Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are “widely dispersed” says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Does that include the large weapons storage complex at Sargodha? Click for image. . By Hans M. Kristensen Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the light of increasing violence in the country. The […]
By Hans M. Kristensen Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Ryabkov, gave a lengthy reaction to the FAS/NRDC report From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence during a press conference Wednesday. The transcript from the press conference shows that in response to a question that the “report [is] suggesting a possible retargeting of US missile from […]
At a press conference in Mexico City yesterday, President Obama urged the Senate to take up the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials, which is often referred to by its Spanish acronym, CIFTA. The Convention aims to curtail the illicit international trade in small arms by […]
If you have followed Russian news media recently, you might have gotten the impression that FAS and NRDC are in charge of U.S. nuclear strike planning and are recommending increasing nuclear targeting of Russia. Of course, neither is true. Yet major Russian news media – and apparently also the chairman of the Russia’s parliament’s international […]
Last Wednesday, 8 April, the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) jointly released FAS Occasional Paper Number 7, From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence — A New Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Eliminating Nuclear Weapons. As part of the release, my coauthors, Stan Norris of NRDC and Hans Kristensen of […]
By Ivanka Barzashka and Ivan Oelrich Yesterday, on Iran’s national Nuclear Technology Day, President Ahmadinejad announced the country’s latest nuclear advances, which seem to have become an important source of national pride and international rancor. April 9 marks the day when Iran claimed to have enriched its first batch of uranium in 2006. Yesterday, Ahmadinejad […]
Yes, today, 9 April, is the official Iranian holiday to celebrate all the progress that the Iranians have made toward nuclear self-sufficiency. The Iranian nuclear program is getting lots of news, especially their effort to enrich uranium using centrifuges and today’s inauguration of their new fuel fabrication facility. The fundamental problem with centrifuges is that […]
Click on image for PDF-version of full report. By Hans M. Kristensen The Federation of American Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council today published a study that calls for fundamental changes in the way the United States military plans for using nuclear weapons. The study From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence: A New Nuclear Policy on […]
Afghanistan In March, the Sunday Times of London reported on the Taliban’s alleged acquisition of Iranian-supplied SA-14 missiles, which the Afghan insurgent group reportedly wants for a “spectacular” attack on coalition forces. The accusation reportedly came from unidentified “American intelligence sources.” According to the Sunday Times, “…coalition forces only became aware of the presence of […]
Despite a world of advice to the contrary, the North Koreans launched their Taepodong-2 or Unha rocket yesterday morning. Recent reports are that the first two stages operated correctly but the third stage failed. Reading between the lines a bit, it might have failed to ignite rather than exploding. This seems to be a replay […]
Indications are that North Korea is moving ahead with its planned launch of a missile with the intent of placing a satellite into orbit. The North Koreans are portraying the launch in purely innocuous, civilian terms even naming the rocket “Unha,” which means “Milky Way” in Korean, to emphasize its space-oriented function. In the West, […]
The 2009 Pentagon report shows hardly any changes of Chinese nuclear forces. By Hans M. Kristensen The new annual report on Chinese military forces published by the Pentagon shows essentially no changes in China’s nuclear forces compared with the previous report from 2008. Perhaps most interestingly, the report shows that China has not increased the […]