Hugh Gusterson | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Where women warriors will lead

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 20:21:23 -0500

The announcement that the Pentagon will open combat positions to women marks the third great turn toward integration and equality in the history of the US military. The first came in 1948 when President Harry Truman ordered racial desegregation of the armed forces. Thanks to Truman, we now accept a situation that was deeply troubling to some at the time: white soldiers serving under black officers. The second integrationist turn came with the decision, initiated by President Clinton and finalized under President Obama, to allow gay men and women to serve in the military.

The nuclear dogs that didn't bark

Hugh Gusterson — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:29:52 -0500

In the Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze, the key to solving a mystery turns out to be identifying what did not happen (and, as so often with things that do not happen, had therefore been ignored).

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

The new abolitionists

Hugh Gusterson — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:09:33 -0400

Philip Taubman's new book, The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb, recounts the story of five front-rank Cold Warriors who have become nuclear abolitionists in their old age.

Weapons labs and the inconvenient truth

Hugh Gusterson — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:36:13 -0500

On February 16, the strategic forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the oversight of the nuclear weapons laboratories. The nine out of 16 committee members who skipped the hearing -- including the congressman who represents the district encompassing the Livermore Laboratory -- missed a fine show.

An education in occupation

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:43:43 -0500

As the last American soldiers left Iraq in December, so, too, did many of the journalists who had covered the war, leaving little in the way of media coverage of post-war Iraq.

Death by drone

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:03:18 -0400

Anwar al-Awlaki was clearly not a nice person, but the manner in which he was killed on September 30 should trouble us all, regardless of our political orientation. Awlaki, a US citizen who once lived in Northern Virginia, was a Muslim cleric who took up residence in Yemen, where he incited anti-US sentiment -- until he was executed by a drone.

The costs of war

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:54:23 -0400

Military responses to problems have a way of creating all sorts of new problems. The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy offers an opportunity to reflect on the costs and benefits of the wars the United States initiated against Iraq and Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks. A comprehensive new study, "Costs of War," sponsored by Brown University (and with which I have been affiliated) suggests that the costs have been wildly out of proportion to the benefits.

The human element

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:20:13 -0400

The discussions about the safety of nuclear reactors in the new post-Fukushima world have focused on technical questions: Is it possible to make reactors earthquake-proof? What is the best way to ensure that spent fuel remains safe? What is the optimal design for coolant systems? Can reactors be made "inherently safe"?

An appreciation: The Republican senator who opposed nuclear arms

Hugh Gusterson — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:19:09 -0400

"If you've been in a war, you cannot but have your views altered. The devastation, the terrible devastation, is not something one ever forgets."
- Mark Hatfield, 1986

The lessons of Fukushima

Hugh Gusterson — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:00:52 -0400

As an anthropologist, I am always interested in what humans learn from their mistakes. Can humans change their behavior, thereby improving their chances of survival, not just through natural selection, but also through cultural learning? Or are we hardwired to repeat our mistakes over and over, like humanoid lemmings?

More to the point, what lessons will we learn from the nuclear accident at Fukushima, an accident thought to be impossible just two weeks ago?

An open letter to the Tea Party

Hugh Gusterson — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:38:56 -0400

Congratulations to your movement for so quickly and fundamentally shifting the political debate in the United States. You have put a vital issue on the national agenda: the increasing share of our wealth as a nation that has been commandeered by the government, and the resulting budget deficits that are like a massive iceberg toward which our economic ship of state drifts at its peril.

Now showing: Countdown to Zero

Hugh Gusterson — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:53:31 -0400

Great historical changes begin as the quixotic obsessions of a vanguard of idealists who are seen as dangerous radicals or ideological deviants by many of their contemporaries. Think of the first advocates of the abolition of slavery, the first suffragettes, and the first gay rights activists.

The olive branch in the West Bank

Hugh Gusterson — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:22:39 -0400

Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, was recently quoted as saying that relations between the U.S. and Israel were undergoing a "tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart." If the quote is accurate, which Oren later disputed, it is surely an overstatement.

Against counterinsurgency in Afghanistan

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:42:57 -0400

It says something about American politics that Gen. Stanley McChrystal was not fired because U.S. casualties in Afghanistan are running at record levels, because the much vaunted Marja initiative has failed, or because the Kandahar offensive is already in trouble during its preliminary rollout. No, he was fired because he and his team embarrassed the White House with carelessly frank talk to a journalist. "This is a change in personnel, but not a change in policy," said President Barack Obama in announcing General McChrystal's dismissal.

Do professional ethics matter in war?

Hugh Gusterson — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:58:55 -0500

What happens when the U.S. military decides that an academic discipline's professional ethics code is a nuisance?

That is the situation in which anthropology now finds itself.

An American suicide bomber?

Hugh Gusterson — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:05:10 -0500

"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.

Afghanistan: Vietnam all over again

Hugh Gusterson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:48:03 -0500

"Today they are ringing the bells; tomorrow they will be wringing their hands," Sir Robert Walpole.

We don't know the intimate details of the discussions in President Barack Obama's recent war councils, so it's impossible to know what the chess-player-in-chief is thinking as he sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We only know what he is telling us.

How to get out of Afghanistan

Hugh Gusterson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:35:13 -0400

It's nice to hear from readers of this column, even if they ask pointed questions. Anne Winterfield, a graduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, read my recent article on the futility of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and called me up with a question about the last sentence of that article: "Say our job is done now, Mr.

The shared sins of Soviet and U.S. nuclear testing

Hugh Gusterson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:16:16 -0400

Gerald Sperling's new film, Silent Bombs: All for the Motherland, recounts the effects of decades of nuclear testing on Kazakh villagers near the Soviet nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk. The film is at once very particular to Kazakhstan, the exotic ambience of which is evoked with a sad lyricism, and, in a disturbing way, generic to the nuclear age. It evokes something that is simultaneously strange and familiar.

Why the war in Afghanistan cannot be won

Hugh Gusterson — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:44:57 -0400

A number of commentators have remarked of late on the ominous parallels between the situation in Afghanistan today and the quagmire in Vietnam in the 1960s: