Publication Archive

Cross-posted from Secrecy News: A new report from the Congressional Research Service takes a detailed look at proposals to significantly restructure the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. The proposals, offered by a Department of Energy Task Force, include closure and consolidation of various nuclear facilities and production of a newly designed Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). “Some […]

The President did not mention the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in the State of the Union Address. He did give a half sentence to nuclear power, along with windmills, but no specifics. The Department of Energy budget will be rolled out on Monday, around 2:00 p.m. It might appear there. Will keep you posted if […]

FAS hopes the President will take the opportunity to send the right message to the American public and ditch political rhetoric in his State of the Union. FAS is deeply concerned that the nation is headed in the wrong direction on critical science issues that affect our health, national security, environment and economic future. The […]

A couple of articles in the energy trade press [link] have said that President Bush may announce a major new energy initiative in the State of the Union Address. This is a program that has been in planning for over a year. Originally it was called the Global Nuclear Energy Initiative, or GNEI, pronounced “genie,” […]

I am Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at FAS. I will be blogging facts, analysis, and declassified documents about new nuclear weapon systems, changes in existing nuclear forces, and developments in the policy and doctrine that guide the use of nuclear weapons. You may have noticed that the Cold War is […]

I’m Michael Stebbins; my group focuses on biosecurity issues and national policy as it relates to health and biological sciences. These two areas have melded together in a number of ways since the anthrax attacks in 2001. First, there was a dramatic increase in research on bioterrorism threat agents including anthrax, tularemia, and plague. With […]

My name is Matt Schroeder and I am the manager of the FAS’ Arms Sales Monitoring Project (ASMP). Since 1991, the ASMP has worked to increase transparency, accountability and restraint in the arms trade, and to end the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons. To that end, we do original research on arms […]

Welcome to this latest FAS experiment in blogging. We hope it will provide you with some insight into our activities and offer us another channel for presenting our work and our observations on strategic security and everything that entails, which is… a lot. I’m Steven Aftergood, and I focus on secrecy and intelligence policy. The […]

Welcome to the inauguration of the Federation of American Scientists’ Web Log on national security issues. We are very excited about this new blog. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) was founded by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs. The birth of the atomic bomb was, or course, […]

The Royal Canadian Military Institute (RCMI) has published an article by FAS’s director of the Nuclear Information Project about how U.S. nuclear planners are preparing for the failure of deterrence by putting new strike plans into operation onboard long-range bombers and strategic submarines. This includes options to strike preemptively with nuclear weapons, if adversaries make […]

Sixteen members of Congress have asked President George W. Bush to intervene in the Pentagon’s revision of Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations. In a joint letter published by Representative Ellen Tauscher’s office, the lawmakers object to language that appears to broaden the role of U.S. nuclear weapons. The letter follows my critique of the doctrine […]