Columns | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The fallacy of the Megatons to Megawatts program

Pavel Podvig — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:14:07 -0600

Few U.S.-Russian cooperation efforts are more popular and less controversial than the "Megatons to Megawatts" program, also known as the HEU-LEU deal, which converts Russia's highly enriched uranium (HEU) from nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium (LEU) for U.S. nuclear power reactors. Under the agreement that the countries signed in 1993, Moscow made a commitment to eliminate 500 metric tons of HEU--probably more than one-third of the total HEU stock that the Soviet Union produced during the Cold War.

Food-borne illness: Attack of the killer tomatoes

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:55:17 -0600

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant and enjoying a delicious meal that includes fresh tomatoes and jalapeno peppers. Then, 12 to 72 hours later, stomach cramps, diarrhea, and a fever develop that can last up to a week--possibly, from those tomatoes and/or jalapeno peppers.

Making the dual-use problem a "piece of cake"

Malcolm Dando — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:51:00 -0600

Some academic conferences are encouraging because progress is being made in a field. Others are daunting because of the amount of work that clearly still needs to be done. The conference I attended in the beginning of June, on "Dual Uses of Biomedicine: Whose responsibility?" left me feeling both encouraged and daunted.

Breaking the tyranny of oil

Kurt Zenz House — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:30:00 -0600

Contrary to popular belief, high gasoline prices are good, and they are good precisely because high oil prices are very bad. I'll admit that doesn't sound right, but allow me to explain. I'll start with oil. Saudi Arabia, the country able to produce oil at the lowest cost, decided in 1986 to gain market share by increasing production. That caused the price of oil to collapse, and despite a momentary increase during the first Gulf War, oil prices remained low for the next 15 years.

Establishing the next president's national security agenda: The role of the White House

Gordon Adams — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:35:00 -0600

As I outlined in the first part of this three-part series, the national security agenda facing the next president demands that the White House's role in setting policy and coordinating its implementation be seriously revamped.

The U.S. military's quest to weaponize culture

Hugh Gusterson — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:06:00 -0600

The Pentagon seems to have decided that anthropology is to the war on terror what physics was to the Cold War. As an anthropologist, this makes me very nervous.

Where former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believed that the United States would vanquish its enemies through technological superiority, his replacement Robert Gates has said that cultural expertise in counterinsurgency operations will be crucial in the future wars he anticipates.

How evil can prevail in state-sanctioned biowarfare research

Laura H. Kahn — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:08:00 -0600

Some people consider physician Wouter Basson South Africa's Josef Mengele. During the 1998 Truth and Reconciliation hearings on Project Coast, South Africa's apartheid-era chemical and biowarfare programs, Schalk Janse van Rensburg, a veterinarian, stated that Basson, the program's head, wanted to devise a way to kill individuals that would appear undetectable to a forensics laboratory.

Raising life scientists' awareness

Malcolm Dando — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:04:00 -0600

In April 1980, the Bulletin published an article by former intelligence analyst Henry T. Nash titled "The Bureaucratization of Homicide." (The article was subsequently reprinted in E. P. Thompson's Protest and Survive.) In the article, Nash reflected on his experiences as a nuclear targeting planner in the U.S.

Establishing the next president's national security agenda: Part I

Gordon Adams — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:57:00 -0600

With the presidential primaries ending this week, it's time to focus on the general election and the key national security challenges that the next president will face. Over the next three columns, I will outline what national security issues I think the candidates should be debating.

The push for a new arms control agreement with Russia is ill-conceived

Pavel Podvig — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:42:00 -0600

Skepticism about arms control agreements has been a prominent Bush administration position. As such, its arms control achievements are few and far between. But in its waning days, the administration has finally agreed with the long-standing Russian position that any new arms control agreement should be "legally binding." John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, also recently announced in a major speech on nuclear issues that he would seek a new arms control agreement with Russia.

Don't block U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation

Pavel Podvig — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:34:00 -0600

Two weeks ago, the United States and Russia signed an agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation, commonly known as a "123 agreement." It was immediately attacked from all sides. Some members of Congress urged the Bush administration not to submit the document to Congress and threatened to block it once they did. Meanwhile, nuclear skeptics in Russia raised concerns that the agreement could revitalize the idea of importing foreign spent nuclear fuel into Russia or strengthen the U.S.-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. For their part, U.S.

The furor over genetically modified foods

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 -0600

The United Nations estimates that world population will top 9 billion people by 2050. Combined with the anticipated consequences of global warming such as drought, this could lead to devastating food shortages.

The new nuclear abolitionists

Hugh Gusterson — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:50:00 -0600

Twenty-five years ago, the Nuclear Freeze campaign mobilized hundreds of thousands of Americans to demand an end to the testing, production, and deployment of new nuclear weapons. At that time, advocating the complete abolition of nuclear weapons was a fringe position confined to a few utopians on the left. Even most antinuclear activists struggled getting past the "you can't put the genie back in the bottle" common sense of pundits and arms control experts.

Missed opportunities at the chemical weapons treaty meeting

Malcolm Dando — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:08:00 -0600

Prior to the Chemical Weapons Convention's (CWC) Second Review Conference last month, several attempts were made to raise the issue of the potential for incapacitating chemical agents to skirt the convention's rules. Despite these efforts, when the convention adjourned in mid-April, little had been done to address the issue.

Getting U.S. foreign assistance right

Gordon Adams — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:17:00 -0600

The United States badly needs to get its act together in promoting its national interests and national security objectives. And it badly needs to "rebalance" its statecraft toolkit, so U.S. civilian tools can perform their missions. Currently, too much of the domestic dialogue about our role in the world has focused on near-term security problems--namely, defeating Al Qaeda and stabilizing and reconstructing Iraq and Afghanistan.

Getting scientists involved in arms control

Malcolm Dando — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:13:00 -0600

Earlier this month Macedonian Amb. Georgi Avramchev addressed the "Second International Forum on Biosecurity" in Budapest and stressed the importance of including scientists and scientific organizations in the proceedings of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC). Delegations at BWC meetings have always included scientific experts, but Avramchev confirmed what many in attendance knew to be true, that scientists had not always been given the time or opportunity to contribute their expertise adequately.

The realities of nuclear fuel supply guarantees

Pavel Podvig — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:17:00 -0600

Virtually any discussion regarding the security implications of the spread of nuclear power involves the need to build a mechanism that would ensure a guaranteed, uninterrupted supply of nuclear fuel for new nuclear power plants.

In pursuit of international biosecurity oversight

Laura H. Kahn — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:39:00 -0600

Without a doubt, the implementation of bioresearch oversight must be an international effort. The United States has tried to take the lead in this area by mandating its National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to foster international collaboration when reviewing dual-use bioresearch.

The "public" discussion about the Energy Department's Complex Transformation

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:00:00 -0600

On Tuesday, the Energy Department held public hearings in Washington on its plans to "transform" the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Last time I went to Energy headquarters I was turned away because I wasn't a U.S. citizen. (See "Misadventures at the U.S. Energy Department.") This time they let me in without inquiring about my citizenship; they even let me roam the halls unescorted to look for a bathroom. Go figure.

The true cost of U.S. defense spending

Gordon Adams — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:00:00 -0600

With the likelihood of significant political change in January 2009, the Pentagon has been thinking a lot about next year's defense budget request (fiscal year 2010), which the new president will inherit when it's sent to Congress in February 2009. Budget planners and senior leaders in the Defense Department and armed forces face four possible options: