Jeffrey Lewis in Global Security News

Communications — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:41:00 -0500

New America in the News:

The White House announced yesterday that President George W. Bush has decided to reduce the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile by an additional 15 percent by 2012.

The new retirements come on top of those already undertaken over the past three years. In 2004, Bush said the United States would cut its arsenal — which includes a vast number of warheads in storage — in half by 2012.

However, the nuclear agency has retired weapons much more swiftly than anticipated and now expects to achieve the 50 percent reduction before the end of this year, Thomas D’Agostino, head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, said at a press conference earlier in the day. ...

Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at the New America Foundation, called the additional reductions a “welcome” development. However, he added, “it doesn't change the fundamental debate about the purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal … and whether we need thousands or hundreds of warheads or how large our weapons complex should be.” ...

For the complete article, please click here.

Global Security Newswire Quotes Jeffrey Lewis on Red Teaming

Communications — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:34:00 -0400

New America in the News:

The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, a division within DHS, is hoping that by employing independent experts it can garner a glimpse of the current nuclear and radiological detection approach from a terrorist's perspective...

In effect, study group members might be asked to play terrorist, probing for information and physically testing the U.S. detection web. Homeland Security officials are looking for an "accurate emulation of potential threat actors, their likely source materials and courses of action," according to the DHS posting.

Red teaming, or employing government outsiders to play the role of adversaries, is a fairly regular exercise employed by U.S. agencies, said nuclear security expert Charles Ferguson, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"I think it's a valuable exercise," Ferguson said...

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the New America Foundation's Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative, disagrees, suggesting they are likely an ineffective way to predict real adversary responses.

"I just don't see any reason to assume that terrorists laboring under real operational constraints would reach the same conclusions as a predominantly white, male, sixty-something, upper-middle class panel dominated by Ivy League graduates chatting over pastries and coffee," said Lewis via e-mail. "Many of these individuals are brilliant, but none of them are terrorists..."

For the complete article, please visit the Global Security Newswire website.