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E.g., 10/08/2013
1 September 2009
Feature

Richard Rhodes' Reykjavik

Richard Rhodes
Would the Reykjavik summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev have rid the world of nuclear weapons if only J. Robert Oppenheimer had been present? In this dramatization, Richard Rhodes explores the “what if”
1 September 2009
Nuclear notebook

Pakistani Nuclear Forces, 2009

Robert S. NorrisHans M. Kristensen

Pakistan is enhancing its nuclear weapon capabilities across the board by developing and deploying new nuclear-capable missiles and expanding its capacity to produce fissile materials for use in weapons.

Opinion
31 August 2009
Nuclear Weapons

U.S.-Russian nuclear energy cooperation: A missed opportunity

Anton Khlopkov

The July Moscow summit didn't produce any significant breakthroughs in U.S.-Russian relations. In fact, it really only highlighted that the problems Moscow and Washington are ready to cooperate on are international, not bilateral, in nature (e.g., nuclear nonproliferation, terrorism, drug trafficking). On further strategic arms reductions--the most anticipated topic at the summit--the early results aren't as impressive as advertised.

Opinion
31 August 2009
Nuclear Energy

Reprocessing is the answer

George S. StanfordGerald E. MarshWilliam Hannum

When you combine the country's addiction to oil to its mounting concern over global warming you have a clear-cut case for expanded nuclear power. The issue has been clouded, however, by the recent decision to stop work on the Yucca Mountain permanent spent fuel repository in Nevada, so far the only real solution the United States has for its accumulating spent fuel from its 104 light water reactors (LWR).

George S. Stanford

Stanford, a reactor physicist, is retired from Argonne National Laboratory.

Gerald E. Marsh

Marsh, a physicist, is retired from Argonne National Laboratory.

William Hannum

Hannum, a physicist, is retired from Argonne National Laboratory.

Opinion
28 August 2009
Nuclear Weapons

Local priorities vs. national interests in arms control

Travis Sharp

While beliefs about national sovereignty and international law matter, when it comes to arms control treaties, ideological considerations rarely trump pork-barrel politics. Would a senator from a state dependent on the nuclear weapons complex oppose an arms control treaty not on the basis of ideology, but because the treaty would mean the loss of jobs or funding in their home state? Absolutely.

Travis Sharp

Sharp is a research associate at the Center for a New American Security. He blogs about nuclear weapons policy at Nukes of Hazard.

25 August 2009

An interview with Joshua Pollack

Joshua Pollack

Joshua Pollack

Pollack is a consultant to the US government. He has conducted studies in several areas, including arms control, verification technologies, proliferation, deterrence, intelligence, homeland security, counterterrorism, and regional security affairs.

Opinion
24 August 2009
Climate Change

Avoid hyperbole, oversimplification when climate and security meet

Geoffrey D. Dabelko

The impact of climate change on national security has finally moved above the fold. And as the December Copenhagen climate change negotiations approach, politicians and experts alike are being forced to examine the complex effects of natural and social change on security. They must also walk a linguistic tightrope between hyperbole and uncertainty, working to present the facts without exaggerating their meaning.

Geoffrey D. Dabelko

Dabelko is director of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center

Opinion
21 August 2009
Nuclear Energy

The real cost of new U.S. nuclear reactors

Ryan Alexander

Almost four years ago, as part of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, Congress created a loan-guarantee program that was mandated to distribute guarantees for innovative and emerging energy technologies. While the program covers a range of such technologies, mature energy industries, such as coal and nuclear, also were eligible to receive them.

Ryan Alexander

Alexander, an attorney, is president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. Previously, she was executive director of the Common Cause Education Fund.

Columnists
19 August 2009
Biosecurity

The British Parliament wants details on BWC progress

Malcolm Dando

It isn't a good time to be a Member of Parliament (MP) in London. With the roasting the domestic media gave to some MPs for their inflated expense claims during a recession, many people must surely feel that little of value goes on in the Westminster Parliament. Nevertheless, it's important to give credit where credit is due.

Opinion
19 August 2009
Nuclear Energy

Britain's reprocessing boondoggle

Martin Forwood

Britain's worst nuclear accident in recent years occurred in 2005 at its Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) at the country's Sellafield nuclear complex. A subsequent investigation found that 83,000 liters of spent nuclear fuel had dissolved in nitric acid (some 22 tons worth) and leaked undetected from a fractured pipe for nine months. While the spill was isolated within the plant, cleanup and repair kept THORP closed for almost three years.

Martin Forwood

Forwood is the campaign coordinator for Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment, for which he has overseen campaigns against the British nuclear industry.

Opinion
14 August 2009
Climate Change

A brief history of climate change and conflict

James R. Lee

In recent years, many foreign affairs experts have attempted to demonstrate the linkages between climate change and the social tensions that can lead to conflict. While critics may believe this is simply a fad in international affairs, history suggests otherwise. Over the last few millennia, climate change has been a factor in conflict and social collapse around the world. The changing climate has influenced how and where people migrate, affected group power relations, and provided new resources to societies while taking away others.

James R. Lee

Lee is the associate director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and a professor in the

Opinion
14 August 2009

Limited options: Deterring North Korea and Iran

Lowell H. Schwartz

Over the course of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, the United States has tried a host of strategies to stop or slow the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs--and in the end, none of them have worked.

The question today is no longer whether the United States can still prevent the emergence of nuclear-armed regional adversaries, but instead, how to prevent them from being empowered by their nuclear weapons. This won't be easy.

Lowell H. Schwartz

Schwartz is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation.

Columnists
12 August 2009
Nuclear Weapons

Thinking creatively about the North Korean stalemate

Hugh Gusterson

We all know the saying that you can't be a little bit pregnant--either you are or you aren't. According to Henry Kissinger, getting nuclear weapons is like getting pregnant. In a Washington Post op-ed published on Nagasaki Day, Kissinger wrote, "The root cause of our decade-old controversy with Pyongyang is that there is no middle ground between North Korea being a nuclear-weapons state and a state without nuclear weapons."

Opinion
6 August 2009
Nuclear Energy

Reprocessing isn't the answer

There are 104 commercial nuclear power reactors in the United States, which supply about 20 percent of the nation's electricity. These are light water reactors (LWR) fueled with low-enriched uranium (LEU), containing initially about 5 percent of the fissile isotope uranium 235. Each nuclear plant receives about 25 tons of LEU fuel annually, in the form of long pencil-thin rods of uranium oxide ceramic enclosed in thin metal "cladding", that are bundled together (in bunches of 300) to form fuel elements.

Columnists
5 August 2009
Nuclear Weapons

Hiroshima and the power of pictures

Hugh Gusterson

Sixty-four years ago this week the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs. Whether we endorse or condemn the bombings, how do we grasp the enormity of the destruction that befell those two unfortunate Japanese cities? The last survivors of the bombings are passing into history, taking with them the power of their living witness. But for me, the full force of the bombings has always come from pictures more than words.

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