The destruction of the last U.S. chemical weapon marked the final step in eliminating the world’s known stockpiles.
Christopher Nolan’s mesmerizing, thought-provoking, and sometimes disturbing feature-length film, Oppenheimer, provides a jolting, timely reminder for millions of moviegoers that nuclear weapons are anything but normal because the leaders of a few nations have the power to destroy us all. But it also leaves the viewers with lots of questions unaddressed in the film.
Some types of lethal U.S. and European military assistance to Ukraine, including cluster munitions, would be escalatory, counterproductive, and only further increase the dangers to civilians caught in combat zones
Providing some types of lethal U.S. and European military assistance to Ukraine would be escalatory, counterproductive, and only further increase the dangers to civilians caught in combat zones and those who will, someday, return to their cities, towns, and farms.
Deteriorating relations between the major nuclear powers have stymied progress on nuclear arms control and disarmament for more than a decade. As bleak as the situation is, however, reports of the death of nuclear arms control are greatly exaggerated, and last month, the Biden administration outlined a viable path for moving back from the nuclear brink that deserves serious attention and support.
Although the geopolitical rationale for the arrangement is understandable, the parties have failed to come to terms with its core problems.
The two sides are unlikely to restore the 2015 nuclear deal but they could take steps to reduce tensions.
The Republican chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee agrees with the Pentagon that the development of hypersonic weapons systems needs to be accelerated.
Some in Congress are pushing for higher funding for existing and new nuclear weapons programs, including for the development of nuclear-armed submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCM-N). This would bring back a nuclear weapon type that the U.S. withdrew from service 30 years ago and retired a decade ago. (June 2023)
The space for negotiations between Washington and Tehran over Iran's advancing nuclear program may be opening up after U.S. and Iranian officials expressed support for reaching an agreement and Iran took limited steps to increase monitoring of its nuclear program.
The decades-long effort to halt and reverse an arms race involving the world’s deadliest weapons may soon number among the casualties of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of independent, non-nuclear Ukraine and his increasingly reckless nuclear threats.
In the U.S. Congress and among the public, there are rising questions about the benefits and risks of commercializing these powerful but error-prone technologies, including in the military sphere.
During the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to “restore American leadership on arms control and nonproliferation…and work to bring us closer to a world without nuclear weapons.”
The new policy is a step in the right direction but implementation is the real test.