Op-Ed | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The passing of a climate prodigy

Richard C. J. Somerville — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:37:58 -0700

A towering figure in climate science, Stephen H. Schneider, 65, died of an apparent heart attack on July 19, 2010, while flying to London from a conference in Stockholm. The loss of Schneider, a professor at Stanford University, deprives the world of both an outstanding researcher and a gifted science communicator. To his colleagues in climate science, Steve, as everybody called him, has long been known as a scientific pioneer and a role model.

Missile defense: The future of NATO burden sharing?

Thomas Young — Sat, 01 May 2010 10:35:32 -0700

"If you are a NATO member, you have to work for collective security," Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov recently remarked in response to reports that his country is positioning itself as a potential host for components of the reconfigured European missile defense system. Borisov's statement encapsulates the spirit of NATO burden sharing: allies collectively shouldering the costs, risks, and responsibilities of maintaining adequate defenses.

Gimme shelter: The need for a contemporary civil defense program

Lawrence M. Wein — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:44:39 -0700

Of the 15 terrorism and natural disaster scenarios used by the Department of Homeland Security for planning purposes, the first scenario is the most feared: Terrorists detonate a 10-kiloton improvised nuclear device at ground level in the National Mall in Washington at 10 a.m. on a weekday morning.

Nuclear exchange: RRW for CTBT?

Yousaf Butt — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:59:22 -0700

Two weeks ago, on the very day that the breakthrough in the new START arms control negotiations was announced, Ohio Republican Rep. Michael Turner posted to his website three letters from the directors of the country's nuclear weapon laboratories expressing doubts in the viability of the programs that maintain U.S. warheads.

Advice for the Blue Ribbon Commission

Robert Alvarez — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:46:57 -0700

President Barack Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future will have its first meeting this week. The commission, formed after Obama cancelled the Yucca Mountain spent nuclear fuel repository in January, is tasked with rebooting the country's five-decade-plus effort to manage its high-level radioactive waste.

There's still nothing new on Iran

Ivan Oelrich — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:50:33 -0700

The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) February report on Iran, the first under the agency's new director-general, Yukiya Amano, has created quite a stir.

The Six-Party Talks: Outlining a true restart

John W. Lewis — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:24:46 -0700

In recent weeks, several senior diplomats from several different countries have indicated that the Six-Party Talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons program will resume shortly. That's the good news. The bad news is that these long-awaited talks will come up short--yet again--unless they undergo a serious reality check.

The climatic consequences of nuclear war

Steven Starr — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:24:04 -0800

Although the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review is supposed to include all aspects of the strategy and doctrine that govern the use of U.S. nuclear weapons, it once again will not consider one crucial question: What would be the long-term consequences to Earth's environment if the U.S. nuclear arsenal were detonated during a conflict?

The Obama disarmament paradox: A rebuttal

John Isaacs — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:17:30 -0800

Greg Mello's recent Bulletin article "The Obama Disarmament Paradox" distorts the Obama administration's nuclear agenda by making unjustified assumptions that discredit President Barack Obama's historic commitment to seek a nuclear-weapon-free world. Obama has committed to such a goal several times--both before and after his election in November 2008. But Mello calls that a "vague aspiration" rather than a commitment. Yet the evidence he provides to support his assertion isn't persuasive.

Activating a North Korea policy

John W. Lewis — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:17:37 -0800

It is routine in U.S. foreign policy for a pot not boiling over to be moved to the back burner. Precisely because the North Korean issue is not boiling, however, might offer an all-too-rare chance to make progress with Pyongyang. Over the past several months, the North has signaled publicly and privately that it is in engagement mode. In Washington, arguments abound about whether or not this is a stall tactic or a trick, but we'll never know if we don't move ahead with serious and sustained probing of the North's position.

The Obama disarmament paradox

Greg Mello — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:05:20 -0800

Last April in Prague, President Barack Obama gave a speech that many have interpreted as a commitment to significant nuclear disarmament.

Biological threats: A matter of balance

Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 07:41:45 -0800

The Graham-Talent WMD Commission asserted again last week that a bioterrorism attack that "will fundamentally change the character of life for the world's democracies" is highly likely to occur within the next four years. The commission argues that the United States must urgently expand its efforts to develop vaccines and other medical countermeasures against potential bioterrorism agents.

Sanctioning Iran further won't work

George A. Lopez — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:30:38 -0800

As 2010 began, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki intensified the nuclear standoff between Iran and the United States when he announced that by the end of the month the West must accept Tehran's counterproposal to a U.N.-brokered deal to meet Iran's nuclear fuel needs. Iran's counteroffer rejects a plan that the West insists had been agreed upon in principle to swap Tehran's low enriched uranium for ready-to-use nuclear fuel.

Reducing the nuclear threat: The argument for public safety

Richard Rhodes — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:24:13 -0800

Today, at the other end of the long trek down the glacier of the Cold War, the nuclear threat has seemingly calved off and fallen into the sea. In 2007, the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project found that 12 countries rated the growing gap between rich and poor as the greatest danger to the world. HIV/AIDS led the list (or tied) in 16 countries, religious and ethnic hatred in another 12. Pollution was identified as the greatest menace in 19 countries, while substantial majorities in 25 countries thought global warming was a "very serious" problem.

Opening up the Biological Weapons Convention to new voices

Marius Grinius — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:37:36 -0800

Each year, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), the world's foremost forum to abolish biological weapons, focuses on one or two areas that have been identified by States Parties as warranting more collective work.

Breaking the U.S.-Russian deadlock on nonstrategic nuclear weapons

Miles A. Pomper — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:25:26 -0800

As U.S. and Russian negotiators hammer out a replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires tomorrow, some Republican senators have already criticized negotiators for not including nonstrategic nuclear weapons--a category of nuclear arms not subject to legally binding limits or verification and one in which there is a great disparity between U.S. and Russian holdings. The U.S.

Further nuclear power subsidies are wrongheaded

Mark Cooper — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:23:21 -0800

It is ironic that as the nation continues to suffer from the misallocation of risk by companies in the financial sector, some of the strongest supporters of free markets and critics of government action are urging a massive federal subsidy for nuclear power.

Time to reconsider U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe

Bob van der Zwaan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:55:47 -0800

Often, it seems as though unimportant policy issues are constantly debated, while important ones are forgotten. For those decision makers who want to maintain the status quo, the advantage of the latter situation is the absence of any pressure for policy change. U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe are a perfect example. Despite the end of the Cold War about two decades ago, approximately 200 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons quietly remain on European soil. Whether they retain any relevance in the twenty-first century is debatable to say the least.

A unique opportunity to reach a deal with Iran

Anton Khlopkov — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:09:04 -0800

There are two key reasons why the Iranian nuclear problem has been deadlocked for so long: a crisis of confidence and the absence of any feasible proposal that would address the concerns of both sides.

Confronting twenty-first-century nuclear security realities

Kenneth N. Luongo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:45:31 -0800

In the past six months, President Barack Obama has taken three major steps to protect the world from nuclear terrorism and advance the disarmament agenda. First, during his April speech in Prague, he outlined his arms control and nonproliferation objectives and announced a U.S.-led international effort to secure all of the world's vulnerable nuclear materials within four years.