• North Korea’s Nuclear Tests Expose Neighbors to Radiation Risks

    Tens of thousands of North Koreans and people in South Korea, Japan, and China could be exposed to radioactive materials spread through groundwater from an underground nuclear test site. North Korea secretly conducted six tests of nuclear weapons at the Punggye-ri site in the mountainous North Hamgyong Province between 2006 and 2017.

  • Iran Enriching Uranium to Near-Weapon-Grade 84%: IAEA

    IAEA inspectors found uranium particles enriched up to nearly 84 percent in Iran’s underground Fordow uranium enrichment site. The 83.7 percent enriched uranium is just below the 90 percent purity needed for nuclear weapons. Experts say that Iran would need no more than 10-14 days to use the material to produce an atomic bomb.

  • South Korea: Support for Nukes Is on the Rise

    Over three-quarters of South Koreans believe a nuclear deterrent offers the best defense for their country amid growing security threats from North Korea and China.

  • Public Awareness of “Nuclear Winter” Too Low Given Current Risks

    The scientific theory of nuclear winter sees detonations from nuclear exchanges throw vast amounts of debris into the stratosphere, which ultimately blocks out much of the sun for up to a decade, causing global drops in temperature, mass crop failure and widespread famine. The combined nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia have about 1,450 megatons. The use of only 0.1% of this joint arsenal would cause a nuclear winter which will claim 225 million lives.

  • Doomsday Clock Set at 90 Seconds to Midnight

    The Doomsday Clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight, due largely but not exclusively to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the increased risk of nuclear escalation. The new Clock time was also influenced by continuing threats posed by the climate crisis and the breakdown of global norms and institutions needed to mitigate risks associated with advancing technologies and biological threats.

  • Experts: North Korea's ICBMs Pose Preemption Challenges for US

    North Korea’s rapidly advancing ICBM capabilities pose a growing threat to the United States and its allies, especially as it will become increasingly difficult to destroy Pyongyang’s missiles prior to launch with preemptive strikes.

  • Accepting Reality: For the Foreseeable Future, Denuclearizing North Korea May Be Unattainable

    For two decades now, U.S. policymakers have sought North Korean denuclearization. In the early 2000s, it appeared to be a necessary goal, because a nuclear North Korea would threaten U.S. allies, spread nuclear weapons beyond the Korean Peninsula, damage the sanctity of the nuclear taboo, and eventually threaten U.S. territory. But the enemy gets a vote, and it is now clear that for the foreseeable future, there is nothing the United States can do, short of a direct military attack, to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Program Is Funded by Stolen Cryptocurrency. Could It Collapse Now That FTX Has?

    Kim Jong-un’s military operation hackers have been stealing cryptocurrency to support North Korea’s nuclear and missile program for several years. But with the general downturn in the crypto market, coupled with the recent FTX collapse and myriad other pitfalls, analysts estimate North Korea has probably lost most of its crypto haul. Can we expect its nuclear weapons development to come to a halt, or slow down? It seems unlikely.

  • Iran Building Nuclear Weapons

    Rather than a traditional nuclear weapons program, Iran threatens the world with a program ready to produce nuclear weapons “on-demand.” Its readiness program poses a difficult challenge to the international community and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Understanding the pace of Iran building nuclear weapons matters, in particular, for designing strategies against Iran moving to construct them.

  • Iran Needs Only 4 Weeks to Produce Enough Material for 4 Nuclear Weapons

    Due to the current size of Iran’s 60 percent, 20 percent, and 4.5 percent enriched uranium stocks, Iran can now produce enough weapon grade uranium for four nuclear weapons in one month and make enough for a fifth weapon within the following month.

  • What Would Happen If a Nuclear Bomb Was Used in Ukraine?

    Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and meltdowns at the Chernobyl and Fukushima power plants clearly affected people’s health. But experts say it’s hard to predict the fallout from a nuclear war today.

  • Investigating Stockpile Stewardship Applications for World’s Largest Computer Chip

    The Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine is the largest computer chip in the world, containing 2.6 trillion transistors, 850,000 artificial intelligence cores. Researchers at Sandia and Los Alamos are accelerating advanced simulation and computing applications in support of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship mission.

  • Nuclear Weapons Use Will ‘End’ Kim Regime, US, South Korea Say

    The United States and South Korean defense leaders are warning Pyongyang that any use of nuclear weapons by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would be the “end” of his regime.

  • Pakistan Protests Biden Questioning of Safety of Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons

    Pakistan has formally protested to the United States over remarks by President Joe Biden questioning the safety of Islamabad’s nuclear weapons. Biden told a Democratic Congressional fundraiser Thursday night that Pakistan “may be one of the most dangerous nations in the world” for possessing “nuclear weapons without any cohesion.”

  • Why the U.S. Nuclear Umbrella Underpins Non-Proliferation

    Early in the Cold War, forward-deployed nuclear weapons were focused on deterrence and warfighting, compensating for the numerical superiority of communist armies. As Soviet capabilities improved and more countries became nuclear powers, the purpose of the U.S. nuclear umbrella expanded to include non-proliferation. In essence, the U.S. preferred to protect key allies like Japan rather than risk them developing their own arsenals.