One year from today, on February 5, 2021, the New START treaty will expire, unless the United States and Russia act to extend the last nuclear arms control agreement for an additional five years. No matter your political orientation, treaty extension is a no-brainer – for at least six primary reasons. 1. New START keeps […]
While the Trump Administration has retreated from negotiated arms control agreements in many areas ranging from nuclear weapons to anti-personnel landmines, the US is still committed to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which generally prohibits the production and use of chemical weapons. Last week the State Department certified to Congress — as a required condition of continued US participation in the […]
Noteworthy new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following. History, Evolution, and Practices of the President’s State of the Union Address: Frequently Asked Questions, updated January 29, 2020 The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement: A Summary, January 29, 2020 The Washington Post’s “Afghanistan […]
Climate solutions and nuclear energy The full House Science, Space, and Technology Committee discussed climate hurdles and solutions in a January 15 hearing titled, “An update on the climate crisis: From science to solutions.” Interestingly, the main point of debate during this hearing was not whether climate change was occurring, but rather the economic impacts of climate […]
The US Navy has now deployed the new W76-2 low-yield Trident submarine warhead. The first ballistic missile submarine scheduled to deploy with the new warhead was the USS Tennessee (SSBN-734), which deployed from Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia during the final weeks of 2019 for a deterrent patrol in the Atlantic Ocean. The W76-2 […]
Putin will have no choice but to redesign Russia’s nuclear launch authority if he intends to keep his finger on the nuclear button.
Pictures taken recently by Maxar Technologies’ satellites show a large number of launchers for the DF-26 intermediate-range missile operating at a training site approximately 9 kilometers (5.7 miles) south of Qingzhou City in China’s Shandong Province. This is the first time the DF-26 has been seen operating in the area and marks a new phase […]
The National Nuclear Security Administration said last week that it will proceed with a plan to sharply expand production of plutonium “pits” — the explosive triggers for thermonuclear weapons — without performing a full “programmatic” environmental review. NNSA envisions producing “no fewer than 80 pits per year by 2030,” including a minimum of 30 pits […]
Just before Congress left for the holidays, the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Investment held a hearing examining ways to prepare for the future of work. This has become a hot topic this year, particularly as presidential candidate Andrew Yang has incorporated it into his platform and elevated it onto the national debate stage. The […]
Congress adopted numerous new disclosure and reporting requirements in the government spending bill that was signed into law last week. But the Trump White House said that many of them encroach on executive authority and that they may not be implemented as written. Several provisions of the FY2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act “purport to mandate or regulate the […]
Many of the hundreds or thousands of reports that are submitted to Congress by executive branch agencies each year may be published online pursuant to a provision in the new Consolidated Appropriations Act (HR 1158, section 8092). That provision states that any agency that is funded by the Act shall post on its website any […]
The debate over whether North Korea could be deterred was eclipsed by the onset of negotiations in 2018. Yet, the last three years have been marked by rapid advancements in the regime’s military capabilities and apparent evolution in its military strategy, which now relies on the threat of preemptive attacks against allied conventional forces to […]