Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
nuclear weapons
Answering Obama’s UN Address

Answering Obama’s UN Address

by | Sep 30, 2011

During the Bush administration, I wrote more than a dozen annotated critiques of presidential speeches. I have refrained from doing so under President Barack Obama, however, because – despite a number of disappointments with his administration’s policies — I found his speeches to be relatively reasonable. Although his September 21 address before the UN General Assembly contained a number of positive elements, in many ways it also contained many of the same kind of duplicitous and misleading statements one would have expected from his predecessor.

read more
Review: The Survival of North Korea

Review: The Survival of North Korea

by | Sep 29, 2011

Despite the predictions of many obituary writers, North Korea is still around. It was supposed to collapse with the Eastern European communist regimes, but it didn’t. It was supposed to crumble during the great famine of the mid-1990s, but it didn’t. The hard-line policies of the George W. Bush administration were supposed to do the trick, but they didn’t. The North Korean economy is in lousy shape, the ruling elite is a gerontocracy, and several thousand North Korean citizens vote with their feet every year. But the government in Pyongyang soldiers on.

read more
Loose Nukes: Real Threat?

Loose Nukes: Real Threat?

by | Aug 17, 2011

The illicit market of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials puts the world’s population at risk of an attack that could decimate cities and kill millions of people. A lone wolf might get a hold of fissile material, the technical knowledge to build an atomic weapon, or a nuclear weapon itself. Or a whole host of criminal agents – rogue scientists, opportunist civilians, thieves, terrorists, or even government officials – could obtain radioactive materials (or bombs themselves) through informal means. The illicit market of nuclear weapons and related materials spans a whole host of suppliers, middlemen, and buyers. 

read more
Review: No Exit

Review: No Exit

by | Aug 10, 2011

North Korea is of perennial security concern to both its neighbors and the United States. In late 2010, satellite data indicated that North Korea possessed a uranium enrichment facility, and now a potential third nuclear test is underway.No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and International Security is one of the few books to date in the English language that provides a detailed, beyond-the-Beltway account of North Korea’s history, leadership, and nuclear development. 

read more