John Isaacs
John Isaacs is the Executive Director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation where his work focuses on national security issues in Congress, Iraq, missile defense, and nuclear weapons. Isaacs is one of the leaders of the nation's arms control community and has long been an expert on the workings of Congress.
My Blog Posts
See All: Comments | Blog Posts Showing 5 of 30- New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms
10/25/2011 11:33:28 AM EST
Note: For our analysis of the first New START data exchange, see here. Category of Data Deployed ICBMs, Deployed SLBMs, and Deployed Heavy Bombers
822 United States of America
516 Russian Federation Warheads on Deployed ICBMs, on Deployed SLBMs, and Nuclear Warheads Counted for Deployed Heavy Bombers
1,790 United States of America
1,566 Russian Federation Deployed and Non-deployed Launchers of ICBMs, Deployed and Non-deployed Launchers of SLBMs, and Deployed and Non-deployed Heavy Bombers
1,043 United States of America
871 Russian Federation
______________ (As of September 1, 2011, as drawn from the exchange of data by the Parties. Data in this Fact Sheet comes from the biannual exchange of data required by the Treaty. It contains data declared current as of September 1, 2011. Data will be updated each six month period after entry into force of the Treaty.) Fact Sheet
Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance
October 25, 2011
- Get A Leg Up/Give Up A Leg
09/23/2011 12:11:01 PM EST
Many years ago, during a debate on whether to build new bombers to carry nuclear weapons, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, former Representative Charlie Bennett of Florida, made a pointed declaration: THE TRIAD IS NOT THE TRINITY! By that wise pronouncement, Bennett was saying that the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons policy adopted early in the Cold War to spread the United States’ nuclear force among three legs or components was not the gospel, but rather a policy that no longer served its purpose. The United States nuclear force is composed of three components that are described as synergistic:- On land, with intercontinental ballistic missiles
- At sea, with nuclear-powered submarines
- In the air, with long-range nuclear bombers
08/10/2011 09:18:13 AM EST
A young Mark Hatfield, a naval officer who commanded landing craft in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II, entered Hiroshima shortly after the city had been incinerated by an atomic bomb. As he recalled it:
“When I entered Hiroshima, the charred bodies were still being pulled out of the rubble. The horror that I experience burned a lasting impression in my conscience. To this day, it serves as a philosophical anchor – my beacon of clarity in a political arena that turns a deaf ear to those who do not speak the exotic language of megatons, kill probability ratios and other terms that desensitize us to the true nature of nuclear war.”This experience led to Senator Mark Hatfield’s long opposition to war and to the nuclear arms race. He was a man of conscience, and possessed a sense of right and wrong which overrode party loyalty.
08/08/2011 09:11:42 AM EST
Written by John Isaacs, appears in ADA Today: United States involvement in the Libyan war may turn out to be the straw that broke the political and philosophical back of the military interventionists. Most of the country having long turned against George W. Bush’s war of choice in Iraq, President Obama has been continuing the process of withdrawal from that (at least tenuously) pacified country. Disaffection with the Iraq war hurt the Republicans at the polls in 2006 and 2008. As for the Afghan war, many on the left and right were willing to reserve judgment on President Obama’s actions early in his administration because he had inherited a weak position from his predecessor. Besides, Afghanistan—in contrast to Iraq—was the “good” war, one directly related to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. But the effort to oust long-time Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi means the United States is engaged in three military conflicts at the same time, to say nothing of predator drone strikes in other countries. While liberals are split on the Libyan conflict, the expanding wars are widely perceived to be military interventionism run amuck.
08/05/2011 01:51:10 PM EST
On behalf of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and the nuclear community as a whole, we mourn the passing of Jonathan Tucker at the much-too-young age of 56.. Jonathan was a world-class expert on biological and chemical weapons, as well as nuclear policy issues. During his esteemed career, he worked at the Scientific American, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. Department of State, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, as a specialist in chemical and biological arms control at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and most recently at the Federation of American Scientists. He served as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the hunt for Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons programs.
