Search

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.

The State Department and USAID are in the midst of conducting an unprecedented Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), which is intended to bolster the civilian capabilities of U.S. statecraft. It is taking place in the context of calls by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen to enhance our civilian capabilities in order to avoid the "militarization" of U.S. foreign policy. This, of course, is a positive step forward.

Eight years ago, a German coalition government comprised of Social Democrats and Greens passed legislation phasing out the country's nuclear power plants, which provide one-quarter of German electricity, after roughly 32 years of operation. Given that schedule, at least two of the country's 17 nuclear reactors should be shutting down this year.

"As for the Taliban fighters, they not only don't cherish life, they expend it freely in suicide bombings. It's difficult to imagine an American suicide bomber," Washington Post pundit Richard Cohen opined in a recent column.

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.

The long-awaited report of the third Nuclear Posture Review is now scheduled for delivery to Congress on March 1. According to a recent New York Times article, the posture review will consider the prevention of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism to be equally as important as the nuclear deterrence mission.