Threats

Incoming HASC Chair: Scale Back Plans for New Nukes

Rep. Adam Smith laid out new terms for a debate over the Pentagon’s plans to expand the military’s nuclear arsenal.

Ideas

Nukes, the New Congress, and the Lost Art of Political Compromise

In the past, arms controllers and deterrence boosters compromised on deals that ultimately reduced nuclear dangers. No more.

Ideas

China Is No Reason to Abandon the INF

Putting U.S. ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in the Pacific would be tactically ineffective and strategically destabilizing.

Ideas

John Bolton Keeps Citing This 2002 Pact as an Arms-Control Model. It’s Really Not.

The Treaty of Moscow was ill-defined, unverifiable — and not something that Russia would sign today.

Ideas

Four Perfectly Trump Reasons Why He Wants Out of the INF Treaty

Within the president's haphazard foreign policy, there is logical coherence to him quitting a nuclear treaty Russia ignores. But it won’t make us safer.

Ideas

Trump Is Right to Leave The INF Nuclear Treaty

Despite sensible objections, the US could benefit, and it's hard to see how Russia ever would comply.

Ideas

How to Keep a Cyberattack from Turning into Nuclear War? Keep Talking

Trump’s Pentagon declared that "significant non-nuclear strategic attacks" may invite U.S. nuclear use, but does that matter to North Korea?

Ideas

A Serial Killing Spree That Threatens Us All

Can John Bolton be stopped before he further undermines U.S. national security?

Ideas

Nothing About Trashing the INF Treaty Makes the US Safer

From the strategic and diplomatic realms to the budgetary and tactical levels, Trump’s decision makes no sense.

Ideas

How To Get Nuclear-Weapons Treaties Back on Track

The agreements that hold back a strategic arms race are in trouble. But there is a way forward.

Ideas

Is Nothing Better than Something? Trashing These Treaties Makes No Sense

The Open Skies, Intermediate Nuclear Forces, and New START agreements are important strands of the nuclear safety net.

Ideas

Build Small Nuclear Reactors for Battlefield Power

Los Alamos engineers are working on a tiny, steel-encased core regulated by physics, not pumps.

Ideas

Ep. 20: Jeffrey Lewis on nuclear war; Loren DeJonge Schulman; the Houthi 'war machine' and more.

Welcome to our podcast about the news, strategy, tech, and business trends defining the future of national security.

Ideas

John McCain, Nuclear Disarmament, and What Might Have Been

If McCain had become president in 2008, the world might have had far fewer nuclear weapons today.

Ideas

Two Ways to Read the Newest Intelligence on North Korea

Is Kim Jong Un serious about denuclearizing? Or is he out to trick the United States?

Ideas

The US and Russia Have Plenty of Areas for Cooperation. Let’s Get to Work.

We might start by taking Putin’s suggestion to create a bi-national advisory council to help guide engagement.

Ideas

The US Must Build Saudi Arabia’s First Nuclear Reactors

Riyadh will get its atomic energy. The question is who gets the construction contracts — and the influence that goes with them.

Ideas

The Helsinki Move That Could Save the INF Treaty

Putin offered suggestions for strategic stability. The U.S. should respond with proposals to revive verification.

Ideas

A No-Cost, No-Brainer of a Nuclear Deal

Extending New START would be an easy win out of the Trump-Putin summit.