In the current crisis on the Korean peninsula, the Obama administration is virtually repeating the 2004 Bush playbook, one that derailed a successful diplomatic agreement forged by the Clinton administration to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The administration diverts added funds to the nuclear lab corporate contractors, who, in turn, apparently fund Democratic candidates.
Nuclear weapons vastly complicate foreign policy.
Is a country ever mature enough to possess a nuclear-weapons program?
Nuclear deterrence’s inflated reputation is beginning to come back down to earth.
Are the beliefs that nuclear weapons forced the Japanese to surrender and that deterrence keeps the peace little more than received wisdom?
It makes little sense, Butt writes, to order ceramic magnets that are, as ISIS describes, “almost exactly” the right dimensions when ceramics are almost impossible to machine due to their brittle nature.
Instituting a nuclear-energy program with substandard emergency preparedness is like starting a war without medical staff and hospitals.
With all eyes on North Korea since its third nuclear test, remarkably little has been said about how we arrived at this crisis point. Inadequately contextualized as North Korea’s response to fortified UN sanctions, the latest nuclear test bespeaks the failure of U.S. diplomacy toward its historic enemy. As he enters his second term, Barack Obama must confront the role of strategic patience as a central driver of the simmering crisis in Korea.
As it stands now, a toxic byproduct of our obsession with Iran’s nuclear program is the increased chance of nuclear war with Russia and China.