OK, that headline is an exaggeration, but let's face it: arms control ain't exactly a happening field. Sure, the US and Russia have revived arms control talks, but this issue, red hot during the Cold War, now competes with a raft of other issues that capture a far greater share of the next generation's attention span: climate change, China's rise, the ever-smoldering Middle East, the two wars the U.S. is currently fighting, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, Darfur, and so on.

I would even argue that as fields of scholarly and policy inquiry go, arms control and nonproliferation are rather mature. We more or less already know what the nonproliferation playbook is for dealing with proliferation issues and arms control: engagement, containment, deterrence, and so forth. The specific details vary by region - North Korea in East Asia; Iran in the Middle East; nth country in its unique geopolitical and regional context. The regional dimension is where the real action is, and where the main opportunities for innovation and creativity lie, not in arms control and nonpro per se.

In addition to the fields' maturity, I would also describe them as conservative (in the apolitical sense). The leading voices in the field today have been at it for 15-20 years or more, and have largely fought the same battles over and over again, particularly with respect to arms control. The left is dominated primarily by nuclear abolitionists who cut their teeth back in the 1980s, while the right is dominated by post-arms control/anti-treaty Jesse Helms proteges. This community has been fighting the same theological battles since the Reagan administration. Witness the results of the Strategic Posture Commission.

Simply put, this is not an exciting field - and I say this as someone who works these issues. Sure, there are occasional crises, but at this point its more akin to routine maintenance than inventing new technologies.