nuclear weapons

Ethan Epstein on imagining nuclear war with North Korea.

The June 12 meeting in Singapore between Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim ­Jong‑un has generated a bewildering array of responses from observers around the world. These responses do not fall along predictable ideological lines. Back and forth across the ideological span, we find…

Last week John Bolton remarked that the end game of the nuclear negotiations with North Korea was to replicate the “Libyan model.” Later, Bolton spelled out that what he meant was that all of North Korea’s nuclear devices should be turned over to us and “stored at Oak Ridge.” President Trump was…

The word du jour is “denuclearization.”

Kim Jong-un cut a cosmopolitan figure as a youth—Swiss finishing schools, trips abroad with his dictator dad—but he's turned reclusive as he's ruled North Korea. Indeed, he hasn't departed his country once since assuming the throne.

It is possible that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is suddenly “committed to denuclearization,” as South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong claimed in comments to the press at the White House Thursday evening.

Republican lawmakers greeted with cautious openness the announcement that President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will meet, reminding the president of years of failed talks with Pyongyang and urging him not to ease economic pressure just yet.

President Donald Trump will meet with Kim Jong-un by May amid a commitment from the North to denuclearization, South Korea’s national security adviser said Thursday.

Two top intelligence chiefs appeared wary Tuesday about North Korea’s apparent willingness to engage in talks related to its nuclear program and to halt weapons testing while doing so.

The Trump administration made clear on Friday, with what it described as the largest set of sanctions against North Korea yet, that it will continue to isolate Pyongyang even as the South seeks to engage with the North.

In a nuclear world, nuclear weapons are needed to deter major attacks, but who should possess these instruments of deterrence? The United States has long been committed to stemming nuclear proliferation by both potential adversaries and friends. Today the challenge of keeping nonnuclear states from…

CIA director Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that the agency had, until a year ago, not been paying enough attention to North Korea, even as the Hermit Kingdom worked to advance its weapons capability.

Diplomatic “talks” are often little more than that—gabfests—but Tuesday’s meeting in Vancouver signals a hard-headed determination to deal with the problem of North Korea. The talks, hosted by the U.S. and Canada, brought together 20 nations, primarily those that aided South Korea in the Korean War…

'My neighbors probably think I’m nuts,” says Cory Gardner. The fresh-faced senator is from tiny Yuma in northeastern Colorado, a 3,500-person town with “horrible cell service” to the point where he doesn’t get reception inside his house. So when the secretary of state calls, Gardner does what the…

“My neighbors probably think I’m nuts,” says Cory Gardner. The fresh-faced senator is from tiny Yuma in northeastern Colorado, a 3,500-person town with “horrible cell service” to the point where he doesn’t get reception inside his house. So when the secretary of state calls, Gardner does what the…

Everybody agrees that it’s bad that North Korea is a nuclear state. It’s “unacceptable” as the president put it (although the world has already basically accepted it). But rarely considered is why North Korea went nuclear.

Republican senators on Wednesday night brushed off President Donald Trump’s tweet threatening North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with the size and power of his “nuclear button,” the latest in a series of heated exchanges between the two leaders.

Media critics and anti-Trump skeptics are charging that President Trump may have violated Twitter’s terms of service Tuesday evening for initiating a nuclear button-measuring contest with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. “I think they're trying to decide if this kind of tweet—referring to a…

Surprise! North Korea has rejected Rex Tillerson’s request for unconditional talks with the United States.

As the Trump administration seeks to prevent North Korea from becoming a nuclear power, it will probably want to close the barn door as well, now that the horse has gotten out.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un seems increasingly addicted to scaring the world by firing ballistic missiles. After a lull of over two months, the regime fired another on Wednesday, the 16th this year. The launches have become more frequent and more aggressive. In August and September, the regime…

Hong Jun-pyo may be diminutive in stature, but he visited Washington this week with a tall order. The prominent South Korean politician—he finished in second in this year’s presidential election, and currently leads the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party—wants U.S. nukes. And he wants them…

"Do we want Iran to have a nuclear weapon or not?" asks Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a video making its way around the Internet. “The answer? No. So why is President Trump trying to make it easier for Iran to get a nuclear weapon?”

"Do we want Iran to have a nuclear weapon or not?" asks Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in a video making its way around the Internet. “The answer? No. So why is President Trump trying to make it easier for Iran to get a nuclear weapon?”

The late North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-il had thousands of Hollywood movies in his personal collection, furnishing him with what he thought was a deep knowledge of a country he would never see. He was particularly fond, reportedly, of The Godfather—so much so that he ran his country like a Mafioso.…

President Donald Trump refused to certify the Iran nuclear deal Friday, a move that has been described as one piece of a larger strategy to toughen U.S. policy toward Iran.

“The best defense is a good offense,” as the old saw goes. The nature of that “good offense” matters, though. Too often, American officials mistake “any offense” for a “good offense.” As tensions between North Korea and the United States continue to escalate, it is apparent that American…

The late North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-il had thousands of Hollywood movies in his personal collection, furnishing him with what he thought was a deep knowledge of a country he would never see. He was particularly fond, reportedly, of The Godfather—so much so that he ran his country like a Mafioso.…

Presidential candidate Donald Trump disparaged the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran in characteristically superlative terms: “My number-one priority,” he said to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March 2016, “is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. I have been in…

North Korea’s inexorable march toward nuclear weapons has been treated as something akin to a malign meteorological phenomenon. Sure, it’s bad. But there’s also nothing we can do to stop it, the standard line has gone. After all, by the time Barack Obama took office, the “heavily isolated” country…

By October 15, Donald Trump must decide what to do with his predecessor’s nuclear agreement with Iran. He has felt obliged, against his instincts, to recertify the deal every 90 days, per the requirements of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, Congress’s attempt to supervise Barack Obama’s…

Presidential candidate Donald Trump disparaged the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran in characteristically superlative terms: “My number-one priority,” he said to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March 2016, “is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. I have been in…

By October 15, Donald Trump must decide what to do with his predecessor’s nuclear agreement with Iran. He has felt obliged, against his instincts, to recertify the deal every 90 days, per the requirements of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, Congress’s attempt to supervise Barack Obama’s…

Since Donald Trump took office, the growth of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and the increasing capability and diversity of its ballistic missile force have made that country the most urgent threat to U.S. national security. Observers as diverse as Mark Bowden in the Atlantic, Michael Auslin of the…

Sanctions hurt everybody. That’s the problem with imposing them on a reckless and brutal regime. Instead of pressuring the few in charge, you punish the people as a whole. Sometimes that’s necessary, but it’s never ideal.

Since Donald Trump took office, the growth of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and the increasing capability and diversity of its ballistic missile force have made that country the most urgent threat to U.S. national security. Observers as diverse as Mark Bowden in the Atlantic, Michael Auslin of the…

North Korea’s foreign minister accused the United States Monday of declaring war against the Kim regime, the sharpest escalation yet of tensions between the two nations.

President Trump announced on Thursday new economic sanctions on “individuals, companies, financial institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea.” Making a statement in New York at the beginning of a meeting with South Korean president Moon Jae-in and Japanese prime minister…

The forces driving North Korea’s nuclear weapons program are reminiscent of Cold War strategies pursued by the Soviet Union. Most notable was Moscow’s decision in the mid-1970s to deploy 243 SS-20 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) with three independently targetable warheads apiece and…

The Trump administration has done a laudable job handling the North Korea crisis it inherited. The Obama administration had neglected the gathering North Korean threat under a policy called “strategic patience.” This followed a negotiated “deal” at the end of the Bush years that lifted important…

With the North Koreans claiming to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb this week, President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated that “military action would certainly be an option” against the rogue regime. “I would prefer not going the route of the military, but it’s something certainly that…

The crisis between the United States and North Korea shows no signs of abating. Indeed, Pyongyang escalated its provocations last week, firing a missile over Japan on August 29. Critics of the president cite his brash approach to Pyongyang as a factor behind North Korea’s belligerency. Some also…

Readers will recall that just before memories of the Confederacy became an existential threat to national unity, Americans were worried about another—and surely more plausible—menace to the United States. In early August, Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator who has been successfully testing…

The crisis between the United States and North Korea shows no signs of abating. Indeed, Pyongyang escalated its provocations last week, firing a missile over Japan on August 29. Critics of the president cite his brash approach to Pyongyang as a factor behind North Korea’s belligerency. Some also…

North Korea fired a missile that passed over Japan, the Pentagon confirmed Monday evening.

The Trump administration is conducting a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward Iran. There is no doubt top national security officials view the Islamic Republic as a major threat, both in terms of regional instability and proliferation. This recognition represents the principal difference from…

After President Donald Trump shocked his national security team with his off-the-cuff fire-and-fury remarks about North Korea on Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is trying to walk back his boss’s comments—without saying Trump was off base.

Associate editor Ethan Epstein talks with host Eric Felten about North Korea's alarming nuclear advances.

President Donald Trump responded to reports Tuesday that U.S. intelligence believes North Korea has missile-ready nuclear weapons.

Last week, North Korea launched its most ambitious missile test to date. And the response from the United States has been unambiguous. The Kim regime on Friday launched a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile that experts say could reach the United States. American forces countered with a…

The response was typical Trumpism—with a soupçon of Mean Girls. Just as he had called jihadists “losers” a few weeks prior, the president reacted to North Korea’s test launch of a midrange ballistic missile on July 3 with a gibe that cut to the quick. “Does [Kim Jong-un] have anything better to do…

Top Iranian officials are boasting that the nuclear deal enabled the country to make progress in developing advanced centrifuges, and broad production of some advanced models has already begun in the year since the deal was implemented, per Iranian media.

Syria is a bloody mess. Its cities lie in ruins. Its antiquities have been destroyed. And the Syrian leader continues to kill his own people. The death toll may be as high as a half million people. Some 10 million Syrians have been displaced. Reporters working there have described it as "hell on…

For a whole host of reasons explained in my story in the current issue of the THE WEEKLY STANDARD, South Korea is likely to elect a left-wing president on May 9. This near certainty, however, has had the benefit of clarifying things: The race's most conservative candidate, Hong Jun-pyo, has just…

When Syrian opposition activists pushed John Kerry to take a tougher line with Russian president Vladimir Putin last year, the secretary of state asked them, "What do you want me to do, go to war with Russia?"

When Syrian opposition activists pushed John Kerry to take a tougher line with Russian president Vladimir Putin last year, the secretary of state asked them, "What do you want me to do, go to war with Russia?"

A group of lawmakers from South Korea's Saenuri party—the conservative-leaning party that President Park Geun-hye belongs to—has called for what even a few of years ago was an idea safely relegated to the fringes of Korean political discourse: for Seoul to pursue its own nuclear weapons program.…

A super-PAC backing Hillary Clinton has released an advertisement quoting Donald Trump on nuclear weapons, the latest such spot from Clinton's side calling to mind former President Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy" attack against Barry Goldwater.

Last week, Josh Rogin reported for the Washington Post that President Obama will seek a United Nations Security Council resolution that, at the very least, calls for an end to nuclear testing. According to Rogin, the president's diplomatic gambit is to occur in September—around the 20th anniversary…

Of all the grim prospects of a Trump presidency, the thought of a reality TV star at the helm of America's nuclear arsenal should top the list. And not just any reality TV star. To wit, I could plausibly see Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs, Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild, or Bob Vila from This Old House…

Long-range ballistic missile capability has traditionally been a tough nut to crack, reserved for superpowers and the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Not only is the telemetry and rocket technology prohibitively difficult to master, but the process of building a nuclear weapon small…

The Iran government tried to obtain nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons technology from German companies, according to a new report from the Jerusalem Post. Here's Benjamin Weinthal, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, reporting from Berlin for the Post:

President Obama's decision to be the first sitting U.S. President to visit the ground zero site of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on May 27th as part of a G-7 Summit visit to Japan comes as no surprise. Advancing the cause of nuclear nonproliferation has been a hallmark of the Obama presidency and…

Print newspapers remain highly influential in South Korea, none more so than the Chosun Ilbo, the country's leading daily. (To put its dominance in context, consider that the Chosun Ilbo has a print circulation of 1.8 million, while the U.S.'s top-selling newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, sells…

Throughout the debate over the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama administration insisted that its approach to brokering a deal with the mullahs is guided by a simple principle: "verification, not trust." Of course, by the time a deal was…

While their fireworks have earned Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump the most attention after Wednesday night’s Republican debate in California, the winner for the most detailed and substantive performance may go to Marco Rubio. 

A new Pew poll finds shrinking support among the American people for the nuclear deal with Iran. The poll found 49 percent are opposed to the deal, with 21 percent in support and 30 percent who say they don't know.

The Associated Press reports that under the provisions of the deal, the Iranian government will be allowed to use its own inspectors on one site thought to have been used to develop nuclear weapons. Here's more from the AP:

A new TV ad argues the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran is repeating history, drawing parallels with the 1994 nuclear deal President Bill Clinton brokered with North Korea. The ad, produced by the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, interchanges lines from both president's…

According to the terms of the Iran deal announced in Vienna on Tuesday, U.N. Security Council sanctions regarding nuclear-related issues will be lifted on a number of entities and individuals—from Iranian banks to Lebanese assassins, like Anis Nacacche. The name that most sticks out is IRGC-Quds…

A bipartisan group convened under the auspices of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy released a “Public Statement on U.S. Policy Toward the Iran Nuclear Negotiations.” The group—comprising former Obama administration officials like David Petraeus, Robert Einhorn, Dennis Ross, Gary…

Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), used his speech this month at the 2015 Review Conference on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to lecture the West on its behavior and “remind” states of the importance of eliminating nuclear weapons. Speaking…

The Obama administration has been campaigning on behalf of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran since it was announced last week—even as the exact details of the proposed deal are still unclear. What we do know is that the JCPOA will turn Iran into a nuclear threshold state. Even Obama…

Iran is an opportunity, not a threat; it’s a potential partner, not an enemy.

Former Texas governor Rick Perry released a statement Thursday citing his "concern" that President Barack Obama may not seek congressional approval for the ongoing nuclear weapons negotiations with Iran.

Last week it was reported that the White House and Iran may be moving toward a deal over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. The proposed phased agreement, lasting 10-15 years, would initially attempt to freeze the program. But during the last years of the agreement, Iran would be allowed to…

Last week, the Obama administration succeeded in pressuring Democrats to insist there not be a vote on the Senate floor in support of the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015 until after the March 24 deadline for negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear weapons program. Lacking the votes in the…

Two weeks ago the Treasury Department sanctioned a senior al Qaeda official, Olimzhon Adkhamovich Sadikov, also known as Jafar al-Uzbeki, for facilitating the flow of foreign fighters into Syria. The Levant appears to be ground zero in a struggle between al Qaeda and an Iranian-led axis of terror…

Analyzing the Islamic Republic isn’t a guessing game—at least it shouldn’t be. Iranian Islamists’ words and deeds are pretty consistent. Memoirs, speeches, and biographies have poured forth from those who made and sustain the regime. The New York Times and Senator Edward Kennedy may have called…

More than 70 foreign policy experts have signed a letter addressed to the leaders in both parties in both houses of Congress urging them to enforce Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal agreed upon in Geneva late last year. Read the full text of the letter, organized by the Foreign Policy…

Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC News in an interview that North Korea "potentially" having a nuclear weapon would be "even more unacceptable." North Korea first tested its nuclear weapons capabilities in 2006 and had a more successful test in 2009. The country's most recent nuclear test was…

In the wake of the interim deal that the White House signed with Iran Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry said on the Sunday talk shows that nothing has changed, not with the American position in the Middle East, or with the U.S. alliance system in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin…

Caroline Glick, writing for the Jerusalem Post, looks at the U.S.-Russia negotiation over Syria and its effect on Iran, and sees parallels with the nuclear build-up in North Korea:

Bill Kristol joined Anderson Cooper and his panel Wednesday night on CNN to discuss Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapon capability. Watch the video below:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editorial assistant Ethan Epstein on North Korea's belligerence. Hosted by Michael Graham.

The ongoing failure of talks concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons program, most recently in Istanbul on July 3, is no surprise. This latest negotiation charade between Iran and the Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany (P5+1) is the culmination of 10 years of innumerable diplomatic…

Michael Makovsky and Blaise Misztal write in the Washington Post that President Obama is now trying only to contain Iran:

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) on November 8 released a new policy that falls just short of urging total nuclear disarmament while surmising that reliance on nukes might be idolatrous.

On Tuesday, the United Nations again made itself an international laughing stock – except perhaps to the American taxpayers who continue to foot 22 percent of the bill – by appointing North Korea chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. That would be the same North Korea that, according to an…

How the End Begins

Contrary to what the Obama administration might hope, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is no reformer. Even with the Syrian government’s murderous crackdown against its unarmed opposition, the White House is not getting the message. Yet Assad’s true colors should have been plainly obvious at least…

Zbigniew Brzezinski is not alone in his judgment that the Cold War was won in 1986 at Reykjavik, though the fact that Brzezinski was President Carter's national security adviser shows that this is no partisan judgment. At Reykjavik, Ronald Reagan was offered the most sweeping arms control proposal…