US Rep James McGovern (D, Massachusetts) hosted a briefing titled 'Global Security Priorities in the 21st Century' on February 6, 2008, in Washington, DC. Panelists who participated in the briefing called for the United States to reduce its nuclear weapons arsenal and use the savings to increase funding for non-proliferation programs and international assistance for children as a means of strengthening US national security.
The panelists included:
The Partnership for a Secure America, a bipartisan group of government and foreign policy veterans, will start airing a television commercial in major cities to raise awareness about the threat of nuclear terrorism (see NTI report).
What's the point of mentioning all the books about Dr Khan if one doesn't mention at least one book review? Thus, this article AQ Khan's Atomic Vision: How a petty postal inspector became the world's leading nuclear salesman by Douglas Farah in yesterday's Washington Post, which looks at three of the most recent. Though I think we disagree with the use of the word petty
. Nobody who dreams of helping build nuclear weapons can be accused of being petty.
Conde Nast Portfolio writer Douglas Frantz and DC-based writer Catherine Collins, the authors of the new book The Nuclear Jihadist, mentioned previously here, were online November 12 at the Washington Post to discuss their Outlook article about AQ Khan and the Bush administration's refusal to force Pakistan to give him up.
In light of all the current angst about the turmoil in Pakistan and concern over its nuclear weapons and the possibility that they, or more likely, relevant technology, equipment, and material, might leak elsewhere, it seems relevant to note this synopsis by the Partnership For Global Security of its workshop, Building Confidence in Pakistan's Nuclear Security.
According to the press release:
It appears that the story of Dr Khan provides a nearly endless saga for those seeking to discern lessons to be learned from his experiences. In that regard the newest batter to step up to the plate is the US Government Accountability Office, which just today, released the report Nonproliferation: US Efforts to Combat Nuclear Networks Need Better Data on Proliferation Risks and Program Results (GAO-08-21, October 31) .
The September 2006 issue of The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science published, naturally, by The American Academy of Political and Social Science, had a special issue CONFRONTING THE SPECTER OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM (Oh dear, all caps; be afraid, be very afraid).
Anyway, one article, 'A Mathematical Model of the Risk of Nuclear Terrorism', by Matthew Bunn, ran the numbers, literally, for measuring the global risk of nuclear theft and terrorism. Warning, you may want to reach for your former algebra books before reading further.
Getting to Zero – Update