Digests and Blog

Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball discussed what's next after New START yesterday at the 3rd Annual "Nuclear Deterrence Summit," in Crystal City, VA. Below are his prepared remarks: After New START, What's Next? It's a pleasure and honor to appear once again at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit. Once again Ed Helminski and his Exchange Monitor Publications team have assembled an impressive lineup of speakers and we're glad to be able to be part of this important dialogue. The organizers have asked me to address what can and should be done to reduce nuclear dangers now…

Robert Mueller, James Clapper, and Leon Panetta at House Permanent Select Committee Hearing (Image Source: Zimbio.com) By Greg Thielmann In spite of widespread rumors that the intelligence community's assessment of the Iranian nuclear threat had changed significantly in the last three years, two hearings held by the intelligence committees in recent days provided scant confirmation. Instead, terrorism and cyber threats dominated both the testimony of witnesses and questioning by Members of Congress. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hosted the year's first comprehensive…

By Jeff Abramson During the week of Feb 7-11, 2011, we provided midterm grades on 5 aspects of the Obama administration's approach to conventional weapons arms control. Bookmark this post and come back over the next months and years to compare the grades you'd give to those earned at the two-year mark of the Obama administration. Click a topic below to go directly to the original post. Arms Trade Treaty (Feb 7) Arms Trade/Sales (Feb 8 ) Export Control Reform (Feb 9) Landmines (Feb 10) Indiscriminate Weapons, Especially Cluster Munitions (Feb 11) Grading Guide A: Global leader pressing for…

by Daryl G. Kimball On Monday the Barack Obama Administration will roll out its budget request for the next fiscal year (2012). Those numbers will have a major impact on various programs related to the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) activities to maintain and refurbish existing nuclear weapons and upgrade the nuclear weapons complex, as well as NNSA initiatives to reduce the threat that nuclear weapons-usable material might be lost, stolen, or sold. Just as important though was Friday's announcement from the House Appropriations Committee about its proposed Continuing…

By Nik Gebben If Egypt's political future remains uncertain, its nonproliferation future is even more so. The only known quantity on this issue is former IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, who could potentially help steer Cairo in a stronger direction on nonproliferation. But it's still not clear what role, if any, he will play. Therefore, some of the "concerns" described in recent news reports seem premature. It isn't exactly news that Egypt has had a checkered past and unsatisfactory commitments when it comes to WMD: Egypt did sign on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which…

By Jeff Abramson The Obama administration started off well when on Jan. 21, 2009 it deposited ratifications to three protocols and an amendment to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), a meaningful accord that seeks to regulate the use of weapons judged to be more inhuman or indiscriminate than others. Hopes that this administration would then take a new approach on cluster munitions, one of the most high-profile indiscriminate weapons, have thus far been dashed. Indiscriminate Weapons, Especially Cluster Munitions: D When agreeing to the CCW protocol on incendiary weapons…

Cover of INCBC Report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies By Alfred Nurja The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) released this month a substantial analysis of Iran's nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities. The report's detailed break-out scenarios allow readers to finally make some sense of the various and conflicting timelines that have circulated in recent years about when and how Iran could produce a nuclear bomb if that is what it chose to pursue. More importantly, the nuclear section of the IISS publication also makes a number of observations…

By Jeff Abramson Earlier this week, the public engagement staff at the State Department's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement sent out an email highlighting U.S.-supported efforts to clear landmines in Croatia, Sudan and Central America. There is no question that the United States is a global leader in these critical removal and assistance efforts, but is the Obama administration also moving Washington toward the global norm of barring use of victim-activated anti-personnel landmines? That answer is still unclear. Landmines: C+ As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama told Arms Control…

By Daryl G. Kimball As he pushes sales of his memoir, George W. Bush's former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is trying, once again, to spin the facts about the "knowns" and the "unknowns" about Iraq's suspected nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs in the months leading up to the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer this week, Rumsfeld claimed "the intelligence was certainly wrong" and "we had reasonable confidence he had these weapons." In his Good Morning America interview with Rummy, George Stephanopolous asked the smart question: "But…

By Jeff Abramson This administration has launched an aggressive and comprehensive review of U.S. export control policy, which is no small task. With multiple bureaucracies playing a role in deciding what U.S. military and dual-use goods and services can be exported, and to whom, past efforts have generally failed to overcome national security concerns and stakeholder inertia. This administration may break the mold, but not in a good way. Export Control Reform: C- When first announced in August 2009, there was a sense that the effort could be coordinated with Congress. The White House…