Michael Krepon
Michael Krepon is the co-founder of the Stimson Center and the author of Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace: The Rise, Demise, and Revival of Arms Control. He was given a lifetime achievement award for non-governmental work to reduce nuclear dangers by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2015. He has worked in the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. Government, and taught as a professor of practice at the University of Virginia.
All Posts
James Baker’s Politics of Diplomacy
Arms Control Implications of the War in Ukraine (V): Proliferation
Arms Control Implications of the War in Ukraine (IV): Proliferation
The Use and Misuse of Nuclear Fear
Arms Control Implications of the War in Ukraine (III): Missile Defense
Arms Control Implications of the War in Ukraine (II)
Arms Control Implications of the War in Ukraine (I)
Putin’s Use of A Nuclear Weapon Against Ukraine Would Backfire
Putin Gives the Mad Man Theory a Try
The First Debate Over Downwinders
Ukraine and the Future of Arms Control
Arms Control Between Nuclear-Armed Rivals
Ward Wilson’s Theory of (Radical) Change
What Is Your Theory of Change? Do We Need a Common One?
How Bob Dole Rescued the Chemical Weapons Convention
India’s Chinese Menu Approach to China
Which President Was Best for Arms Control?
What Would Nuclear Peace Look Like?
How Much Longer for a Space Code of Conduct?
Time to Shift from the Post-Kabul Blues to the China Arms Control Challenge
The Unipolar Moment Crashes and Burns in Kabul
Topping-off National Missile Defenses for Tac Nuke Reductions?
Is a Third Trade for Missile Defenses Possible?
Time for a Big Philanthropic Bet
Mearsheimer on Great Power Politics
Let’s Discuss Strategic Stability
Wilson and Barash on Abolition and Deterrence
Nuclear Grand Strategy (sic) and Abolition
Another Book on the Cuban Missile Crisis
In Appreciation of Vartan Gregorian
Chauncey Gardiner Makes Another Appearance
This Would Be A Good Time for An Open Skies Treaty Overflight
Britain Increases Its Defense Spending and Shortchanges Its Future
Killing the ABM Treaty: A Retrospective
The Stimson Center’s Origin Story
Nuclear-Armed Rivalry in Southern Asia
Restoring U.S. Arms Control Expertise
Biden’s Immediate Agenda Items
U.S. Withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty: Three Legal Issues
The President’s Sole Authority for First Use
Extending New START for Five Years
Norm Building, National Sovereignty and Arms Control
Can Beijing Make Good Trouble?
Heroes of Arms Control: Thomas Schelling
Count Every Warhead: A Critique
The Scam of Sacrificing New START for Visionary Goals
Trilateral Negotiations to Count Every Warhead
A Flock of Black Swans Comes Home to Roost
The Open Skies Treaty Bites the Dust
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
Trump’s National Security Strategy Revisited
The Covid-19 and Nuclear Plagues
Giving Thanks for Heroic Efforts
Making Nukes Weapons of Last Resort
The Waning of On-Site Inspections and Strategic Seychel
Stephen Ledogar: Unsung Hero of Arms Control
Where Are We? And Where Do We go from Here?
NATO Expansion and the Great Unraveling of Arms Control
Political Reflections from the Serengeti
The Travails of Nuclear-Armed States
A Decade of Regression and Dismantlement
The Decade of Factionalism and the Search for Icons
Krasnoyarsk: The Antecedent to the INF Treaty Violation?
In Memoriam: Stephen Philip Cohen
More Malfeasance on Open Skies
No Use is Stronger Than No First Use
Chauncey Gardner Has a Sore Back
India, Another Exceptional, Illiberal Democracy
Kashmir’s Escalatory Potential
Heroes of Arms Control: Tom Schelling and Mort Halperin
Arleigh Burke on National Security Strategy
The Demise of Nuclear Arms Control
Who Is the Biggest Threat to American National Security?
Henry Kissinger’s Mixed Record on Nuclear Arms Control
Taking Aim at the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Will India and Pakistan Be Able to Step Back from Nuclear Danger?
Robert S. McNamara, Arms Control Hero
The Establishment, R.I.P., and Next Gen Arms Control
The Golden Age of Nuclear Arms Control
What Trump Decision is Likely to Increase Nuclear Dangers the Most?
Norms of Responsible Nuclear Stewardship (cont.)
Norms of Responsible Nuclear Stewardship
The Russell-Einstein Manifesto
War Drums on the Subcontinent (Again)
The Nuclear First — and Second — Use Dilemma
The 2019 Nuclear Threat Assessment for South Asia
How Low Has America Fallen in the Trump Administration?
The Lure and Illusion of Consensus
Happy New Year, For The Tides They Are A-Changing
Arms Control and the Aging Process
The Highly Questionable Case for New Low-Yield Options
Chemical Warfare that Saves Lives
Nuclear Risk-Reduction on the Korean Peninsula
The New Congress and the Lost Art of Political Compromise
For Treaty Trashers, Nothing is Better than Something
Doomed to Cooperate with the Nuclear Competition
From Here to Eternity: Hans Morgenthau on the Bomb
The Perils of Small-Group Thinking
On the 73rd Anniversary of Hiroshima
Tom Schelling, Mini-Nukes and the Nuclear Taboo
Increasingly Tenuous Strategic Stability
Putin and Trump Meet at Helsinki
The Holy Grail of Deterrence Stability
No Surprise: The Bomb Has Made a Bad Situation Worse in South Asia
The Un-Scorecard for the Trump-Kim Encounter
A New Look at Crisis Management in South Asia
On Memorial Day, Remembering Mark Hatfield and Others Who Served
Crippling the Open Skies Treaty Punishes Allies and the US, Not Russia
On the Objectives of Arms Control
A Nobel Prize for Brinkmanship?
Trump and Kim Upend Diplomatic Protocol
The Logic of Nuclear Superiority
A Passive U.S. Approach to the Next India-Pakistan Crisis?
Steve Coll on the Afghan Quagmire
Proliferation Optimism vs. Pessimism, Revisited
India-Pakistan Friction Heats Up
Trump and Kim: Shades of Reykjavik
The Belated Consequences of Killing the ABM Treaty
Public Speaking Tips for Aspiring Wonks
Crises between India and Pakistan: The Basics
The Most Dangerous Aspect of Trump’s Nuclear Posture
Utilizing Article XIV Conferences to Boost the Two Norms that Matter Most
Crisis Management Gets More Complicated between Pakistan and India
Rule of Thumb: Don’t Start a War If You Don’t Know Where to Bury the Dead
Explaining What I Do for a Living
Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Demanding Strengthened Inspections in Iran
“One Last Chance” for Pakistan
Act I: The Iran Deal Begins to Unravel
Stale Thinking on Tac Nukes Reheated
Two Fantasists, No Exit Strategy
Proliferation in the Age of Uncertainty
Is Space the Final War-Fighting Frontier?
Deterrence Stability is a Hoax. The Delicate Balance of Terror is, Too.
Chance Encounter with Chauncey Gardiner
U.S.-Pakistan Relations: Duplicity, Betrayal, or National Interests?
Sechser & Fuhrmann: Deterrence Yes; Coercion No.
Disarmament Diplomacy and the Ban Treaty
What’s the Objective in a Nuclear War?
A Three-Person Rule for Nuclear First Use
The Counterforce Compulsion in South Asia
The Ghost Ship Anchored at Foggy Bottom
Low Yield Nuclear Weapons (Again)
U.S.-Pakistan Relations and the Big Stick
Responding to the INF Treaty Violation
Reasons for the Great Unraveling of the Arms Control Enterprise
A Simple, Unthreatening Way to Shore Up NATO
No Peace and No War in South Asia?
A Time Out for New NSG Membership
Kashmir and Rising Nuclear Dangers on the Subcontinent
Holiday Greetings: Rave On, Dear Friends
Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century
Fred Iklé on the Second Nuclear Age
Learning About Nuclear South Asia
The Nuclear Ban Treaty and Our Wobbly Nuclear Order
Elections, Fear of the Bomb, and the Great Unraveling
Pakistan’s Compulsion is Not a Choice
The Well-Read Wonk on Democracy & the Bomb
Indian Strategic Restraint, Revised
Modi Chooses Strategic Restraint
The Waiting Game on the Subcontinent
Senator Rubio and Kim Jong Un Weigh In on the CTBT
The Enduring Value of the CTBT
The Demise of the Republican National Security Establishment
Donald Trump’s Challenge to Nuclear Orthodoxy
Learning About Nuclear South Asia
Congressional Hearings as Inquisitions
The Cruel Politics of Arms Limitation
The Humanitarian Pledge, Nuclear Weapons, and the Laws of War
Evaluating the Visit to Hiroshima
Nuclear Weapons and the Laws of War (cont.)
Unilateral or Bilateral Reductions?
The Advantage of Being the Weaker, Nuclear-Armed State
Retrospectives on MIRVing in the First Nuclear Age
Yes, There’s a Legal Gap on Nuclear Weapons Use, But It Isn’t That Big
Applying Jus in Bello to the Nuclear Deterrent
In Defense of the Open Skies Treaty
Back to Business as Usual in South Asia?
The Nuclear Test Ban, Twenty Years Later
What’s Our Central Organizing Principle?
So Far, So Good on the Subcontinent
Responding to North Korea’s Nuclear Test
Year’s End Kudos, 2015 Edition
Global Warming Up; Arms Control Down
I Like Ike (And the Nuclear Taboo)
Second-Term Blues for Arms Control
The Next War or the Last War in South Asia?
The Popularity of “The Martian”
Upending the Stalemate between India and Pakistan
The Catholic Church and the Bomb
Humanitarian Consequences (Cont.)
The Bomb, Escalation, and the Humanitarian Pledge
Mentoring: From South Asia to Washington, DC
Seventy Years Without an A-Bombing
Space Code of Conduct Mugged in New York
When Leaders Follow Insurgents
Congress and the Iran Deal:
Money for Nothing, Votes for Free
Monitoring Provisions of the Iran Agreement
Iran Deal: Reading The Fine Print
Iran: The Punditariat Weighs In
Deterrence Instability in South Asia
The Ironies of Living with the Bomb
The Iran Deal: Critiques and Rebuttals
The President, Congress & Iran
Triangular Nuclear Competitions
The Negotiating Endgame in Iran
U.S. National Security Strategy
Obama in India; Xi in Pakistan
Reconsidering Deterrence Stability
The Silent Treatment in South Asia
Year’s End and Contest Winners
Repairing the Diplomatic Threat Reduction Enterprise
Pakistan’s Health and Demography
Reagan, Gorbachev and Reykjavik (II)
Reagan, Gorbachev and Reykjavik
Divergent Trajectories, the Bomb, and Kashmir
Responding to Treaty Violations
The Myth of Deterrence Stability
Will Pakistan and India Break the Fissile Material Deadlock?
Silver Anniversary Celebrations and Fireworks
Pakistan/US: Ties that Chafe and Bind
Charm Offensives and Drugstore Cowboys
Whatever Happened to Minimum, Credible Deterrence?
Dismantling Obsolete Missiles in South Asia
Will Gravity Lift the Space Code of Conduct?
Pakistan’s Red-Carpet Treatment
Human Values in the Atomic Age
Generation Why’s Turn in South Asia
What Went Wrong with Arms Control?
Inferred vs. Demonstrable Deterrence
Peace, Justice and Nuclear Arms Reductions
Shyam Saran on India’s Nuclear Deterrent
The Tortoise and the Hare: A Rebuttal
Atomic Playlist and Lyric Contest Winners
Verification, Risk, and Nuclear Testing
Deterrence and the Unitary, Rational Actor
Nuclear Competition, Asian Style
Small Change or Big Investment?
Are We Winning or Losing? (Continued)
Prime Ministers and Army Chiefs
Space Code of Conduct Advances
Bountiful Harvest for Year End Contest
Securing Valuable Global Services
De-alerting and De-legitimization
Deterrence and Escalation Control
Summer Reading for the Well-Read Wonk
Hunting, Muting, and Filtering
Pakistan’s Nuclear Requirements
Arms Control With and Without Agreements
A Serious Russian Space Proposal
Joint Verification Experiments
National Blindness & National Technical Means
Everett McKinley Dirksen, He Ain’t
The Stability-Instability Paradox
Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons
Echoes of a Treaty Ratification Past
Negotiating the Limited Test Ban Treaty
Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy
Nightmare Scenarios for the NPT
Paranoids, Pygmies and Pariahs
When Terrorists were West Germans
Solvency, Show Biz and Security
At Year-End (A Thinly-Veiled Pep Talk)
Experts Predict 2010 Will Be Terrible
Command & Control in South Asia
Naysayers and Defenders of Arms Control
When Arms Control Gets Way Too Personal
Nuclear Nightmares & Abolition
Hidden Agendas and Missile Defenses
An Introduction to Non-introduction
Useful Fictions and Big Whoppers
Cold Warriors and High Quality Deterrence
A.Q. Khan and Samar Mubarakmand
Best One-Liners About the Bomb
Most Recent Comments
- Thank you for your kind words, Ken. As it happens, my next post deals with the missile defense implications of…
- thank you, Greg--
In: The Use and Misuse of Nuclear Fear
Ben, Your moral equivalence escapes me. Are you by any chance affiliated with one of the warring parties? MKMay 4, 2022 12:58 pm