May 22, 2018

Book Review: The Darkest Sides of Politics, II: State Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Religious Extremism, and Organized Crime

Fort McNair — In this companion to his first volume on Postwar Facism, Covert Operations, and Terrorism, Jeffrey Bale explores the influence of some of the world’s most pressing security concerns through a review of global case studies on weapons of mass destruction (WMD), violent extremism, and organized crime.

May 16, 2018

Book Review: The Politics of Weapons Inspections: Assessing WMD Monitoring and Verification Regimes

Fort McNair — Nathan E. Busch and Joseph F. Pilat in their book The Politics of Weapons Inspections: Assessing WMD Monitoring and Verification Regimes draw attention to the important role that politics can play within weapons of mass destruction (WMD) verification, but the title promises more than the authors deliver.

May 15, 2018

Book Review: Dirty War: Rhodesia and Chemical Biological Warfare 1975-1980

Fort McNair — In this book review, Dr. Seth Carus writes that Glenn Cross’s Dirty War: Rhodesia and Chemical Biological Warfare 1975–1980 is a welcome addition to the small, but growing scholarly literature on the history of chemical and biological warfare.

May 14, 2018

Playing With Fire

Listen as CSWMD's Mr. Patrick Terrell and Mr. Robert J. Peters speak to the National Defense University's Defense Matters podcast about North Korea's increased rhetoric, capabilities escalate the probability of armed conflict & how it affects American allies in the region. The views expressed in the podcast are those of the individual and not the organization.

May 10, 2018

Iran's Strategic Culture: Implications for Nuclear Policy

Fort Lesley J McNair — This book chapter, published in Crossing Nuclear Thresholds: Leveraging Sociocultural Insights into Nuclear Decisionmaking assesses the principal drivers of Iran's strategic culture and their broader implications for the country's nuclear decisionmaking processes.

April 9, 2018

Emergence and Convergence: Research Paper Series

National Defense University — The E&C research paper series will explore specific topics highlighting the impact of additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, nanotechnology, and synthetic biology on the WMD space as well as potential governance challenges and solutions.

April 9, 2018

The Age of Commercial Drones: Implications for National Security and Weapons of Mass Destruction

In Emergence and Convergence research paper no. 1, Mr. Kenneth Turner explores the rise of commercial drones and its implications for CWMD.

April 9, 2018

The Future of Defense Innovation: Removing the Silos between the Warfighters and Innovators

Dr. Natasha Bajema explores the challenges of defense innovation under the current defense acquisition system.

April 4, 2018

Biodata Risks and Synthetic Biology: A Critical Juncture

Intrinsic to growing ability to apply classical engineering to biological systems is the mounting ‘digitization of biology’, as the genetic code and its related metadata (including translated proteins, associated functions, herein referred to as “biodata”) are amassed in order to engineer biology for specific purposes. There are three unique risks categories associated with the digitization of biology: 1) pathogen risks; 2) manufacturing risks, and 3) risks to individual privacy that can allow human harms.

Jan. 23, 2018

Negotiating a Nuclear "Code of Conduct"

The NPT five lack shared norms of nuclear behavior. Pursuing a nuclear code of conduct could resolve that and help increase both dialogue and stability.