After Israel's attack, the Iranian regime may see the actual weaponization of its nuclear program as the only option left that can guarantee its security.

The invasion of Ukraine illustrates why security guarantees may be less potent tools now to restrain nuclear proliferation than has been the case. The challenge: Which countries will the major powers or alliances extend their security umbrella to and which may they be unwilling or unable to protect, knowing that exposed countries may elect to pursue an indigenous nuclear option.

The public debate about the future of the US nuclear arsenal is largely a controversy about strategy. Meanwhile, the exploding price tag of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s long-term plan to sustain and modernize the nuclear warheads and production facilities—now an exorbitant $505 billion—flies under the radar. Now more than ever it’s important to scrutinize the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The Senate has basically ignored arms control for years. It doesn't have to be that way.

A wargame reveals how Israel and Iran could quickly consider using nuclear weapons if ever drawn into a direct conflict.

William J. Perry Member, Board of Sponsors William J. Perry is an expert on arms control, business, mathematics, and national security. From 1994 to 1997, he served as the US Secretary of Defense under President Clinton. Perry founded the William J Perry Project in 2013 to educate the public on the dangers of nuclear weapons … Continued

Climate change requires us to transform the electricity grid. It’s not going to happen without a comprehensive and holistic national plan.

It is time for the next big building block in the process toward universal denuclearization—a treaty that outlaws nuclear weapons. The first major building block in the effort to establish and maintain a world without nuclear weapons was the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970. A third building block would be … Continued

The deal reached in Vienna is a tremendous success, but Tehran still faces economic and political problems at home

Historical documents shed new light on the treaty and the divergent interpretations of its central purpose as far back as 1968—before it was even signed.

Some climate advocates worry that without further review, voters will assume Bloomberg’s climate plan is sufficient merely because of his background.

Peace with North Korea is often dismissed as unrealistic in Washington. But there’s a growing constituency that thinks there is no other way forward.

The Biden administration’s task could not be more daunting. But wise political decisions can mitigate the worst effects of collective death anxiety brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, while a decrease in national dread makes for better, fairer, and more rational politics. Confronting death anxiety together can be a source of personal and collective renewal.

Compared to other Silicon Valley titans, Google has long appeared to be a bit player in the controversies over misinformation, hate speech, and user privacy that have plagued the likes of Facebook and Twitter, especially in the wake of the 2016 US presidential election. That may change Tuesday as Google CEO Sundar Pichai takes part … Continued

Former Los Alamos lab director Siegfried Hecker proposes a series of nine questions on great power competition, the global nuclear order, proliferation, and the role of nuclear energy that journalists and citizens should ask the 2024 presidential candidates.

Talk of preventive war rises, as military exercises begin

When I first stood atop Nevada's Yucca Mountain more than 16 years ago, the Energy Department was spending about $1 million a day to assess the feasibility of safely storing spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste there. A steel-toothed tunneling machine had already begun chewing its way into the ridge, and some 300 scientists were on-site studying the area's underground trickles, its porous rock, its lumbering desert tortoises, and a few reddish-black cinder cones that dotted the landscape below -- the ominous tombstones of ancient volcanic eruptions.

Over the past two decades, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been captured by the nuclear power companies it is supposed to regulate.

“Climate is not an issue that only white, upper middle-class, latte-sipping liberals care about” say researchers.