Nuclear Issues

"Nuclear proliferation is a crime that pays well. Those involved in the Khan network were made very wealthy for their efforts, and the inability of the international community to effectively punish them has resulted in a missed opportunity to provide a deterrent against future black-market salesmen."

"Nuclear terrorism poses a unique threat not only because of the magnitude of the destruction, but because those most likely to perpetrate an attack may be fundamentally nihilistic and therefore undeterrable — prepared to pay any cost in loss of life in pursuit of their objectives. As millennial movements for whom the crippling and even destruction of the U.S. and Israel are sacred missions, a nuclear terrorist attack where even a devastating response is assumed may be a worthy means of ushering in a messianic era."

"...[A]ll this shows is that a special relationship need not be an antiseptically harmonious and boring one to still be special. On the contrary: What is special, and atypical, is that the relationship has grown rather than suffered from its conflicts. The "long wait" in the nuclear domain was punctuated by a generous British offer of bases for U.S. B-29 bombers and culminated in unprecedented and intensified cooperation in the nuclear arena. Suez precipitated the "golden days" of the Anglo-American relationship under Macmillan, Eisenhower and Kennedy. The twin crises over the Falklands and Grenada did not prevent George Shultz from concluding that the Reagan-Thatcher relationship was "as close as any imaginable between two major leaders." The disputes over Bosnia presaged a deep cooperation in the Kosovo War. One need not look at the "special relationship" through a Panglossian lens to conclude that it has been real and durable, and has made an enormous contribution to the successful conclusion of the Cold War and the effort at maintaining international order in a disorderly post–Cold War world."

Recently declassified materials have revealed the existence of a previously unknown network of Austrian communists in pre-war England. The group of young well-educated Viennese used unsuspecting social contacts and marriages of convenience to establish itself. Analysis of this network reveals some previously overlooked similarities between the 'Cambridge' spies Kim Philby and Alan Nunn May, as well as the emergence of a new nuclear spy, Engelbert Broda. Their wartime espionage as individuals took place at a time when non-communist British scientists were promoting the international sharing of atomic knowledge through unofficial channels. The newly released files reflect a characteristic preference of the British secret services for intelligence gathering rather than intervention and illustrate how vital leads follow from apparently trivial observations.

Failure to develop a comprehensive contingency plan, such as the one proposed here, and inform the American public, where appropriate, about its particulars will only serve to amplify the devastating impact of any nuclear attack on a U.S. city

Tom Bielefeld and Hassan Abbas review Der Physiker der Mullahs (The Mullah's Physicist), a film by Egmont R. Koch, broadcast on German Public Television (WDR) on February 22, 2007.

Article in The Nonproliferation Review

If it wanted, Israel could stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapons program. With the experience of its successful 1981 military strike against Iraq's Osirak reactor, a much-improved air force, and decent intelligence on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Israel is in a position to repeat such an attack, this time against one or all of Iran's three well-hardened targets. Israel has the most to fear from a nuclear-armed Iran, but it should also be aware ofthe consequences of such an attack. Ultimately, only a combination of conventional military force, good intelligence, and political and economic efforts can successfully check nuclear proliferation.