Commentary

The Dawn of the Nuclear AgeThe Nuclear Age began with the World War II Manhattan Project (1942–46), which culminated in the Trinity test on July 16, 1945, of the “Gadget” and the August 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki....

The last job I had with the Bush administration was coordinator for police training, judicial reform, and counternarcotics in Afghanistan. When I got the job, the National Security Council said, “It’s got three parts. First, you have to go...

Chairman Skelton, Mr. McHugh, it is a distinct privilege for me to appear again before this Committee. Like you, I am deeply concerned that the economic crisis that has affected the United States in particular and the international community...

NATO will never win the “best dressed” award among alliances. It is always in disarray. Now numbering 26 members, NATO, which turns 60 on April 4, is flailing in its efforts to address the Afghanistan nettle that, having been...

On February 12, 2009, FPRI’s Program on National Security held a conference on potential “defense showstoppers” for the Obama administration–critical issues that, if not fixed, could lead to a serious deterioration of American military capabilities. The event was hosted...

The secularization thesis is a pillar of modern social theory.  There are different versions of this thesis, but all hold that religion will fade away and/or become irrelevant to public life in the modern world.  In some countries, secularization...

Spencer Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Harvard University Press) QC773.W43 1988. Fascinating, learned, and entertaining summary of the utopian hopes and hellish fears (viz. Godzilla) invoked by the dreams and realities of splitting the atom. Richard Rhodes, The Making of...

With many other issues crowding its agenda, the Obama administration may pay too little attention to relations with Japan and Korea, except concerning North Korea. It should avoid this, since relations with both countries have become unusually sensitive in...

Warming Up to Innovation Technological change is a very important part of economic change and growth. The famous portrait by German immigrant Christian Schussele, “Men of Progress” (1862, at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.) can be a departure...

Military technology often seems to be the dark side of innovation, the Mr. Hyde roaming the back alleys of civilization for opportunities to work his worst on society. Its foundational figure in Western civilization is the Greek Hephaestus (whose...