• NUCLEAR WEAPONSLabs Director “Absolutely Confident in the Stockpile”

    By Kenny Vigil

    The annual certification of the nuclear weapons stockpile is Sandia’s most important responsibility, according to Labs Director Laura McGill. As part of the certification, at least one of each weapon system in the stockpile is brought through the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, to be tested and examined.

  • EXPORT CONTROLCanadian-Based Company Fined by U.S. Commerce Department for Hiding U.S. Exports to Iran

    On October 2, 2025, a Canada-headquartered biotechnology company, Luminultra, agreed to pay the Bureau of Industry and Security $685,051 after admitting to illegally exporting water quality testing and analytical instruments to Iran by means of the United Arab Emirates.

  • NUCLEARPOWERED MISSILESNuclear-Powered Missiles: An Aerospace Engineer Explains How They Work – and What Russia’s Claimed Test Means for Global Strategic Stability

    By Iain Boyd

    Russian President Vladimir Putin, dressed in a military uniform, announced on Oct. 26, 2025, that Russia had successfully tested a nuclear-powered missile. Here is how these weapons function, the advantages they present over conventional missile systems, and their potential to disrupt global strategic stability.

  • NUCLEAR ESCALATION RISKSStudying War in the New Nuclear Age

    By Peter Dizikes

    Nuclear security can be a daunting topic: The consequences seem unimaginable, but the threat is real. MIT political scientist Caitlin Talmadge scrutinizes military postures and international dynamics to understand the risks of escalation.

  • NUCLEAR WEAPONSWill Trump’s Nuclear Testing Order Prompt a Global Race?

    By Erin D. Dumbacher

    President Donald Trump said he had ordered the Pentagon to immediately resume nuclear weapons testing “because of other countries testing programs.” But no other country has tested nuclear weapons in more than 30 years, and nuclear policy experts worry that Trump’s push may disrupt what has been a more than three-decades-long moratorium of live testing of nuclear explosives.

  • NUCLEAR WASTELANL Waste Containers Successfully Depressurized

    Technicians successfully completed the depressurization of four flanged tritium waste containers and moved them to a waste staging location on site. The containers were placed in temporary storage in 2007. Over the years, pressure gradually built in the containers. Alleviating that pressure was necessary to safely prepare them for eventual shipment offsite.

  • RDIOLOGICAL THREATSU.S. Army Taps INL’s Nuclear Expertise, Capabilities to Strengthen Radiological Response and Readiness

    The mission of the U.S. Army’s Nuclear Disablement Team (NDT) is to disable potential enemies’nuclear capabilities. INL’s experts help train NDT team members for that mission.

  • IRAN’S THREATIsrael Secretly Recruited Iranian Dissidents to Attack Their Country from Within

    By Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv for ProPublica

    The Mossad made Iran its top priority in 1993 after Israelis and Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, seemingly ending decades of conflict. The main goal of Israel’s focus on Iran: To protect Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the region.

  • IRAN’S NUKES Significance of the Targeted Nuclear Scientists in the 12-Day War

    By Institute for Science and International Security

    The June 2025 war between Israel and Iran, called the 12-Day War, saw the killing y the Israeli military of many Iranian nuclear scientists who participated in or are linked to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.  the elimination of these nuclear scientists deprived Iran’s nuclear weapons program of its most capable and experienced personnel.  This act weakened Iran’s base for building nuclear weapons, eliminating needed expertise and hard-to-get management experience.

  • IRAN’S NUKES What Damage Did the U.S. Do to Iran’s Nuclear Program? Why It’s So Hard to Know

    By Joshua Rovner

    Disagreements over the damage the U.S. bombing did to Iran’s nuclear facilities are unsurprising. Battle damage assessment –originally called bomb damage assessment –is notoriously difficult, and past wars have featured intense controversies among military and intelligence professionals.

  • IRAN’S NUKESWhy the U.S. Bombed a Bunch of Metal Tubes − a Nuclear Engineer Explains the Importance of Centrifuges to Iranian Efforts to Build Nuclear Weapons

    By Anna Erickson

    It’s not clear what the U.S. attack has accomplished, but destroying the facilities targeted in the attack and hindering Iran’s ability to continue enriching uranium might be a way to slow Iran’s move toward producing nuclear weapons. But history shows that a more reliable means of preventing Iran from achieving its nuclear aims would be for diplomacy and cooperation to prevail.

  • IRAN’S NUKESPost-Attack Assessment of the First 12 Days of Israeli and U.S. Strikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities

    By David Albright and Spencer Faragasso, with the Good ISIS Team

    Israel’s historic Operation Rising Lion and the United States Operation Midnight Hammer have targeted many Iranian nuclear sites, causing massive damage to its nuclear program and setting it back significantly. 

  • IRAN’S NUKESThe Uncertainty in the Aftermath of the U.S. Bombing in Iran

    By Brian Michael Jenkins

    The U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites Sunday had a concrete strategic objective: thwart Iran’s ability to enrich nuclear material and potentially build nuclear weapons. It was intended to make the world a safer place. At the moment, however, the world remains a dangerous place.

  • Quote of the Day

    One thing I think that this attack signals is that there’s a big distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear states in that you can do whatever you want to a non-nuclear state. It would be much harder if Iran actually had a nuclear program…. Once you get nuclear weapons, it’s really hard for anybody to come and overturn your regime…. And so there’s going to be all these long-run consequences that aren’t going to be necessarily so pretty, meaning that a lot of countries are going to see this as a signal that they need to get serious about their own separate nuclear deterrence.

    — Francis Fukuyama, interviewed by Yascha Mounk, Persuasion, 25 June 1925

  • QUICK TAKES // By Ben FrankelTargeting Nuclear Scientists

    The killing of Iranian nuclear scientists has been an integral part of Israel’s campaign, stretching back more than two decades, to disrupt and derail Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The 14 Iranian scientists killed on and since 13 June were all leading members of the Iran’s nuclear weaponization group.