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Joe Cirincione's Blog Posts

Joseph Cirincione is President of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. He is the author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats. He is a member of Secretary of State John Kerry's International Security Advisory Board and the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Budget Crisis Offers Opportunity To Bend The Arc Of Nuclear Policy
The U.S. government spends $54 billion a year on nuclear weapons and related programs. Despite the deep fiscal crisis, these budgets are about to go up — to a whopping $700 billion over the next 10 years. It is not at all clear why. Read more »
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Posted by Joe Cirincione on August 11, 2011
Congress, Department of Defense, Hiroshima, Joe Cirincione, Larry Korb, Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Zero, Politics, U.S. government, Obama, United States
The Lesson of Fukushima, Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Sixty-six years and hundreds of kilometers separate the disaster at Fukushima and the hibakusha, the Japanese word for survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of August 6 and 9, 1945. But the lesson is the same: Nuclear technology is inherently dangerous whether in a nuclear power plant or a nuclear bomb. Read more »
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Posted by Joe Cirincione on August 8, 2011
Japan, fukushima, Nagasaki, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Nuclear Policy, United States
A Fond Farewell to a Superstar
After 14 years at the helm of Ploughshares Fund, Executive Director Naila Bolus is leaving us to become president of another national non-profit organization based in Boston. Read more »
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Posted by Joe Cirincione on July 20, 2011
How to Shave a Bundle Off the Deficit: Spend Less on Nukes
Congress is in the midst of an intense debate over a massive defense spending bill, and budget negotiations between the Administration and congressional leaders are at a pivotal stage. One key part of our nation's budget must be on the table: nuclear weapons. Read more »
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Posted by Joe Cirincione on July 15, 2011
Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Foreign Policy, Defense Budget, U.S. Nuclear Policy, Other, United States
Smart Money to Stop Nuclear Terrorism
Congress just took a small but important bipartisan step to make America safer. Read more »
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Posted by Joe Cirincione on July 14, 2011
Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Terrorism, Defense Budget, Proliferation, U.S. Nuclear Policy, United States
Advice to Panetta: Cut the Nuclear Budget
Today Leon Panetta begins his term as Secretary of Defense.  One of his first tasks will be reigning in a Pentagon budget that has more than doubled in the last decade (the Department's fiscal year 2012 budget request is $671 billion). Read more »
Posted by Joe Cirincione on July 1, 2011
Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Weapons, Defense Budget, U.S. Nuclear Policy, United States
A Man With a Clear Conscience
He warned us. On Jan. 27, 2003, Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations Security Council that his initial inspections had revealed no evidence of nuclear-weapons activities in Iraq. The next day, ignoring this new intelligence, President George W. Bush presented an urgent case for military action in his State of the Union address, and The New York Times, The Washington Post , and most leading experts followed Bush’s lead: Saddam was building a bomb, and war was the only way to stop him. Read more »
Posted by Joe Cirincione on June 20, 2011
Middle East & Persian Gulf, Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Foreign Policy, Nuclear Materials, Conflict & Regional Security, United States
The X-Men Didn't Save Us
It wasn't the mutants. It was humans that caused the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only luck saved us from nuclear war. But other than that, the new film, X-Men: First Class, gets a lot right about the historic crisis that is central to its plot. Read more »
Posted by Joe Cirincione on June 16, 2011
Entertainment, Missile Defense, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, U.S. Foreign Policy, Nuclear Terrorism, U.S. Nuclear Policy, Military Strategy, Missiles & Space, Other, United States
Fighting City Hall's Nuclear Weapons
Kansas City wants to build nuclear weapons. Some of its citizens don't think that's such a good idea. Read more »
Posted by Joe Cirincione on June 15, 2011
Health and Environmental Effects, Nuclear Weapons, Partners, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Nuclear Policy, United States
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Preventing the Nuclear Apocalypse
Fukushima reminds us that nuclear technology is inherently dangerous, whether in a reactor or in a bomb.  There are 443 nuclear reactors in operation around the world; there are 22,000 weapons.  The reactors have some justification; the bombs have none.  Like a doomsday machine that no one has yet turned off, thousands of nuclear bombs still sit atop missiles ready to launch within minutes. Thousands more are stacked in reserve, dangerously vulnerable to theft or accident.  Read more »
Posted by Joe Cirincione on April 26, 2011
Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Nuclear Policy, Other