The nuclear posture and strategic decisions of nuclear-armed nations have a significant, often immediate impact on the nuclear acquisition decisions of other nations. A decision by a state to acquire nuclear weapons can trigger a similar decision in a rival state.
Every day, the whirling centrifuges at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment plant produce about 2.75 kilograms of the stuff, according to International Atomic Energy Agency data.
Former Secretary of State George P. Schultz, who helped to re-energize global nuclear disarmament efforts with recent op-eds in the Wall Street Journal calling for a "world without nuclear weapons," has become the newest member of Ploughshares Fund's advisory board.
The only benefit Iranian hardliners seek to gain in refusing to comply with the recent nuclear deal is to appear as the true defenders of the Iranian revolution, said Ploughshares Fund President Joseph Ciricione during an interview with PRI’s “The World” on Iran. Ciricione says the regime is on the rocks and the internal debate around the nuclear issue is the cause for Iranian mixed signals. Listen the full interview here.
The amount of uranium needed at Qum, some 7 to 16 percent of Isfahan's stockpile, would be too great a diversion to go unnoticed, says Andreas Persbo, an arms-control analyst at VERTIC, a Ploughshares Fund gr