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Paul Carroll's Blog Posts

Paul is responsible for managing the grantmaking at Ploughshares and ensuring that resources are directed toward the smartest people with the best ideas for reducing the risks from nuclear weapons and reducing conflict.  Prior to coming on board in 2000, Paul worked at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Paul has a Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and a Masters of Public Policy in National Security Studies from the University of Maryland.
Chemical Weapons, Syria and the International Response to WMDs
The debate over Syria’s possible use of chemical weapons has been dominating the headlines. Were deadly nerve agents used? If so by whom? Was the use intentional? These questions are important since President Obama has intimated that, if confirmed, the use of chemical weapons could change U.S. policy toward the Syrian civil war. The specifics of what the United States would do differently are unclear. What is clear, though, is that the use of chemical weapons characteristically changes the way we perceive the conflict. It is, as Obama stated, a “game changer.” Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on May 10, 2013
North Korea, chemical weapons, Syria, Pakistan, United States
Time to Pull the Plug on MOX
Some things never seem to change, sometimes to the detriment of the U.S. taxpayer. Allowing parochial interests to trump national ones is a Washington tradition that lives on. Case in point: this week Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) placed a “hold” on the nomination of Dr. Ernest Moniz, a well-respected MIT professor and former Undersecretary of Energy, to be the next head of the Department of Energy (DOE). The reason? The senator is concerned about administration plans to reduce the budget request for the plutonium fuel program at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina known as MOX. Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on April 30, 2013
Department of Energy, MOX, National Nuclear Security Administration, Nuclear Budget, United States
Fukushima 2013 to 20013? Legacy of the Nuclear Age
Next week marks the second anniversary of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima reactors in Japan. Remember? The days and weeks we collectively crossed our fingers as heroic workers improvised and threw everything they could at melting reactors and damaged spent fuel pools to stave off disaster? Seems like a long time gone and Fukushima has, in our collective consciousness, faded into a historical nuclear footnote. “Close call,” we may think, “but the danger is over.” Not quite. In fact, not even close. Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on March 7, 2013
Japan, Chernobyl, fukushima, Hanford, Nuclear Zero, Russia, Three Mile Island, Yucca Mountain, United States
Time to Break the North Korean Cycle
It will be days or weeks before the world knows much about the nuclear test conducted by North Korea mid-day Tuesday local time in Pyongyang. What was its actual yield? What did it use – plutonium or highly enriched uranium, or some combination? Did it perform as expected? What will the international response be? Is this a game changer? Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on February 12, 2013
China, North Korea, Pyongyang, Seoul, United States
North Korea’s Rocket Launch: Who’s Up, Who’s Down?
As the United Nations Security Council considers a response to the North Korean missile launch, I’d like to offer my view on the immediate “winners and losers” from this episode. Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on December 12, 2012
North Korea, Iran
Too Big to Succeed? Huge Laser for Weapons Tests Fails to Perform
Although the United States has not tested a nuclear weapon for twenty years, we still spend billions each year on an array of machines that conduct all kinds of diagnostic experiments to mimic nuclear explosions. One of the most expensive is called the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on October 31, 2012
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, National Ignition Facility, Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Weapons, Stockpile stewardship
The Mouse that Keeps Roaring: The United States, China and Solving the North Korean Challenge
Say what you will about North Korea. It’s “backwards,” impoverished, isolated, led by an enigmatic, secretive leader, or even that it is “the land of no smiles” whose people live a life on the edge of survival. To varying degrees, these negative descriptions are true. It’s hard to escape the stark reality that a nation of some 23 million people with reasonably rich mineral and agricultural resources produces less than one-tenth than the state of Pennsylvania – roughly the same size but with half the population. Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on September 27, 2012
China, Japan, North Korea, Foreign Policy, national security, Nuclear proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Paul Carroll, South Korea, Yale Journal of International Affairs
Air Force Chief Acknowledges Room to Cut Nuclear Forces
The US military isn’t known for refusing big guns or new toys. So it’s a telling sign when one of the nation’s top military leaders proposes serious cuts to the nuclear arsenal. Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on August 6, 2012
Boston Globe, Global Zero, James Cartwright, Norton Schwartz, Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Weapons
Pyongyang, we have a problem…
Critics of a recent deal between North Korea and the United States had barely caught their breath before an announcement today by Pyongyang that North Korea plans to launch a satellite atop a long-range rocket in mid-April. It’s hard to argue that this isn’t a setback. But it’s also premature to write the whole thing off. Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on March 16, 2012
Diplomacy, North Korea, International security, Leap Day Agreement, Missile Testing, Nuclear proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Pyongyang
Lessons from Fukushima
Anniversaries have a way of generating reflection and re-assessment, and that is a good thing. But next week’s anniversary of the Fukushima catastrophe risks missing a huge piece of the story – that ALL things nuclear are inherently risky and that our assumptions about how we can control them need to be rethought. Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on March 9, 2012
arms control, disarmament, Japan, fukushima, nuclear energy plants, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Nuclear Power, Nuclear proliferation, Nuclear technology, Nuclear Weapons