WMD Insights

The Comparative Strategic Cultures Curriculum project is an ASCO effort that explored approaches for leveraging strategic culture analyses to understanding WMD behavior. This new report includes a collection of commissioned essays and case studies that examine the field of strategic culture and assess its applicability as a methodological approach to understanding decisions to acquire, proliferate, or use WMD, or abide by or violate international norms regarding WMD. More information about this project, and the essays and case studies, can be found at http://www.dtra.mil/
ASCO/comparative
strategic
cultures.cfm

This monthly publication seeks to provide timely and noteworthy unclassified information on international attitudes towards weapons of mass destruction and efforts to curb their proliferation. Our goal is to assist our readers in planning for today’s issues and those that may be just over the horizon. Your opinions about this product are important to us. Please click Feedback to take a short electronic survey. Thank you

Jonathan Fox
DTRA Program Manager

Michael Moodie
Editor-in-Chief

Jennifer Borchard Managing Editor

Brenda McVeigh
Layout and Design

Timothy Long
Web Developer

The WMD Insights project is sponsored by the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office (ASCO) at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). ASCO identifies, encourages, and executes high-impact projects to promote new thinking, address technology gaps and improve the operational capabilities of DTRA, DOD and other government agencies in response to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and related threats. A variety of ASCO studies, conference reports, and papers can be found at http://www.dtra.mil/
ASCO/publications.cfm

June 2008 Issue . . .

Algeria, Emirates Plan Nonproliferation-Friendly Nuclear Programs; Egypt Keeps Fuel Cycle Options Open, Rejects Expanded IAEA Monitoring
	Over the past two years, some half dozen states in the Middle East and North Africa have announced plans to begin or resume nuclear energy programs. . . . view article

New Insights about 2007 Israeli Air Strike in Syria
	On September 6, 2007, Israeli planes entered Syrian airspace and attacked a ground target near the town of Al Kibar in northeast Syria. Information related to the attack had been cloaked in an unusual veil of secrecy . . . view article

The Second CWC Review Conference: Success at a Price
	When delegates convened in The Hague for the Second Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) on April 7, 2008, few could have predicted the controversial circumstances that would surround its conclusion two weeks later . . . view article

Program to Clean-up Abandoned Chemical Weapons in China Moves Sluggishly
	The conclusion of the Second Review Conference of the CWC did little to resolve a number of questions about the status of and prospects for the destruction of abandoned chemical weapons left by Japanese forces in China after World War II . . . view article

U.S. BMD Plans Gain NATO’s Endorsement but Not Russia’s
	A major U.S. objective at both the April 2-4 NATO summit in Bucharest and the April 5-6 bilateral Russian-American meeting at Sochi was to overcome international concerns about Washington’s plans to deploy BMD systems . . . view article

Bush and Putin Call for Strategic Partnership
	On April 6, 2008, during the a summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin at Sochi, the United States and the Russian Federation issued a “Strategic Framework Declaration” . . . view article

The views expressed on this website are those of the authors only and do not represent the official policy or position of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.