Arms Control Wonk

Aaron and Jeffrey crossed paths in Philadelphia for a TTX about space nukes and escalation dynamics. The two caught up on the game, the recent news from USAF Secretary about US weapons in orbit, and what it all means for the new space race.  Support us over at Patreon.com/acwpodcast!

Is space based missile defense all gold and no dome? Aaron and Jeffrey sit down with FPRI Fellow Sam Lair to discuss their forthcoming paper about the costs of space based missile defense. Support us over at Patreon.com/acwpodcast!

Aaron and Jeffrey have a lot to announce. On this special episode of the show, the two let the listeners in on their future plans, and take a look back at the history of the podcast.   Support us over at Patreon.com/acwpodcast!

China has conducted a test of its JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile into the open ocean — a departure from its usual practice of lobbing missiles into the desert or splashing them down in domestic waters. Jeffrey and Aaron Stein sit down to talk about why China would test this way: what an open-ocean flight test actually demonstrates, how it mirrors the way the United States, Russia, France, and other nuclear powers have long tested their sea-based deterrents, and what it tells us that China is increasingly behaving like a normal nuclear weapons state. They also dig into what the test suggests about China's internal politics — who benefits from testing in a more conventional way, and what it means when the world's most opaque nuclear program starts doing things everyone can see.   Support us over at Patreon.com/acwpodcast!

The US-Iran MOU is humiliating, it was signed at Versailles, and its still not on any government website.  In fact, if you try a .gov keyword search for Iran's commitment to not build nuclear weapons, the top result is Obama's 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.  Aaron and Jeffrey work through why Trump was right to quit while he was behind, why continuing the fight wouldn't have changed a single comma, and why, weeks later, you still can't find the thing on state.gov.   Support us over at Patreon.com/acwpodcast!