Columnists

Hugh Gusterson

The new nuclear abolitionists

13 May 2008

The renewed call for a nuclear-weapon-free world is coming from an unlikely source--former policy elites.

The "public" discussion about the Energy Department's Complex Transformation

27 March 2008

This week a cadre of activists gathered in Washington to articulate their concerns about the latest U.S. attempt to reorganize its nuclear weapons complex.

U.S. nuclear double standards

20 February 2008

As seen from Pakistan, U.S. nuclear weapons policies present troubling trends; an exclusive interview with the irreverent Brig. Gen. Atta M. Iqhman.

A Pakistani view of U.S. nuclear weapons

4 February 2008

Before the United States criticizes Pakistan and other countries about the security of their nuclear arsenals, Washington should make sure its safeguards system is foolproof.

Misadventures at the U.S. Energy Department

25 December 2007

Getting into a public talk at the Energy Department has become a surreal exercise, which is worrisome considering all the notoriously mismanaged agency is charged to do.

Deconstructing HBO's Pu-239

27 November 2007

Like its recent documentary White Light/Black Rain, HBO's latest original movie, Pu-239, provides a thought-provoking examination of the nuclear age.

The effect of U.S. nuclear testing on the Marshallese

27 October 2007

Five decades after its final nuclear test in the Marshall Islands, Washington still refuses to appropriately compensate those harmed by the tests.

Determining the truth about U.S. missile defense

23 September 2007

Washington is either misleading the public about the purpose of its European missile defense installations or uninformed about the program's capabilities. Whatever the case, productive dialogue suffers.

Still surviving Hiroshima

1 August 2007

Even for those who lived through the first atomic bombings, it will always be August 1945.

Nuclear terrorism: The new day after

23 July 2007

It's irrational to think that human beings would behave rationally in the hours and days after a nuclear terrorist attack.

Nuclear terrorism: Correcting the future

4 June 2007

If we lose Washington, we better get our story straight. Otherwise, history will rewrite itself.

The New York Times's slanted North Korea coverage

7 May 2007

You would never guess by reading the country's so-called paper of record, but Pyongyang actually has national security interests of its own.

The militarization of neuroscience

9 April 2007

The U.S. military's interest in physics helped produce the Bomb. Now the Pentagon is mining neuroscience for a host of futuristic weapons.

Understanding the reliable replacement warhead

25 March 2007

The U.S. weapons laboratories want to build a new, supposedly safer, nuclear warhead. But will it make the country safer?

A parent's quandary

20 February 2007

When it comes to war and social issues, what do we tell the children?

Finding Article VI

8 January 2007

How the anti-nuclear movement remembered the nuclear powers’ obligation to complete disarmament.

Profile

Hugh Gusterson (Profile Image)

Hugh Gusterson

An anthropologist, Gusterson is a professor of anthropology and sociology at George Mason University. His expertise is in nuclear culture, international security, and the anthropology of science. He has conducted considerable fieldwork in the United States and Russia, where he studied the culture of nuclear weapon scientists and antinuclear activists. Two of his books encapsulate this work--Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War (University of California Press, 1996) and People of the Bomb: Portraits of America's Nuclear Complex (University of Minnesota Press, 2004). He also coedited Why America's Top Pundits Are Wrong (University of California Press, 2005); a sequel, The Insecure American, is in preparation. Previously, he taught in MIT's Program on Science, Technology, and Society.

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