Digests and Blog

Fifteen years after the CTBT was opened for signature, more than 160 senior government representatives gathered and 53 spoke at UN Headquarters to highlight the value of the Treaty and call upon the remaining 9 CTBT "hold out" states to sign and/or ratify to facilitate formal entry into force. The gathering is the seventh such Article XIV Conference on Facilitating Entry Into Force, which has been held every other year since 1999. The final conference declaration “urge[s] all remaining States … to sign and ratify the Treaty without delay” and endorses bilateral, regional, and multilateral…

By Daryl G. Kimball Today, fifteen years after the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was opened for signature, more than 100 senior government officials will gather at the United Nations in New York for the seventh conference on "Facilitating Entry Into Force of the CTBT." To date, the United States and 181 other nations have signed the Treaty; 155 nations have ratified. While the CTBT has near universal support, the Treaty must still be ratified by nine hold-out states, including the United States and China, before it can formally enter into force. CTBT states will gather at the UN for…

(Image Source: CNN)By Greg Thielmann Washington pundits spend too much time warning about the immediate danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon, instead of focusing on the ways we can dissuade Iran from building one in the first place. But alarmist estimates provided earlier this month require a response regarding timelines, for we have every reason to believe that an Iranian bomb is neither imminent nor inevitable. A Washington Post editorial on September 6 predicted, on the basis of a Bipartisan Policy Center study, that Iran could produce sufficient highly enriched uranium for a weapon in as…

By Xiaodon Liang U.S. HMMWV fording a river in Afghanistan As the Libyan summer gives way to an autumn of uncertainty in the Middle East, memories of the policy inconsistencies brought to light by the Arab Spring have apparently faded entirely from the minds of U.S. arms exports policy makers. The fear of Iranian aggression has again trumped evidence of severe human rights violations in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, at least in the calculus that informed the administration's decision to sell 44 Armored High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs, or Humvees) to the Bahraini government.…

To mark the August 29 International Day Against Nuclear Tests, dozens of UN member states met for more than four hours at UN Headquarters in an informal session of the General Assembly on September 2. In a series of statements from the floor, senior diplomats from key countries, including Russia, China, France, acknowledged the 20th anniversary of the historic events that led to the closure of the former Soviet nuclear test site of Semipalatinsk, where more than 456 explosions contaminated the land and its people. At the end of the session, ACA--on behalf of nongovernmental organizations--…

In an oped in today's Los Angeles Times, former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary outlines the case for careful Senate reconsideration and ratification of the Treaty. She notes that: "In 1999, opponents of the treaty expressed concern that it would hamper America's ability to maintain a robust nuclear arsenal. Those worries are now moot. Thanks to technological progress over the last decade, nuclear scientists can determine with high confidence that warheads work without detonating them. Indeed, the United States hasn't conducted a nuclear test explosion since 1992." O'Leary, who served as U…

By Peter Crail The Institute for Science and International Security has posted the latest IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program. The report provides some additional information about recent developments reported in the media regarding Iran's installation of centrifuges at the Fordow plant near Qom and plans to increase enrichment to 20%, but leaves out a critical detail: the type of machines Iran is currently installing at Fordow. Iran initially said that it would begin installing more advanced centrifuge designs at the Fordow plant it has been developing elsewhere. The newer machines can…

By Peter Crail TIME Magazine has recently highlighted an analysis entitled "Invading Iran: Lessons from Iraq" by Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Leif Eckholm, who works in the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the analysis was published by Stanford's Hoover Institution, where Eckholm served as a defense fellow). As the title suggests, the analysis examines many of the challenges in securing a post-invasion Iraq, and how they would be similar, different, or magnified in the context of Iran. One of the key takeaways, however, is a brief cost/…

By Daryl G. Kimball Earlier today, the original five nuclear weapon states issued a statement following their meeting earlier this week in Geneva regarding the impasse at the Conference on Disarmament and efforts to move forward on talks on a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT). In the statement issued by the U.S. Department of State spokesperson, the group (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States) said: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Office of the Spokesperson August 30, 2011 STATEMENT BY VICTORIA NULAND, SPOKESPERSON P-5 Meeting in GenevaFollowing up on their commitment made…

By Daryl G. Kimball August 29, 2011 is the second official International Day Against Nuclear Tests. It coincides with the 20th anniversary of the historic events that led to the closure of the former Soviet nuclear test site of Semipalatinsk, where more than 456 explosions contaminated the land and its inhabitants. Citizens of the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan protest nuclear weapons testing at the Soviet nuclear testing site near Semipalatinsk in August, 1989. Photo by Yuri Kuidin. The courageous efforts of the Kazakh people and their allies forced Moscow's communist regime to halt…