chemical and biological weapons,
iran’s nuclear program
Christopher A. Bidwell, JD is a Senior Fellow for Nonproliferation Law and Policy at FAS. He recently retired from the U.S. Navy where his last key assignment was as National Security Counselor at an internal DoD think tank (DTRA-ASCO) dedicated to the study of WMD and Nonproliferation issues. Bidwell is also an accomplished civilian litigation attorney and has focused his efforts on the interplay between law and WMD for the last several years.
He is especially knowledgeable on issues related to attribution, deterrence, WMD free zones, sanctions, anticipatory self-defense and the Middle East region in general. He has lectured/spoken at several universities and academic fora throughout the world on nonproliferation issues and has taught courses on nonproliferation at Georgetown University.
Bidwell is an active member of the California Bar and currently serves as Chair of the Nonproliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament Interest Group of the American Society of International Law.
Empowering U.S. allies to do more so Washington can do and spend less sounds attractive. But enabling, or looking the other way at the spread of nuclear weapons is not in America’s interests anymore today than it was in the 20th century.
As long as nuclear weapons exist, nuclear war remains possible. The Nuclear Information Project provides transparency of global nuclear arsenals through open source analysis. It is through this data that policy makers can call for informed policy change.
FAS estimates that the United States maintains a stockpile of approximately 3,700 warheads, about 1,700 of which are deployed.
The Department of Defense has finally released the 2024 version of the China Military Power Report.
The goal of this Task Force report is to offer findings and make recommendations regarding nonproliferation monitoring and verification in general; our observations are grounded in large part on the Task Force’s continued attention to nonproliferation developments such as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the P5+1 and Iran, nuclear developments in North […]
Most of the world (including the U.S.) seems to be relieved now that there is affirmative progress towards eliminating Syria’s ghastly chemical weapon (CW) stockpiles, thereby avoiding (at least for now) a military strike that no one really wanted to undertake. The Syrian government has announced that it will soon join the Organization for the […]