Published Op-eds

This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill, Nov. 14, 2018. With much of the world’s attention trained on nuclear risks from North Korea, Iran, and Russia, the unfinished work of keeping nuclear materials and know-how from criminals and terrorists cannot be ignored. As the White House emphasizes state-based threats, Congress must take up a greater leadership role to prevent a nuclear or radiological 9/11. Effective congressional oversight of this issue has been constrained in recent years by numerous obstacles, including limited institutional knowledge, misunderstanding of the subject,…

This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill, Oct. 25, 2018. It appears that President Donald Trump’s hard-line security advisor, John Bolton, has persuaded him to renounce the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. At least in this case, unlike with Trump’s quixotic violation of the seven-party Iran nuclear deal, the administration can point to a treaty violation by the other party. But as a practical matter, unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the treaty is reckless and will have a similarly counterproductive and…

This op-ed was originally published on TomDispatch.com on July 24, 2018. The pundits and politicians generally take it for granted that President Trump lacks a coherent foreign policy. They believe that he acts solely out of spite, caprice, and political opportunism—lashing out at U.S. allies like Germany’s Angela Merkel and England’s Theresa May only to embrace authoritarian rulers like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. His instinctive rancor and impulsiveness seemed on full display during his recent trip to Europe, where he lambasted Merkel, undercut May, and then, in…

This op-ed originally appeared in TIME, Jun. 13, 2018. The handshake between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will go down in history. But it’s not yet clear if the summit will produce an equally historic outcome on denuclearization. Despite Trump’s attempts to sell the summit document as a breakthrough, it reiterates a boilerplate commitment to “complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” a pledge that North Korea has made, and broken, before. This vague, aspirational language is a long way from the “comprehensive document” described by Trump in his press…

This op-ed originally appeared in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Ahead of US President Donald Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, we spoke with young people around the world who saw hope in the summit, and a chance to advance their own work—including the reunion of families divided by conflict, the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula, and a negotiated agreement that would lead toward the denuclearization of North Korea. Captivated by North Korea’s nuclear tests and Trump’s reckless Twitter tirades, the media rarely pick up voices of the next generation. Young…

This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill. Fulfilling a misguided campaign pledge, President Trump has chosen to violate the 2015 nuclear deal between the United States and its partners — the EU, U.K. France, Germany, Russia, and China — with Iran and reimpose U.S. sanctions that were waived according to the terms of the 2015 accord in exchange for severe limits and very robust international monitoring on Iran’s nuclear activities.  Now, the valuable nonproliferation barriers established by the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), are at risk.  Contrary to…

This op-ed originally appeared in TIME, May 9, 2018. By blocking Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons, the 2015 agreement with Iran had helped resolve a long-standing crisis that was destabilizing the Middle East. But on Tuesday, President Donald Trump put this critical accord at risk with his reckless and irresponsible decision to violate the multilateral nuclear deal. By walking away from the agreement, Trump is jeopardizing U.S. national security interests and risks precipitating a nuclear crisis that the international community can ill afford. Trump’s justification for abandoning the deal…

This op-ed originally appeared in The Iran Primer of the United States Institute for Peace.   For decades, the international community has grappled with the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation and, in particular, the risk that the Islamic Republic of Iran might seek the capability to design and produce nuclear weapons.   For more than a decade following the 2003 revelation that Iran had surreptitiously built a uranium conversion facility and an enrichment plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the world’s major powers have expended enormous effort and political…

This post originally appeared in War on the Rocks. If you thought “repeal and replace,” or perhaps, “repeal and not replace,” was only a strategy for the botched Obamacare repeal effort, you’d be wrong. It seems to also describe the game plan of President Donald Trump and Republican hawks in Congress when it comes to the agreements and norms that underlie the global nonproliferation regime. The Trump administration and Congress face critical decisions over the next several months that could have bigly consequences for the international nuclear order. These include whether to continue…

This op-ed originally appeared in Fortune. The nuclear danger posed by North Korea is not new. For more than a decade, the Kim regime has possessed nuclear weapons and has been steadily pursuing the capability to develop compact warheads and longer-range missile systems. But since the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, a bad situation has become far worse. North Korea has accelerated its missile testing and Trump has vowed a military attack against North Korea if it threatens the U.S. or its allies. The risk of conflict through miscalculation by either side is now as severe as the…