Lest my last post left the misimpression that I consider the issue of South Korean nuclear fuel reprocessing to be unimportant, let me emphasize this: I don’t consider it unimportant, merely unpromising as a path for furthering the cause of arms control and disarmament. To elaborate, as I see it, the case against South Korean […]
If you’ve been closely following the best daily press or tuning into debates among professional arms controllers, you will have noticed some concern about China’s intention to supply additional nuclear power to Pakistan and South Korea’s growing determination to reprocess nuclear fuels. Just how concerned should we be? To be honest, though I recognize that […]
We’ve been waiting since mid-June to find out what consequences will follow from North Korea’s presumed sinking of a South Korean warship, since the Obama administration has repeatedly said that such a wanton act cannot be allowed to stand without consequences. As yet the UN Security Council has not adopted tougher sanctions to punish the […]
An excellent issue brief from the Arms Control Association points out that a ban on major weapon deliveries, hardly mentioned if at all in most press coverage, is one of the most significant provisions of the sanctions the UN Security Council imposed on Iran last week. Resolution 1929 directs all states to “prevent the direct […]
On June 7, the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C., sponsored a discussion of the Polakow-Suransky book in which Shimon Peres is said to have offered apartheid South Africa nuclear weapons–the subject of an earlier blog. The discussion involved several experts on Israel and international affairs, notably Avner Cohen, author of The Worst Kept Secret: Israel’s […]
It hasn’t been a good season for Israel. Even before its ill-advised raid on the Gaza convoy, which could have and might yet cause the Security Council’s agreement on Iran sanctions to come unglued, there was a string of more or less unsavory allegations about the history of its nuclear weapons program. First came the […]
If Israel had wanted to torpedo the fourth round of UN nuclear sanctions against Iran, accelerate Iran’s weaponization efforts, and hasten the day when Tel Aviv will face a second nuclear-armed hostile Islamic state, it could have done no better than attack the Gaza convoy and kill anti-blockade activists. The UN Security Council was scheduled […]
As the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference draws to a close in New York, what’s remarkable is how little attention the meeting has got in the world press. Except for fleeting attention to the idea of making the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free-zone, which Egypt has been promoting as leader of the “group of 77” nonaligned […]
My fellow FPA blogger Rob Grace asks why I think Iran is determined to develop nuclear weaponry, and whether it might not just be shooting for breakout capacity—the ability to build an atomic bomb quickly, perhaps upon giving sudden notice of NPT termination. Good questions. In November 2003, the IAEA reported that over two decades […]
Previous posts this week have drawn attention to the big issue hanging over the Nuclear Nonproliferation review conference this week in New York–whether China will support stronger sanctions against Iran—and to China’s indebtedness to all those who have nonproliferation at heart. But why is it important to slow Iran’s nuclear program? Can sanctions actually work? […]
My post earlier this week drew attention to the nuclear weapons assistance that Iran almost certainly obtained from China via Pakistan, and the astonishing possibility that China actually tested Pakistan’s first atomic bomb for it at Lop Nur in May 1990. First, on the general question of Chinese nuclear weapons assistance to Pakistan, there’s not […]
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Article 1: “Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise […]
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