• Underwater Nuclear Drone: North Korea’s Nuclear Madmen

    One remarkably irresponsible claim by Kim Jong Un is North Korea’s announced testing of an underwater drone that it states can carry a nuclear weapon, able to infiltrate enemy waters and create a deadly radioactive plume of water. Such a detonation could severely contaminate ships and port cities with intense radioactive fallout mixed with water.

  • Iran Could Make Fuel for Nuclear Bomb in Less Than 2 Weeks: Gen. Milley

    Iran could make enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb in “less than two weeks” and could produce a nuclear weapon in “several more months,” according to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley. The 2015 nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration increased Iran’s “breakout” time – that is, the time required to produce one nuclear weapon once a decision to do has been made — to about twelve months, but the Trump administration’s 2018 decision unilaterally to withdraw from the deal has allowed Iran to reduce the breakout time to about two weeks.

  • Survey of Iran’s Advanced Centrifuges - March 2023

    Iran continues to deploy advanced centrifuges at its three enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow in violation of the limitations outlined in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). InFebruary 2021, Iran stopped providing declarations about its production and inventory of centrifuge rotor tubes, bellows, and rotor assemblies, and blocked the IAEA access to IAEA cameras recording activities in the enrichment facilities. In June 2022, Iran removed the IAEA cameras from the enrichment facilities, so no recordings exist. Consequently, the IAEA has had no ability to take inventory.

  • Ben Thomas: Spotlighting Careers in Nuclear Nonproliferation

    The goal of Ben Thomas of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is not only to bring universities and colleges from across the U.S. into the nonproliferation network, but also to significantly increase the number of minority-serving institutions, or MSIs, participating in the National Nuclear Security Administration Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation University Consortia.

  • 12 Days: The Time Iran Needs to Produce Enough Weapon-Grade Uranium for a Nuclear Weapon

    Iran can now break out and produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon in 12 days, using only three advanced centrifuge cascades and half of its existing stock of 60 percent enriched uranium. This breakout could be difficult for inspectors to detect promptly, if Iran took steps to delay inspectors’ access.

  • 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.