March 28th, 2011

Nora Bensahel: U.S. military intervention in Libya

"The stakes for the European allies are high," writes former CISAC fellow Nora Bensahel in the Guardian. "If they achieve the objective of protecting Libyan civilians, they will send a powerful signal that they remain a valuable and capable security partners for the United States. If they do not, they will further marginalize themselves and make it even easier for future U.S. policymakers to dismiss their perspectives and concerns." She discusses Libya further on C-Span.

• » Nora Bensahel: Coalition military strategy in Libya (video)
• » Nora Bensahel: A make-or-break moment for NATO (op-ed)

May 25th, 2010

Scott Sagan debates US Nuclear Declaratory Policy

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted a live debate May 25 between CISAC Co-Director Scott Sagan and Keith Payne, CEO and president of the National Institute for Public Policy. CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. Read more »

January 16th, 2009

Bush's legacy: The wasted years

CISAC's Pavel Podvig is quoted in the journal Nature on the legacy of the Bush administration. An accompanying editorial argues that the greatest threat that the Obama administration may face is to help prevent terrorists from building a nuclear device. Read more »

January 1st, 2007

How to Keep the Bomb From Iran

Preventing the unthinkable The ongoing crisis with Tehran is not the first time Washington has faced a hostile government attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Nor is it likely to be the last. Yet the reasoning of U.S. officials now struggling to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions is clouded by a kind of historical amnesia, which leads to both creeping fatalism about the United States' ability to keep Iran from getting the bomb and excessive optimism about the United States' ability to contain Iran if it does become a nuclear power. Read more »

August 28th, 2006

Iraq war has Bush Doctrine in tatters

Analysts across the political spectrum say the Bush Doctrine--preventive war, choking the roots of terrorism by planting democracy, and brandishing power to force others into line--has failed. Bush's lofty goals, shared even by his critics, have been set back, perhaps decades, by the Iraq occupation. CISAC's David Holloway is quoted in this news analysis by Carolyn Lochhead in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read more »

March 27th, 2006

Nuclear intelligence history begs policy questions for CISAC reviewer

Jeffrey T. Richelson's history of American nuclear intelligence, Spying on the Bomb, is timely, writes CISAC's David Holloway, given the faulty intelligence about nuclear weapons that was used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In fact the book could have gone further toward analyzing the relationship between the intelligence community and policy makers, Holloway suggests in this New York Times book review. Read more »

May 23rd, 2005

CISAC experts suggest Pakistan probably knew of scientist's nuclear trafficking

International investigators have found that A. Q. Khan, former director of Pakistan's nuclear laboratory, built a profitable network for trafficking in nuclear weapons technology. What they can't figure out - and may never know - is how much Pakistan officials knew about his illicit nuclear trading. CISAC's Michael M. May and Scott D. Sagan, interviewed by the L.A. Times, suggest that it would have been nearly impossible for Khan to pull off his operation without official knowledge, if not approval. Read more »