Morning Joe: Arms Control at Core of Obama Foreign Policy

Stories we're following today:

Obama Puts Arms Control at Core of New Strategy - Peter Speigel in the Wall Street Journal [link]

• President Barack Obama has moved nuclear deterrence to the top of the national-security agenda -- and in his dealings in the past month with Iran, North Korea and Russia, revealed the issue to be an organizing principle to his foreign policy.
• "His view is: If this is the No. 1 threat that we face, we need to address it with urgency," says Benjamin Rhodes, Mr. Obama's chief national-security speechwriter. "For nonproliferation to work, you have to do everything at once."

Tipping Point in Tehran - Robin Wright in The Washington Post [link]

• Given its advancing nuclear technology and regional influence, Iran believed before the election that it held the trump cards in any negotiations. Now, politically disgraced, it is the needy one.
• The uprising has transformed Iran's political landscape. Over the past month, dozens of disparate political factions have coalesced into two rival camps: the New Right and the New Left.

You, Too, Can Be a Cocktail Party Wonk - Tyler Wigg Stevenson in Relevant [link]

• The world-wise need to build up their nuclear know-how (I’m talking to you, citizen) in order to drop knowledge bombs in polite conversation. Don’t guess-to-impress: get informed! Use the short primer below...
• Tyler Wigg-Stevenson is the founding director of the Two Futures Project - a Ploughshares grantee. Follow Tyler on Twitter: @2FP.

Countering Views from the Dark Side

Nod to the blogs responding to fallacious conservative opinions on U.S. nuclear policy.

The "They're Modnernizing but We're Not" Myth - Nukes of Hazard [link]

• There's plenty to take issue with in Kirkpatrick's and Dr. Schlesinger's conception [published in the Wall Street Journal] of the appropriate role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy.
• Beyond the narrow issue of whether it's true that the U.S. is the only major power that is not modernizing its weapons is the larger, and more important, issue of how and whether this matters.

Scoblic v. Krauthammer - Democracy Arsenal [link]

• Peter Scoblic points out [in the New Republic] the folly of pursuing technology for its own sake and reminds us of the precarious balance of terror associated with nuclear weapons. These are not totems of military or technical prowess, they are enormously, uniquely destructive instruments of catastrophe. The utmost priority of any policy, therefore, is to keep them from being used.
• Responding to an article by the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer.

The Lighter Side

The Wonderful World of Big Science - Neatorama [link]

• From the Manhattan Project, to the National Ignition Facility, to the Large Hadron Collider - Top 10 of the biggest science projects in the last 60 years.