Russia’s Defense Ministry broadcast the loading of a new kind of nuclear-capable missile into a silo on TV this Thursday. It was the Avangard, an intercontinental ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide reentry vehicle designed to deliver a nuclear payload while avoiding missile defense systems. The Avangard is a much-hyped missile system. Its hypersonic glide […]
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After months of troubled relations, and then some tentative steps to bridge the gap between the United States and China, there is one glaring omission: American and Chinese military leaders still don’t communicate with one another directly. That’s important because those lines of communication are the best way to avoid the kind of misunderstandings or […]
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In a landmark moment marking the closing chapters of the Cold War, Presidents Ronald Reagan of the United States and Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union concluded a 1985 summit in Geneva by issuing a joint statement declaring that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” That commitment paved the […]
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Five months ago, President Biden canceled a trip to Australia because the United States was on the brink of defaulting on its debt, and it seemed like a bad time to leave town. Then he extended an invitation to Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, for a state visit in Washington — a redo […]
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The United States can still choose to avoid an arms race, and it should make this choice because its security interests can be better served through other means—even in a world where the combined number of Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons aimed at our homeland is greater than our deployed forces by a factor of […]
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The consequences are real enough, of course. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed at least 100,000 people. Their successor weapons, which Oppenheimer opposed, threatened to kill everybody else. But the intellectual drama of “Oppenheimer” — as distinct from the dramas of his personal life and his political fate — is about how abstraction […]
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Risky Maneuvers Since the fall of 2021, the Pentagon report says, the United States has recorded more than 180 intercepts of U.S. aircraft by Chinese military forces in the region. Beijing has long bristled at the U.S. military aircraft and ships that operate in international skies and seas near China. China has been increasingly assertive […]
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Russia has just taken the first steps towards leaving the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty, a 1990s-era treaty that bans the testing of nuclear weapons. The news that Russia is leaving yet another nuclear treaty came days after the U.S. Congress issued a report on America’s nuclear weapons that said America needed to expand its nuclear […]
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When a company with Chinese origins broke ground last year on a crypto-mining operation in Cheyenne, Wyo., a team at Microsoft that assesses national security threats sounded the alarm. Not only was the site next door to a Microsoft data center that supported the Pentagon — it was about a mile away from an Air […]
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Russia’s hard-liners are rattling the nuclear saber vigorously these days, on television and in academic journals, arguing that an atomic blast — in Ukraine, in Europe, or maybe in a test over Siberia — is the only way to restore the West’s fear of Russian might. But so far President Vladimir V. Putin is not […]
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“The President’s motivations are not for the prosecution or this Court to decide,” the filing said. “Rather, where, as here, the President’s actions are within the ambit of his office, he is absolutely immune from prosecution.” Trump is unlikely to be successful, especially as his entire legal team has all but admitted to the crimes. […]
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“The President’s motivations are not for the prosecution or this Court to decide,” the filing said. “Rather, where, as here, the President’s actions are within the ambit of his office, he is absolutely immune from prosecution.” Trump is unlikely to be successful, especially as his entire legal team has all but admitted to the crimes. […]
Read MoreThey came to mourn the dead, but in a split second of thunder and flying debris, more than 50 people who had gathered for a wake were themselves killed on Thursday when a giant explosion tore through a shop in a tiny Ukrainian village. It was one of the biggest losses of civilian life since […]
Read MoreShortly after he left office, former President Donald J. Trump shared apparently classified information about American nuclear submarines with an Australian businessman during an evening of conversation at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, according to two people familiar with the matter. The businessman, Anthony Pratt, a billionaire member of Mar-a-Lago who runs […]
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There is a memorable scene in “Oppenheimer,” the blockbuster film about the building of the atomic bomb, in which Luis Alvarez, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, is reading a newspaper while getting a haircut. Suddenly, Alvarez leaps from his seat and sprints down the road to find his colleague, the theoretical physicist […]
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Satellite imagery and aviation data suggest that Russia may be preparing to test an experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile — or may have recently tested one — with a theoretical range of thousands of miles. Movements of aircraft and vehicles at and near a base in Russia’s remote Arctic region are consistent with preparations that were […]
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For the first time since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned to office last December, he and President Biden met face to face on Wednesday in a session that both soothed and aggravated tensions between the leaders and demonstrated Mr. Biden’s wider commitment to Israeli security. By ending his informal moratorium on in-person contact […]
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North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, inspected nuclear-capable strategic bombers in Russia on Saturday, according to Russian state media, as he continued a trip that has raised fears of the two nations deepening their military ties against a common enemy, the United States. Mr. Kim arrived in Primorsky Krai, in Russia’s Far East, on Saturday morning […]
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To challenge the power of his chief rival, the United States, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has linked arms with two anti-Western states, declaring a “no limits” partnership with Russia and pledging “unswerving” support for North Korea. But the specter of a budding bromance between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and the North Korean […]
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China’s defense minister, Gen. Li Shangfu, has been placed under investigation, according to two U.S. officials, fueling speculation about further upheaval in the military after the abrupt removal of two top commanders in charge of the country’s nuclear force. General Li has not been seen in public in more than two weeks. He had been […]
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China’s defense minister, Gen. Li Shangfu, has not been seen in public in more than two weeks, fueling speculation about further upheaval in the military after the abrupt removal of two top commanders in charge of the country’s nuclear force. General Li’s absence has raised the possibility that he has been placed under an investigation […]
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Washington and Moscow flooded the Korean Peninsula with arms and aid as they fueled the war between South and North seven decades ago. Now, in a fateful moment of history turning back on itself, Russia and the United States are reaching out to those same allies to supply badly needed munitions as the powers face […]
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