The atomic age began between heartbeats at 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, when the Japanese city of Hiroshima was leveled by an atomic bomb. Three days later, the US dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, marking the first time humanity broke atoms in anger.
North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons has changed the nuclear balance in Northeast Asia. But it hasn’t altered the way politicians and diplomats approach the question of arms control and disarmament in the region. The debate among influencers continues to revolve around two versions of...
If the Trump administration follows through on its threat to restart nuclear tests, it will complete the unraveling of more than 50 years of arms control agreements, taking the world back to the days when school children practiced “duck and cover” and people built backyard bomb...
When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an economic meeting in the city of Sivas this September that Turkey was considering building nuclear weapons, he was responding to a broken promise. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the government of Iran...
Thanks to his Apple-like obsession with proving to people that he can “think different” or at least differently than previous presidents, Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated his talent at improvising outlandish solutions to unsolvable problems. There was the “big, beautiful wall,” of...
The United States built an arsenal of nuclear weapons to preserve and extend its global dominance. But now, in a perverse development, nukes threaten that dominance. My first trip to Washington, DC, to do something other than protest on the streets was to interview for a Herbert Scoville Jr....
When the world is falling apart, Donald Trump is there to make sure it’s the best collapse ever. Since his election in 2016, US President Donald Trump has never met a treaty or international agreement he didn’t want to rescind. He undoubtedly thinks of that method as the “art of the...
Russia is no longer communist and has never threatened war. But for the US, the Russians are the evil enemy against whom we must arm. The president of the United States and his generals are in need of a fix called low-yield weapons. Air Force General John Hyten made the logic clear: “That...
Today’s real and present nuclear danger seems so much more immediate because Trump has his unstable hand on the nuclear button. The United States of America is the only nation on earth that has ever purposely used nuclear weapons to kill human beings — approximately 66,000 dead in Hiroshima...
How a growing technology gap between the US and its nuclear-armed rivals could lead to the unraveling of arms control agreements — and even nuclear war. At a time of growing tensions between nuclear powers — Russia and NATO in Europe, and the United States, North Korea and China in Asia —...
Obama’s approach to nukes will be his most significant legacy—as well as his most salient failure. Of all the accomplishments and disappointments of the Obama presidency, his nuclear weapons policy is the greatest. Yes, you read that correctly. Barack Obama’s approach to nukes will be his...
Riyadh's lack of confidence in the Joint Plan of Action raises questions over its traditional stance of non-proliferation. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has long been a champion for the establishment of a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the Middle East, owing to a combination of its isolation from...
Qatar’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood has not ended. Political analysts are looking at the seismic transfer of power from Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani to his 33-year-old son, Sheikh Tamim, in order to examine a number of issues. Sheikh Hamad's abdication occurred just...
The most problematic element of the nuclear deal is the lifting of sanctions. The understandings reached by the foreign ministers of Iran, the US, Russia, the UK, France, China and Germany, as well as the High Representative of the European Union, in the early hours of November 24, are a fine...
Hope for a real improvement in US-Iranian relations is not far-fetched. Observers of the relationship between the US and Iran recently lived through one of those rare weeks when the colored glass in the kaleidoscope shifts and the outlook changes. It was a momentous week, possibly a...
