Guest post by Sandor Fabian is a PhD candidate at the University of Central Florida and instructor of record at the NATO Special Operations School. His research is in security studies with a focus on new concepts of conflict, U.S. foreign military aid, and counter...
UN members last month failed to reach agreement on the Arms Trade Treaty after a month-long conference.  This is the latest setback in a decades old attempt to control the trade in small arms. A...
Rob Farley notes the existence of long-standing conservative opposition to arms control. While the hacks at the Heritage Foundation lost this battle, Rob argues, their influence on Republican...
...when ideology reigned over science in arms control debates. With the new START about to pass through the Senate, here's a classic from San Fransisco's KRON Channel 4 back in 1986:
Even if John Bolton's and John Yoo's latest missive against New START ratification had been scrawled in crayon on the back of a cardboard box, it still would have been a waste of precious resources.Rather than explain why, I'll just outsource to Fred Kaplan.
CBS Nevada reporter Nathan Baca tried to approach [Sharron] Angle during a stroll through the airport and the airport parking lot with questions about her foreign policy views.After going through several evasive answers, an irritated Angle replied: "I will answer those questions when I'm the senator."Much of the liberal reaction to Angle's latest evasion of the press has taken the form of "if she can't face reporters, how can she a U.S. Senator?" In light of Angle's general bizarreness, I can understand the comparative lack of attention given to issue areas she refused to address. But, as...
Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that the Obama administration has fully disclosed decades worth of data about the size of America's nuclear arsenal: America's official nuclear silence ended Monday when the Obama administration not only disclosed the number of U.S. nuclear weapons available for use in wartime -- 5,113 as of Sept. 30 -- but surprised many by also publishing weapons totals for each year dating to 1962. (Data from before 1962 were released in 1993.)Apparently, administration officials believe that this might put pressure on Russia to likewise disclose...
Yesterday, in Prague, President Obama signed a new START deal with Russian President Medvedev. In strategic and military terms, the treaty does not make much difference. I think it is generally good to reduce nuclear overkill, but the treaty allows both states to retain 1550 strategic nuclear weapons. That's plenty for deterrence purposes and still a long way from zero. Potentially, the 30% cut in nuclear weapons is symbolically important as the U.S. tries to convince other states (like India) that it is serious about its NPT Article VI commitments. Russia shares this interest as well. It...
From Rob at LGM, via Kevin, via Winds of Change:The latest ROUMINT suggests that Secretary of Defense Gates, now visiting India, might give them the USS Kitty Hawk, CVN-63. The carrier is scheduled to be decommissioned soon, so rather than steaming back to the US, it could steam to India. Potential benefits to the US might include: parts and maintenance contracts, sales of planes to India from Boeing or Lockheed (F-18 and/or F-16), a strategic ally with a Blue Water navy in the Indian Ocean to help fight pirates and such.The coolest thing came from one of Kevin's comments:The Kittyhawk spent...
Another major development on the national-security front today: the US plan to shoot down one of its own spy satellites.President Bush, acting on the advice of his national security advisers, has decided to attempt to shoot down a malfunctioning spy satellite that is expected to crash to Earth early next month, a spokesman for the National Security Council said today.NSC spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the president made the decision within the past week and asked the military to come up with plans to destroy the satellite.Johndroe said that decision, which will be explained at a Pentagon...