Analysis & Opinions

Calder Walton writes that Soviet espionage inside the Manhattan Project would change history. By the end of World War II, Stalin's spies had delivered the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Kremlin. This accelerated Moscow's bomb project. When the Soviets detonated their first atomic weapon in August 1949, it was a replica of the weapon built at Los Alamos and dropped by the Americans on Nagasaki.

After viewing the movie Oppenheimer, Matthew Bunn, John P. Holdren, Mariana Budjeryn, Matthew J. Parent, and Calder Walton, and Sylvia Mishra offer their thoughts on its relevance to the world today. 

The geopolitical implications of solar displacing oil as the world’s major source of energy are enormous. Why has the Middle East been a central arena in the “great game” for the past century? Because countries there have been the major suppliers of the oil and gas that powered 20th-century economies. If, over the next decade, photovoltaic cells that capture energy from the sun were to replace a substantial part of the demand for oil and gas, who will the biggest losers be? And even more consequentially: who will be the biggest winner?

As the Biden administration and Congress struggle to get their heads around the challenge posed by China today, they should reflect on lessons learned in America’s success in winning the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Just because fundamental and irresolvable differences in values and interests compel the United States and China to be formidable rivals does not mean a hot war is a viable option.

Grant Golub writes: For decades, Washington has called on U.S. allies to sustain greater shares of the defense burden while largely neglecting to take concrete actions to make this happen. This has helped allow other countries to become dependent on American military protection while letting their own defense capabilities atrophy.

The Netflix series showcases how American diplomats in London have used the same model since it was pioneered in the 18th century

The Economist’s recent cover story declaring that the US economy is “leaving its peers ever further in the dust” is still making waves in Washington. The inconvenient truth, however, is that The Economist reaches this stunning conclusion by excluding the US’s only true peer: China. 

The Washington Declaration signed by U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday should be a ringing reminder of one of the greatest achievements of U.S. national security strategy: its decadeslong success in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The agreement strengthened nuclear deterrence coordination between the two allies and offered a greater sense of assurance that South Korea falls under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Paul Kolbe and Calder Walton analyze Russia’s arrest of Wall Street Journal journalist and US citizen, Evan Gershkovich, on espionage charges. This is the latest example of the Russian Federal Security Service's long practice of state-sponsored hostage taking and repression of the press. 

Why do we think Vladimir Putin will not use “the bomb” when there is so much evidence that he will?