Joe Cirincione

The Avengers puts a new twist on Hollywood's view of nuclear weapons. The nuke in this blockbuster film is both a villain and a hero. This may be very post-modern, but it's an ambivalence the film industry should finally shed.

The Avengers is a hugely entertaining film, and...

Are you giving mom candy for Mother's Day? Seriously? Or are you going with a Hallmark card... again?

Mother's Day should mean something more than cards or candy. It used to mean more; in fact, the holiday was originally a day for peace. Believe it or not, Mother's Day celebrations...

Senator Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA) has come out in strong support of a political solution to the Iran crisis. She is cautiously optimistic that the next round of talks in Baghdad on May 23, "may lead to a breakthrough on Iran's nuclear program," she wrote in the

When a Republican president negotiates reductions in nuclear arsenals, it is statecraft; when a Democratic president does the same, it is treason. That, at least, is the position advanced this week by several leading Republican politicians and their political advisors.

In his remarks at Hankuk University in Seoul last weekend,...

Phil Taubman writes in the Sunday New York Times what many people in Washington think about our outdated nuclear policy, but few say. He makes six key points.

Taubman knows what he is talking about, having spent years as the Times bureau chief in Moscow and Washington. He...

The Iraq War is the greatest strategic blunder in American history. It cost our nation $1 trillion, the lives of thousands of our finest warriors, and our international credibility. It made defeating al-Qaeda harder, stopping Iran more difficult, and global security more precarious. It was not, as some...

Washington is planning to spend over $700 billion on nuclear weapons and related programs over the next ten years. Some programs are necessary, some are questionable and some are simply turkeys gobbling up defense dollars.

With the failure of the Supercommittee almost certain, pressure to cut...

As the congressional "supercommittee" moves toward recommendations to cut over $1 trillion from the government's budgets, House members have squared off over whether some savings can come from the hundreds of billions of dollars planned for nuclear weapons over the next 10 years.

The first shots were fired on Oct....

The collapse of the Gaddafi regime firmly establishes the benefits of Obama's national security strategy over the failed war policies that preceded him -- and are still promoted by his critics.

There is mop-up fighting in the streets of Tripoli and much work needed to consolidate a new Libyan government....

Congress just took a small but important bipartisan step to make America safer.

On July 13 the House of Representatives approved an amendment offered by Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), along with Rick Larsen (D-WA) and John Garamendi (D-CA), to increase by $35 million the funding...

It wasn't the mutants. It was humans that caused the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only luck saved us from nuclear war. But other than that, the new film, X-Men: First Class, gets a lot right about the historic crisis that is central to its plot.

So far, the film...

Kansas City wants to build nuclear weapons. Some of its citizens don't think that's such a good idea.

Kansas City is about to become the first city in the nation to own a nuclear bomb factory. For over 60 years, the U.S. has produced non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons...

There's one less threat to America this week, but there are 21,000 others waiting to explode. That's the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Russia. In a new report, experts from both nations warn of the dangers and offer five easy steps towards a solution.

In...

This article was co-authored by Paul Carroll, Program Director at Ploughshares Fund.

On March 11, there were 443 nuclear reactors operating around the world. On March 12, that number shrunk by four.

An earthquake, a tsunami and a record of poor safety management converged to create one...

Despite the power and allure of nuclear weapons, only nine nations in the world today have nuclear arsenals. Why aren't there more?

The main reason: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT, which went into force 41 years ago today, has provided strong incentives for nations to give...

In a stunning trans-Atlantic announcement on December 19, 2003, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush said Libya had agreed, after nine months of secret talks, to publicly disclose and dismantle all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs; to limit its missiles to a range of less...

This article was co-authored with Ploughshares Fund Research Assistant Reid Pauly

As a free Egypt transforms itself, analysts are nervously watching for signs of new nuclear ambitions. Concern revolves around three issues:

• There are unanswered questions about Egypt's past nuclear activities.


• Egypt has the know-how...

One of Ronald Reagan's most powerful and living legacies was his dream of a world free of nuclear weapons. It is worth remembering this sixth of February, the centennial of his birth.

Reagan never hid his views, though many discounted them. On a bitter cold Monday in 1985, for example,...

The New START treaty has obvious benefits for national security. But the overwhelming vote in favor of the treaty (71-26) has much broader significance. And the still sizable vote against it, a troubling dark side.

The case for the treaty is fairly simple. It reduces the number of Russian long-range...

Forced to choose between the recommendations of the U.S. military and the extreme views of Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), enough Republican senators are going military to win Senate approval of the New START treaty this week.

The treaty makes modest reductions in the deployed long-range nuclear...