Threats

The Campaign to Denuclearize North Korea Crashes Back to Earth

Kim Jong Un "has been playing a high-risk, high-return game. And he has never lost a bet thus far.”

Science & Tech

Pentagon Wants Cloud Secure Enough to Hold Nuke Secrets

The Pentagon’s JEDI cloud will be designed to store the military's most sensitive classified information.

Ideas

'All Is Shambles': The Days After the Iran Deal

Prominent advocates for withdrawal grappled too little with the possibility that the president cannot pull this off.

Ideas

Iran Hawks Are the New Iraq Hawks

Many of the assumptions that guided America’s march to conflict in 2003 still dominate American foreign policy today.

Ideas

Netanyahu and Iran's Atomic Archive: What's New and What's Not

Among the new bits: Tehran's nuclear planners envisioned an arsenal so small as to make Kim Jong Un giggle.

Threats

The Deceptively Simple Promise of Korean Peace

It might have to start with something like the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe treaty concluded at the end of the Cold War.

Ideas

The US Does Not Need New Tactical Nukes

There’s a false narrative afoot: that we lack the weapons to deter a Russian nuclear strike.

Science & Tech

Experts Say AI Could Raise the Risks of Nuclear War

A new RAND report says ideas like mutually assured destruction and minimal deterrence strategy offer a lot less assurance in the age of intelligent software.

Threats

What Does 'Denuclearization' Mean to Kim Jong Un?

A close reading of what the Korean leader reportedly told Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Policy

Senators Signal Resistance to Proposed Low-Yield Nukes

Several Democratic lawmakers on a key committee are pushing back on the given rationale for a new warhead and cruise missile.

Ideas

The US Navy Should Start Weaning its Reactors off Bomb-Grade Uranium

Most of the world's reactors use low-enriched uranium. There are at least three good reasons the U.S. fleet should as well.

Ideas

A Trump-Kim Summit: 'Why the Hell Not?'

Direct talks between America’s and North Korea’s heads of state have never been tried, and nothing else has worked.

Ideas

Don’t Let Trump Turn Iran into North Korea

Unless Congress, Europe, and other parties step up to protect the West’s nuclear deal with Iran, it will collapse, unshackling Tehran’s nuclear efforts.

Ideas

Expect North Korea to Add Nuclear Coercion to Its Provocation Playbook

Kim's nuclear arsenal is built to "deter and coerce." We're probably going to find out soon what forms the latter will take.

Ideas

Putin Just Gave Trump the Arms Race He Sought

'Let it be an arms race,' Trump said, two years ago. Now we have one. It doesn't have to be this way.

Threats

Here's How US-North Korea Crises Typically End

Donald Trump says he won't repeat the mistakes of the past. But the past offers clues to what he might do.

Ideas

The Chance of Accidental Nuclear War Is Growing

Recapitalizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent won't help. What's missing is a strategy and resources to reduce risks of cataclysmic accidents, miscalculation, and human error.

Threats

Mattis: New Sea-Launched Cruise Missile Is a Bargaining Chip

But don’t call the low-yield option a ‘tactical nuclear weapon’ — it’s still strategic, he says.

Ideas

Nuclear Nuts: Trump's New Policy Hypes The Threat and Brings Us Closer to War

The Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review only bends reality to fit Trump’s warped views.

Science & Tech

No, the US Won’t Respond to A Cyber Attack with Nukes

Defense leaders won’t completely rule out the possibility. But it’s a very, very, very remote possibility.