President Donald Trump announces via Twitter that he has ordered Mike Pompeo to cancel a planned trip to North Korea because there has not been “sufficient progress” in denuclearization talks so far. The president singles out China for not “helping the process”…
We’ll see … President Trump says “we’ll see” whether he’ll order strikes on North Korea in response to its nuclear test… a barrage of news stories on a Sunday morning does nothing to address the question of the hour… One person has #hairtrigger power to order US forces to attack North Korea, potentially initiating nuclear war […]
Tom Nichols Makes His Case. Strategic Demands’ editor responds… Former US Defense chief, William Perry, weighs in… Negotiating horizon? Time to prep? Two months. Negotiating prep to date? No visible prep. Korean Ambassador? No US Ambassador. Nuclear weapons experts? Arms Control team? Questionable at best. Winging it? Admittedly. Other options? War. Nuclear war. Dead-Hand Disaster.
Announced breakthrough in talks between North / South Korea… 1) Breaking: 2 Koreas 5 pt agreement: 1. inter-Korean summit end of April at Panmunjeom, 2. establish hotline between Moon-Kim to reduce tensions & consult, 3. NK has will to denuclearize, no reason to have nukes if security guaranteed, willing to have frank talks with US…
Citizens of the U.S. are not known for their knowledge of international relations — from the basics across to more detailed, complex geopolitics and diplomacy. Yet, it is time to recall what was once called “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” that set in motion an opening between the U.S. and China. The Olympics may be another opening
‘Modernization’ of U.S. nuclear weapons systems is racing forward, budgets booming, artificial intelligence and gyrations of command & control rolling. Meanwhile in Los Alamos, the ‘birthplace of the Bomb’ and main location of the Academy award-winning film “Oppenheimer”, Bomb-makers are beginning to prep next gen “nuke ’em pits ‘n triggers”
Strategic Demands associate, GreenPolicy360, recently posted a ‘snapshot’ look at what the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was revealing in the US budget for next gen nuclear weapons. The public interest group Los Alamos Study Group strongly commented. It’s long overdue to challenge how/what/where/why a ‘Nuclear Arms Race 3.0‘ is accelerating
How many nuclear energy reactors are being built around the world by Russia and China? Another way of putting this is, how many tons of ‘supplies of nuclear fissionable materials’ are becoming available for ‘reprocessing’? For decades the question of how to stop nuclear proliferation has continued to be ‘the question of questions’.
2024 Multiplying Pits ‘n Triggers Multiplying Pits Mean Multiplying Nukes Read more about the Academy Award winning movie Oppenheimer — the tragic legacy of ‘the Bomb’ StratDem: A Legacy of ‘Perpetual Insecurity’ Those who envisioned, designed and built the Bomb began warning of nuclear dangers and proliferation […]
Published 2017 Strategic Demands Editor, Steven Schmidt: It is time to recall my memories of Dan Ellsberg of nearly 50 years ago… From a nondescript building in Santa Monica to a house on the beach in Malibu, from a basketball court in Pacific Palisades to a Parade editor’s tennis court on Sunset Boulevard… My […]
The Doomsday Clock, first unveiled in the late 1940s when atomic scientists who built the first nuclear weapons were having second thoughts, is now closer to a midnight of disaster than ever before. We’ve arrived, humanity has arrived. The clock’s hands of fate display we’re on the brink of paroxysm and unimaginable cataclysm
As the war in Ukraine grinds on and new weapon systems are escalating the fighting, a war of words, threats, and responses are delivering new levels of risks, collapsing arms control agreements, and calls for a negotiated wars end. Will the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war continue to expand, and expand…
Perspective is essential in understanding causes of war — and roads to peace. Strategic Demands strives in our work to see security, and mutual security, with a realistic perspective. Here, Anatol Lieven, brings a “Responsible Statecraft” perspective…
For years Strategic Demands has pushed for rational controls of nuclear weapons, in particular the critical need for new ‘first use’ controls over the ‘sole authority‘ of the U.S. president to order nuclear war… Now comes a harsh realization this is no academic issue
The announcement that the U.S. president has contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus has caused a scramble in the White House. What is barely being reported is the scramble in the military
It doesn’t take a Kissinger to see how nations respond to threats. It doesn’t take a Balance of Power theory to explain why when one nation throws out arms control and races to build a next generation of new nuclear weapons, then other nations will race to not become a hostage to hard power. So […]
A John Bolton interview. Another warning about command and control of nuclear weapons presents itself. A series of threats, abandoned arms agreements, collapsed diplomacy, escalations and provocations emanate daily in the news. How often, over the years, do we have to be warned of ‘erratic’ decisions delivering catastrophic consequences
