New Blog – Atomic Reporters

I wanted to briefly mention the birth of a new blog called Atomic Reporters.  It describes itself as follows:

AR acts as an information broker improving journalistic understanding and coverage of nuclear issues. Policymakers themselves need to be better-informed as does the general public. The future of nuclear weapons, the safety of nuclear power, nuclear security, and concern about the soaring use of ionising radiation in medicine, for example, should be the focus of informed public debate. Better reporting would contribute to a more engaged public and more responsive policy.

I recommend it. It’s already got some very interesting material on it, including a link to a new Wilson Center report on Brazil’s clandestine nuclear program in the 1970’s-1980’s, which likely involved weapons-related activity, and the role China played in assisting this program.  Makes for very interesting reading, and helps to inform our understanding of other similar cases.

On August 6, the blog also covered several topics and then asked the following questions:

How are the Arms Control Lawyers holding up against the Arms Control Wonkers? There’s been something of an insurrection among arms-control theologians. Why are NPT and IAEA-CSA literalists cast as apologists? What lessons might be gleaned from the Brazilian experience of the 1970s to the Iran challenges of today? How does recognition of India as a de facto nuclear-weapons state affect the NPT? What utility would the NPT continue to serve were Pakistan to receive the same dispensation as India?

Those are darn good questions/observations. Especially the one about NPT/IAEA-CSA literalists being cast as apologists. I’d say that observation pretty much sums up my own situation. By insisting on a correct interpretation of these legal sources, according to well established legal principles, I am often cast as an apologist for the countries whose arguments these interpretations happen to support. It seems to be my particular burden to bear.