Op-Ed | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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.

Why South Korea needs pyroprocessing

Seong Won Park — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:26:11 -0700

As South Korea's economy has grown remarkably over the last decade, so have its carbon emissions. In fact, Seoul has the second highest emissions growth rate in the world.

Such an increase would be even higher if it were not for the country's 20 nuclear reactors, which generated a little more than one-third of the country's total electricity in 2008. According to that year's National Energy Basic Plan, South Korea wants to increase nuclear energy's share of domestic electricity generation to 59 percent by 2030. To do so, it will need to build roughly 18 more nuclear reactors.

Climate change could be the next great military threat

Lee Gunn — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:48:02 -0700

The United States currently faces one of its greatest and most misunderstood threats: climate change. And as changing climate patterns affect the water supplies critical to human life and agriculture, as sea levels rise and threaten coastal communities, and as changes in the environment increasingly weaken marginal states, the implications for U.S. defense will only grow.

A neglected climate strategy: Empower women, slow population growth

Laurie Mazur — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:27:35 -0700

Trillions of mirrors launched into space to deflect the sun's rays. A massive fleet of ships churning up sea spray to increase Earth's cloud cover. As political responses to climate change limp along, scientists currently are debating these and other geoengineering schemes to stabilize the climate. Yet, as many have observed, such schemes carry formidable costs--and risks.

Diego Garcia: A thorn in the side of Africa's nuclear-weapon-free zone

Peter H. Sand — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:05:16 -0700

On July 15, the Pelindaba Treaty, which established Africa as a nuclear-weapon-free zone, finally entered into force. The treaty is the latest regional agreement to ban nuclear weapons in its area of application.

The politically possible: How to achieve success in Copenhagen

Jeffrey Frankel — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:09:03 -0700

The clock is running out on preparations for the December climate change conference in Copenhagen. The meeting is supposed to negotiate the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. But negotiations have been blocked by a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. The United States is at loggerheads with the developing world, especially China--now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG)--and India. Fortunately, there might be a way to break through this roadblock.