The first time President Ronald Reagan announced that “A nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought” was before the Japanese Diet on November 11, 1983. Reagan was sensitive to public concerns over the rocky state of U.S.-Soviet rel …
My colleague, the indefatigable and indispensable Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association, reminds us that this is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the SALT I negotiations. These talks produced an Interim Agreement that was riddled with l …
Two former Soviet experts who played key roles in Cold War arms control negotiations, Aleksandr’ G. Savel’yev and Nikolay N. Detinov, wrote an important book giving outsiders insight into the Kremlin’s decision making. The English language version of t …
Appreciations of a life well lived deserve to be in the present tense. A body fails. A spirit released from human lament leaves this earthly plane. But a person’s good works live on. Family is legacy, and Steve Cohen’s partner in life, Bobby, and their …
Dan Caldwell, my good friend, professor nonpareil at Pepperdine, and the co-founder of The Order of the Baby Lenin, has compiled two charts encapsulating presidential achievements from Eisenhower to Obama that established norms related to weapons …
The Open Skies Treaty is easy to mock. It was first proposed by President Eisenhower and wasn’t negotiated until Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. The Treaty allows cooperative overflights by planes carrying unclassified sens …
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s memorable retort to Donald Trump’s October 16th meltdown in the White House — “All roads with you lead to Putin” — ranks up there with Trump’s reference to American “carnage” in his inaugural address. Bo …
I salute Women’s Action for New Directions and Woman’s Legislators Lobby for convening women state legislators to lend impetus to the prevention of mushroom clouds on battlefields. They have assembled under the banner of No First Use. No First Use is c …
Donald Trump has floated above the din he habitually creates. His cunning is so great that he has been able to move through life absent guardrails and wise council. One of his secrets of success/ extrication is that he creates conditions where punishme …
Lo, the standing of the United States continues to fall. Allies and friends make the United States stronger. Donald Trump treats them as dispensable. As Washington retreats, allies squabble. Witness what’s happening between Japan and South Korea. Presi …
Those seeking escape from surface-layered arguments about nuclear weapons and deterrence would do well to seek refuge in the writings of the masters. France’s contributors to the field include Raymond Aron, a resistance fighter for Free French forces d …
There was no other way. John Bolton goes full tilt. He’s a bull in a china shop, and that doesn’t do him justice. He’s all in, all the time. This was his last shot at tearing down the work of others from the inside. No one else could have tapped him to …
Les Gelb, who died over the weekend, had a stunning resumé. The Pentagon. Brookings. The State Department. The New York Times. The Council on Foreign Relations. He had a quick, incisive mind and was adept at synthesizing complexity into common sen …
Rajnath Singh has now joined other significant Indian voices, including former Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar and former National Security Adviser (and Ambassador to China and Pakistan) Shivshankar Menon, in purposefully fuzzing up India’s “no first …
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has resumed sharing data from radiation monitoring stations in Siberia after some were taken offline following a deadly explosion at a missile range, a nuclear weapons watchdog said Tuesday, while an American expert said the fact t …
My idea of India is dated, like me. I mourn its passing. My idea of India first came into focus in the early 1990s. Eyes-wide-open, I stepped into a strange and foreign country. I embrace how India has changed for the better since then. But not e …
I was relatively sanguine after the last spike in tension on the subcontinent in February, marked by a Kashmiri youth aiming a vehicle loaded with RDX against a cordon of Indian patrolmen, followed by the first aerial combat between Pakistan and India …
The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty died last week at age 32. As treaty-years between major powers go, that’s a full lifetime. (Treaty years equal dog years multiplied by two.) The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty also lasted for three decades. T …
The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty died last week. The cause of death was changing geopolitical circumstances. The INF Treaty was 32. As treaty-years between major powers go, that’s a full lifetime. (Treaty years equal dog years multiplied by …
Washington DC – The United States on Friday will formally withdraw from a landmark arms control treaty with Russia, claiming it undermines its national security interests. The move means that only one, soon-to-expire, arms control treaty …
Quote of the week: “What in the name of God is strategic superiority? What is the significance of it politically, militarily, operationally, at these levels of numbers? What do you do with it?” — Henry Kissinger (1974) Henry Kissinger voiced these exas …
At a May 29th conclave held at the Hudson Institute to call attention to the increasingly brutish world in which we live, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley, Jr., spoke thusly: “Russia’s development of new warhe …
Think of what the world would be like if Russia, the United States, China, India and Pakistan were testing nuclear weapons. They are not because of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which is responsible for shutting down nuclear testing by …
The “great books” of nuclear arms control were written early. Subsequently, the most influential pieces of writing in our field have usually been found in shorter form. Ten years ago, I compiled a list of articles for the well-read wonk for Foreig …
Dark clouds are gathering. The Trump administration seems headed toward pre-emptive strikes against Iran. This progression began when Donald Trump walked away from the deal struck by President Obama, the European Union, Russia and China freezing advanc …
Robert S. McNamara, a hero? Of arms control? I kid you not. No less a figure than Paul Warnke credited McNamara as being the person who “basically invented strategic nuclear arms control.” He was convinced by scientific expertise not beholden to the mi …
The Establishment that created the United Nations, constructed NATO, and built a global economic system around the almighty dollar did arms control on the side. These extraordinary accomplishments have been recast or are being cast aside without anythi …
***This this a three-part essay originally published in Arms Control Wonk and combined into a single piece*** New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty One good reason to extend the Obama/Medvedev New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty for five years is th …
The thirteen-year period from 1987 to 2000 was the golden age of nuclear arms control. This golden age began when two risk-taking leaders cast off the spell of deterrence orthodoxy to sign the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. When Ro …
The Trump administration and the Kremlin have given notice of intent to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. New START may be next on the chopping block. Where do we go from here? If the process of nuclear arms control as we have …