WMD Archive

More than 12 years after the United States and its coalition partners invaded Iraq, it seems we’re no closer to learning the lessons of what may be the most ill-conceived war in American history. Case in point: the current debate playing out on the U.S. presidential campaign trail over whether it was a good idea for the U.S. to invade Iraq in 2003. Recently, U.S. politicians—primarily Republicans—have been twisting themselves into knots trying to rationalize then-President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war. “Based on what we know now” about Iraq’s lack of weapons of mass destruction, they argue, […]

The latest edition of the U.S. Defense Department’s annual report on Chinese military power has once again put the spotlight on China’s massive military modernization program. In addition to upgrading its conventional forces, developing anti-access strategies and increasing its cyber and space warfare capabilities, China is modernizing its nuclear forces. Indeed, China is the only one of the five legally recognized nuclear weapons states whose nuclear arsenal is growing in both size and sophistication. These new developments call into question long-standing assumptions about China’s nuclear posture, with implications for regional and global security. Beijing has long kept the number of […]