Arms Control Today

In an October 28 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled "Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence in the 21st Century," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted the continued importance of U.S. nuclear weapons for deterring possible opponents...

The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) as envisioned by the Bush administration is effectively dead. This past fall, for the second year in a row, the Democratic Congress zeroed out funding for the RRW program despite Bush administration claims that...

The election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president has triggered greater uncertainty about the future of U.S. anti-missile projects, particularly the disputed plan to deploy long-range systems in Europe despite strenuous Russian objections. Meanwhile,...

More than 140 countries voted at the UN First Committee to continue discussion next year on the creation of a global arms trade treaty, marking some progress on a resolution first passed in 2006. The United States voted against the measure and has not...

President-elect Barack Obama's November victory represents a clear mandate for change on a number of national security issues. One of the most decisive ways in which Obama can restore U.S. nonproliferation leadership and spur action toward a nuclear-weapons-free...

Since 2003, U.S. officials have credited the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) with a number of successes in preventing the transfer of unconventional weapons materials to states and nonstate actors. According to a Nov. 10 Government Accountability...

Iran is finalizing its installation of a second set of 3,000 gas centrifuges at its commercial-scale uranium-enrichment facility and is preparing to install a third set, according to a Nov. 19 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)....

Transparency Is Key to Avoiding Space ConflictBrian Weeden's review ("Space Weaponization: Aye or Nay?" November 2008) succinctly analyzes the space weaponization debate. A central step to ensuring that space is used for the "peaceful benefit of all...

In a further setback for currently stalled efforts to denuclearize North Korea, that country's foreign ministry issued a statement Nov. 13 denying that it had agreed to allow inspectors to conduct sampling at its nuclear sites when they take steps to...

President-elect Barack Obama's to-do list grew longer in late November when the United States and other states-parties to the expiring START deferred a final decision on the nuclear accord's future. Working primarily with Russia, the incoming Obama administration...

The 2008 National Defense Authorization Act requires the next secretary of defense, in consultation with the secretaries of energy and state, to conduct a comprehensive review of the nuclear weapons posture of the United States. The review must consider...

The UN General Assembly committee dealing with nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament issues ran a wait-and-see session in October 2008, with progress perhaps stymied by the upcoming presidential transition in the United States. The session, which...

Russia and the United States have announced measures to step up destruction of their chemical weapons stockpiles. The Department of Defense plans to speed up construction of the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky and the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado....