The Nashville Tennessean, whose editorial board I had a chance to sit down with last week, devoted almost all of its opinion page to the START Treaty today. Under the headline "Nuclear Treaty Jeopardized by Politics" they ran an editorial strongly endorsing the Treaty. The sub-head said, "New START treaty isn't a political football and Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker should vote to ratify it."

As the U.S. Senate holds hearings on a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia, opponents are using outdated, Cold War arguments to try to derail the pact. ... [R]ight now, the Senate discussion is in danger of being hijacked by a loose coali­tion of conservative lawmakers, probable presidential hopefuls and pundits who seem to want to take U.S. policy back to the 1950s. ... 

Aligned in support of the treaty are virtually every leading expert on nuclear arms control cur­rently in government or from past administrations, from Republican Sen. Richard Lugar to for­mer Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and Colin Powell and top current and retired military leaders. ...

We urge Tennessee Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker to do their part to ensure the United States and the world get a New START.

They also ran an Op-ed I wrote about the centrality of verification to the treaty called "Verification Lay at Heart of Sound New Pact" (I called it "Trust But Verify.")

The heart of the treaty is the verification provisions. The existing START treaty set up a com­prehensive reporting and monitoring system that allows us to know how many and what kind of nuclear weapons the Russians have.

Those verification provisions have now expired. Without a new treaty, we’re in the dark. We can rely on spies and spy planes, but there’s always the chance that the Russians could hide something.

If nuclear weapons are dangerous, and everyone agrees that they are, then it is folly to let a potential adversary be able to hide how many nuclear weapons they have. Do we really want to let the most destructive weapons on earth out of our sight?

Ronald Reagan’s theory of dealing with the Russians is summarized by a famous phrase of his: “Trust, but verify.” He was absolutely right. Without this treaty we can’t verify.

Finally, they ran an Op-ed by the Rev. Tyler Wigg-Stevenson called "Corker's Can be a Pivotal Voice." Wigg-Stevenson is Director of the Two Futures Project, an Evangelical Christian organization that supports nuclear security.

Bob Corker has defied type casting for a freshman senator. Though his conservative credentials are unimpeachable, he has also emerged as a go-to leader in the Capitol for getting work done across party lines. ...

Let’s be candid: A treaty this conservative, with overwhelming bipartisan and military support, would be ratified overwhelmingly if it had been proposed by a Republican president — as were Ronald Reagan’s START I and George H.W. Bush’s START II. The question now is whether the traditional adage that “politics stops at the water’s edge” will prevail with New START. ,,,

An increasingly ideological Washington may not welcome the common-sense, pragmatic leadership demonstrated by Sen. Corker throughout his career, from successful businessman to mayor to the U.S. Senate. But Tennesseans appreciate political courage: Let’s let Sen. Corker know that we’ll stand behind a vote for New START.

Nuclear weapons are, in some ways, like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: you don't want to find yourself one day asking, "Why didn't we think about this sooner?"

Oliver Bloom (whom I don't know) was jogged by the Washington Post Op-Ed by Barry Blechman and Alex Bolfrass to read the Hiroshima article and then write a fair summary on the Program on Nuclear Issues (PONI) blog of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) website. He concludes:

I hope Wilson turns his paper into a much longer manuscript and manages to flesh out his arguments more (and provide more primary documentation). But Wilson’s underlying point is clear—if so much of our thinking about nuclear weapons and their effects stems from so few actual uses, then we have to be sure our understandings of those few real uses is correct. If the effect of nuclear weapons in those few circumstances is in doubt, then our broader understanding of nuclear weapons and their influence, based so heavily on those few instances, is in doubt. 

Oliver, be careful what you wish for.

Because all I'm doing these days is writing, I haven't really done anything else. Including writing here. So I thought I'd paste in a little taste of what I'm working on. Here's the conclusion to Chapter Five: Psychological characteristics - Hiroshima, part II.

No prudent statesman would base policies that affected the fundamental safety of his country on ambiguous and questionable evidence. Yet that is what we have imprudently done. The evidence that the Emperor was deeply affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is so gossamer thin that the merest breath of skepticism sweeps it aside. Because it was expedient to believe that the Bomb won the war, Americans have built an entire mythology around the power of the Bomb to create a special psychological shock that can be used to coerce and deter. When you look closely at the evidence in the case of Japan’s surrender, however, there is hardly any reason to put our faith in the notion that these bombs have a unique ability to coerce. Belief in the power of nuclear weapons to create special psychological effects is based, in the first instance, on a myth.

Barry Blechman and Alex Bollfrass have an Op-ed in the Washington Post explaining why nuclear weapons are not all they're cracked up to be.

The five myths?

1. We can't eliminate nuclear weapons because countries would cheat and build them in secret.

2. Nuclear weapons are a guarantee of security.

3. As long as there is nuclear energy, there will be nuclear weapons.

4. If all nations dismantled their nuclear arsenals, a cheater with just a few weapons could rule the world.

5. Nuclear weapons are the only way to become a global power.

They have pretty good answers to each of them. Check it out.

(They cite an "influential" article by some guy named Wilson to debunk Myth No. 2.)

Barry and Alex recently created an interesting and informative online game called "Cheater's Risk" that allows you to play the role of a rogue state's leader who's trying to secretly build an arsenal of nuclear weapons. The game shows all the pitfalls such an effort would face. (You can play here.)