The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the agency that builds and operates U.S. intelligence satellites, frequently makes mistakes when it classifies national security information, according to an assessment performed last year by the NRO Inspector General. “From the classified documents we reviewed at NRO headquarters, 114 of 134 documents contained classification errors,” the IG report said. […]
A major new report from the Congressional Research Service examines the infrastructure for producing the plutonium “pits” that are used in US nuclear weapons, and the feasibility of sharply increasing the rate of pit production. The CRS report does not deal with whether or why that is a sensible goal, but instead probes deeply into […]
By Hans M. Kristensen The U.S. government has published the first images of the Air Force’s new B61-12 nuclear bomb. The images for the first time show the new guided tail kit that will provide new military capabilities in violation of the Nuclear Posture Review. The tail kit will increase the accuracy of the bomb […]
The final, climactic step in the declassification of government records is not the formal removal of classification markings or even the transfer of the declassified documents to public archives. The culmination of the declassification process is when the records are finally examined by an interested reader and their contents are absorbed into the body of […]
On January 27, 2014, I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting with Dr. Jack Steinberger at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland. In a wide-ranging conversation, we discussed nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, particle physics, great scientific achievements, and solar thermal power plants. Here, I give a summary of the discussion with Dr. Steinberger, a […]
Recent efforts to convene a conference on a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have stalled, reflecting the political difficulties in working towards that goal in the region. Pursuing a regional safeguards organization for nuclear energy programs in the Middle East could be an easier diplomatic and strategic alternative, given the […]
Fifty years ago on January 30th, “Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb,” a seminal political-military satire and dark comedic film premiered. Based on Peter George’s novel Red Alert, the film gave us some of the most outrageously humorous and simultaneously satirical dialog in the history of the silver screen. […]
The concept of strategic stability emerged during the Cold War, but today it is still unclear what the term exactly means and how its different interpretations influence strategic decisions. After the late 1950s, the Cold War superpowers based many of their arguments and decisions on their own understanding of strategic stability1 and it still seems to […]
Be careful of self-fulfilling prophecies about the intentions for Iran’s nuclear program. Often, Western analysts view this program through the lens of realist political science theory such that Iranian leaders seek nuclear weapons to counteract threats made to overthrow their regime or to exert dominance in the Middle East. To lend support to the former […]
How can citizens of the world work to make the world safer using technology and crowdsourcing? Citizen Sensor aims to bring people together from all around the world to use the power of the web and crowdsourcing to have a profound impact on nonproliferation and international safeguards.
Last week the Congressional Research Service published updated U.S. military casualty statistics for post-9/11 operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through January 2014. There have been 4,410 U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and 2,299 U.S. military deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom to date. While overall fatality figures are already made available on Department of […]
For the first time the U.S. Army has produced official doctrine on military activities in cyberspace, including offensive, defensive and network operations. A new Army field manual “provides overarching doctrinal guidance and direction for conducting cyber electromagnetic activities (CEMA)…. It provides enough guidance for commanders and their staffs to develop innovative approaches to seize, retain, […]