• Iran Increases Enrichment Activities to Dangerous Levels: IAEA

    The most recent IAEA report sounded an alarm about a dangerous increase in Iran’s enrichment activities at the Fordow enrichment plant. No longer constrained by the 2015 nuclear deal, from which the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew in 2018, Iran can now decide to produce10-15 kg of weapon grade uranium (WGU) per month, an annual rate of 120 to 130 kg WGU per year, enough for about five nuclear weapons. Iran could supplement this at any point by using its existing stock of 60 percent highly enriched uranium (HEU).

  • New Centrifuge Spins Lasting Partnership

    Sandia’s Weapons Evaluation Test Laboratory (WETL) is DOE’s only laboratory with two centrifuges that support full system-level testing. WETL is responsible for performing nonnuclear testing and evaluation of every weapon system in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

  • Stopping the Bomb

    When one country learns that another country is trying to make a nuclear weapon, what options does it have to stop the other country from achieving that goal? While the query may be straightforward, answers are anything but. One scholar identifies a suite of strategies states use to prevent other nations from developing nuclear weapons.

  • The History of WIPP

    In 1975, the nation asked Sandia to investigate the possibility of building a repository in New Mexico for the disposal of radioactive transuranic defense waste. Little did those assigned to the project know that the task would absorb most of their careers and become one of the most controversial and important projects in U.S. history.

  • NNSA Completes and Diamond-Stamps First Plutonium Pit for W87-1 Warhead

    During the Cold War, the United States could manufacture hundreds of plutonium pits per year. Pit production ceased in 1989, and NNSA continues to recapitalize production capabilities that atrophied in the post-Cold War era.

  • The Unthinkable: What Nuclear War in Europe Would Look Like

    If Russia were to launch a massive nuclear strike on Ukraine or Western Europe, there is not much the continent could do to stop it. NATO’s internal calculations reportedly predict that in the event of an all-out attack from Russia, the military bloc has “less than 5 percent” of the air defenses needed.

  • The World Isn’t Taking Putin’s Nuclear Threats Seriously – the History of Propaganda Suggests I Should

    Vladimir Putin has spoken several times about using nuclear weapons since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. To believe that Putin is not serious about using nuclear weapons is a dangerous assumption to make.

  • North Korea Explained: What Americans Need to Know

    The Korean Peninsula, with its intricate web of historical tensions, nuclear threats, and geopolitical dynamics, will demand a nuanced and strategic approach from the incoming administration.

  • How to Manage Escalation with Nuclear Adversaries Like China

    Chinese leaders fled Beijing in October 1969, as a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union seemed imminent. They were on the precipice of nuclear war owing to a remarkable series of missteps and miscommunications. The crisis of 1969 holds some important lessons for U.S. military planners as they think through how a future war with China could unfold. It needs a theory of victory that explains not just how it plans to win, but how it plans to win without triggering a nuclear war.

  • Missile Test Helps Launch Mk21 Fuze into U.S. Nuclear Stockpile

    The June test launch of a Minuteman III from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California was the last in a series of planned activities designed to demonstrate the operational effectiveness of the Mk21 Fuze, providing proof to the U.S. Air Force that it is ready to be accepted into the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

  • South Korea and Nuclear Weapons

    The constant threat of North Korean aggression and fears of abandonment by the United States of its security commitment to South Korea have been the primary reasons for Seoul’s nuclear ambitions. More recently, the deepening military alliance between North Korea and Russia has raised serious concerns in South Korea.

  • We Need a New Discussion About Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Work

    U.S. intelligence is shielding the Biden-Harris administration from having to take serious action on Iran’s nuclear program. While hinting at nuclear weapon activities taking place, the U.S. intelligence community is focusing on public Iranian statements and old news on Iran’s capabilities to produce weapon-grade uranium — but it avoids any type of public discussion on what nuclear weaponization activities Iran may be undertaking, and how soon it can build a nuclear weapon. Likely, because some uncomfortable truths would come out: Iran can do it way too quickly, and initial activities to build the bomb could be difficult to detect.

  • U.S. Says Iran Nuclear Deal Remains 'Off the Table' as Tehran Calls for 'New Negotiations'

    Reviving the Iran nuclear deal remains off the agenda for the Biden administration, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said, but the deal “is not on the table right now.”

  • America’s Iran Policy Is a Failure − Piecemeal Deterrence and Sanctions Can Go Only So Far

    A decade of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has failed to contain Iran’s ambitions and has instead substantially contributed to the current escalation of hostilities in the region. Washington’s ability to project power and manage American interests in the Mideast has eroded dramatically since 2010, and, as a result of Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the nuclear deal, Iran’s military nuclear program has reached its most advanced stage. The failed policies have culminated in the collapse of American deterrence in the Middle East. Simply put, the U.S. no longer projects enough power there to stop Iranian hostilities.

  • A New U.S. Russia, China Nuclear Arms Race Spells Danger

    Unlike in the Cold War, the United States faces the prospect in the next decade of two peer nuclear adversaries, which will together have twice as many strategic nuclear weapons as it does. While extended nuclear assurance and persuasion have been important factors in the US for a long time, there does not appear to be any widely accepted methodology for reaching a decision on how many weapons are needed for these purposes.