kingston.jpeg

Kingston Reif

Kingston Reif

Reif is the director of nuclear nonproliferation at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. A recipient of a Marshall Scholarship, he was awarded a prestigious Scoville Peace Fellowship in 2008. He blogs about nuclear weapons policy at Nukes of Hazard.

Subscribe

Articles by Kingston Reif

Columnists
27 August 2012
Nuclear Weapons

Cold comfort

Kingston Reif

As the plausible military rationales for nuclear weapons continue to deteriorate in the aftermath of the Cold War, political and psychological rationales for nuclear weapons -- like providing reassurance to US allies -- are increasingly viewed to be just as important as deterrence.

Columnists
2 August 2012
Nuclear Weapons

Whither the anti-terrorism budget?

Kingston Reif

Nuclear terrorism is the ultimate preventable catastrophe. If highly enriched uranium and plutonium are adequately secured or eliminated, they cannot be stolen for use in a nuclear device. In 2011, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper noted that "poorly secured stocks of [chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials] provide potential source material for terror attacks." Osama bin Laden may be dead, but the threat of nuclear terrorism remains.

Columnists
22 June 2012
Nuclear Weapons

13 days -- and what was learned

Kingston Reif

The most dangerous moment of the nuclear age -- and likely any age -- unfolded 50 years ago as the world waited and trembled. For 13 harrowing days, the leaders of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba brought the planet within a hair's breadth of nuclear catastrophe. Despite the seemingly halcyon stability of deterrence throughout the Cold War, there were numerous moments during the Cuban Missile Crisis that could have escalated into full-blown nuclear war.

Columnists
10 May 2012
Nuclear Weapons

The politics of reduction

Kingston Reif

One of the perks of being a Republican president in the United States is the freedom to make drastic changes to US nuclear posture while Democratic presidents are forced to travel a much tougher road, often in the pursuit of far less ambitious goals. This pattern has been ongoing since the end of the Cold War and sadly continues unabated today.

Columnists
9 April 2012
Nuclear Weapons

The case for the CTBT: Stronger than ever

Kingston Reif

In his April 2009 speech in Prague, President Barack Obama outlined a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and pledged to "immediately and aggressively" pursue approval of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which prohibits any nuclear test explosions that produce a self-sustaining, supercritical chain reaction and creates a robust international verification regime.

Columnists
12 March 2012
Nuclear Weapons

When less is not more

Kingston Reif

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, a defining feature of US nuclear strategy has been the quest for credible ways to strengthen deterrence -- including the ability to actually win a nuclear war, which of course would reduce constraints imposed on US foreign policy by the spread of nuclear weapons.

Columnists
2 February 2012
Nuclear Weapons

New START: One year later

Kingston Reif

February 5 marks the one-year anniversary of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty's (New START) entry into force. Signed by the United States and Russia in April 2010, New START caps each country's nuclear arsenal at 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicles (long-range missiles and bombers), and 800 deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers (long-range missile tubes on submarines, missile silos, and bombers).

Columnists
14 December 2011
Nuclear Weapons

What the super committee's failure means for nuclear weapons

Kingston Reif

On November 21, the 12-member congressional super committee announced that it failed to approve a plan to shrink the budget deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade, triggering an automatic sequester that, if implemented, could result in reductions of $500 billion to planned defense spending over the next decade. These cuts would be in addition to the more than $450 billion in reductions the Pentagon has planned over the next decade.

Opinion
14 July 2011
Nuclear Weapons

Parting words: Gates and tactical nuclear weapons in Europe

Kingston ReifEmma Lecavalier

In a recent speech in Brussels, departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized European members of NATO for allowing defense obligations to fall increasingly upon the United States, continuing a funding imbalance that could lead Americans to question whether the costs of NATO are justified.

Opinion
17 September 2010

Sharing New START's negotiating record is unwarranted

Kingston ReifTravis Sharp

On September 16, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved New START, the bilateral treaty signed in April that would verifiably reduce US and Russian nuclear weapons. Three Republican senators -- Richard Lugar, Bob Corker, and Johnny Isakson -- voted in committee to approve the treaty. Such support bodes well for the pact's prospects during floor consideration by the full Senate, which can still attach additional declarations and conditions to New START's resolution of ratification in order to clarify its interpretation of the treaty.

Pages