
2007 and earlier
Project news examples from 2007 and previous years are available here.