Threats
The Word That Derailed the Trump-Kim Summit
The Americans and the North Koreans were all set for a historic meeting. Then they started talking about Libya.
Ideas
Former South Korean National-Security Adviser: The US May Have to Withdraw Some Troops
Breaking with his fellow conservatives, Chun Yung Woo says "there will be no solution" to the North Korean nuclear crisis without willingness to compromise on the U.S. alliance.
Ideas
What the North Koreans Told Me About Their Plans
I was one of a handful of former officials to meet with them when they were just developing their current strategy. Those talks offer the best information we have about how to achieve denuclearization.
Threats
The Campaign to Denuclearize North Korea Crashes Back to Earth
Kim Jong Un "has been playing a high-risk, high-return game. And he has never lost a bet thus far.”
Science & Tech
Pentagon Wants Cloud Secure Enough to Hold Nuke Secrets
The Pentagon’s JEDI cloud will be designed to store the military's most sensitive classified information.
Ideas
'All Is Shambles': The Days After the Iran Deal
Prominent advocates for withdrawal grappled too little with the possibility that the president cannot pull this off.
Ideas
Iran Hawks Are the New Iraq Hawks
Many of the assumptions that guided America’s march to conflict in 2003 still dominate American foreign policy today.
Ideas
Netanyahu and Iran's Atomic Archive: What's New and What's Not
Among the new bits: Tehran's nuclear planners envisioned an arsenal so small as to make Kim Jong Un giggle.
Threats
The Deceptively Simple Promise of Korean Peace
It might have to start with something like the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe treaty concluded at the end of the Cold War.
Ideas
The US Does Not Need New Tactical Nukes
There’s a false narrative afoot: that we lack the weapons to deter a Russian nuclear strike.
Science & Tech
Experts Say AI Could Raise the Risks of Nuclear War
A new RAND report says ideas like mutually assured destruction and minimal deterrence strategy offer a lot less assurance in the age of intelligent software.
Threats
What Does 'Denuclearization' Mean to Kim Jong Un?
A close reading of what the Korean leader reportedly told Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Policy
Senators Signal Resistance to Proposed Low-Yield Nukes
Several Democratic lawmakers on a key committee are pushing back on the given rationale for a new warhead and cruise missile.
Ideas
The US Navy Should Start Weaning its Reactors off Bomb-Grade Uranium
Most of the world's reactors use low-enriched uranium. There are at least three good reasons the U.S. fleet should as well.
Ideas
A Trump-Kim Summit: 'Why the Hell Not?'
Direct talks between America’s and North Korea’s heads of state have never been tried, and nothing else has worked.
Ideas
Don’t Let Trump Turn Iran into North Korea
Unless Congress, Europe, and other parties step up to protect the West’s nuclear deal with Iran, it will collapse, unshackling Tehran’s nuclear efforts.
Ideas
Expect North Korea to Add Nuclear Coercion to Its Provocation Playbook
Kim's nuclear arsenal is built to "deter and coerce." We're probably going to find out soon what forms the latter will take.
Ideas
Putin Just Gave Trump the Arms Race He Sought
'Let it be an arms race,' Trump said, two years ago. Now we have one. It doesn't have to be this way.
Threats
Here's How US-North Korea Crises Typically End
Donald Trump says he won't repeat the mistakes of the past. But the past offers clues to what he might do.
Ideas