North Korean verification: Good enough for government work?
Any verification regime for eliminating North Korean nuclear weapons is likely to involve uncertainty. But a degree of uncertainty might be an acceptable price to pay.
nuclear weapons
Pakistani nuclear forces, 2018
The authors estimate that the country’s stockpile could realistically grow to 220 to 250 warheads by 2025, if the current trend continues.
Washington-Moscow nuclear verification: Tensions and solutions
The outlook for further US-Russian arms control is not bright today, but both sides should develop new verification techniques in case unexpected breakthroughs occur.
TV and the Bomb
What portrayals of nuclear fear on mid-century television can tell us about ourselves today.
Nuclear subs. Sea lions. Massive bags of money.
Three to five years ago, a lot of articles were published about scandalously poor morale among missileers at US intercontinental ballistic missile bases. But what about the crews on ballistic missile submarines? If things are weird at Minot and Malmstrom, aren’t they weirder under water? Not in the telling of Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr. of … Continued
Kim Jong-un’s long game
Less than a month after the first-ever US-North Korea summit, news reports began emerging that Pyongyang is continuing to develop its nuclear program, just as it was doing before the June 12th meeting in Singapore between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. While these reported activities violate UN Security Council … Continued
North Korea is not denuclearizing. Yet.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Pyongyang later this week to “continue consultations and implement the forward progress made by President Trump and Chairman Kim” at their June 12 meeting in Singapore. For now, though, North Korea is not making any unilateral moves to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. On June 27, the Wall Street … Continued
Deterrence and its discontents
What might Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, have found, had he lived long enough to study the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review and its drafters? Anxiety about failure and death, fear of impotence, and an obsession with deterrence that obscures the ultimate question: “What is it that the United States wants in this world?” … Continued
Chinese nuclear forces, 2018
The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Robert S. Norris, a senior fellow with the FAS. The Nuclear Notebook column has been published in the since 1987. This issue’s column examines China’s nuclear arsenal, which includes about 280 … Continued
