Dr. Jeffrey Lewis
@ArmsControlWonk
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Distinguished Scholar of Global Security at @middlebury, staff at @fpri & @JamesMartinCNS, host of the @ACWpodcast, member @theNASEM CISAC, ex-ISAB at @StateDep
Carmel, CA
Joined March 2009
Thank you for your extremely good-faith criticism. I will give it the attention it deserves.
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Is the pink three-piece suit still standard for NEST teams?
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New book from the foremost historian of the nuclear age. (Also, one of my favorite people.) https://t.co/LzvslJC89A
harpercollins.com
\"I thought I knew the story but learned much that I didn’t know. Outstanding!\"— Richard Rhodes “This is historical research at its best.” — Dan ...
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Getting ready for class on hypersonic weapons tomorrow.
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The film #AHouseOfDynamite ends before the bomb hits Chicago, where @BulletinAtomic is based. They asked me to describe what it would happen to the Windy City, so I dropped a 20 KT and 4 MT bombs using @wellerstein's Nuke Map. (Hint: It's not great.) https://t.co/qZ4OdaSVg9
thebulletin.org
In this video, Jeffrey Lewis explains why it is so incredibly difficult to convey the size and destructive force of nuclear weapons.
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Like their American counterparts, Soviet nuclear weaponeers never believed that contained events with yields <1 ton were nuclear explosions. Here is what Mikhailov et al had to say on the matter. It would not surprise me if some Russian officials interpret "zero yield" this way.
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I brightened up the image if anyone wants to work out which silo was used.
An unarmed Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launches during an operational test at 01:35 a.m. Pacific Time Nov. 5, 2025, at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. Under @POTUS & @SECWAR, we have PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.
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A perfect obituary, capturing both what I admired and despised about Cheney. Like most powerful Republicans since Nixon, he seems never to have grappled with his role in the GOP revolution that has now eaten its children, including his own daughter.
My obit with Marc Fisher of Dick Cheney, a deeply consequential vice president for good and ill. I will have more to say in print in the next few days.
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President Trump's interview on 60 Minutes did very little to clarify his stance on the United States resuming full-scale nuclear tests for the first time in more than three decades. Let's look at some of his statements. 1/13
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As an advocate of a zero-yield CTBT, I also happen to think such experiments are a technical gray zone. US weaponeers never believed these were “explosions” although that’s how the US has chosen to interpret the CTBT.
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All nuclear explosions are supercritical. He probably means “hydronuclear” — slightly supercritical with insignificant fission release (<1 lb). The US conducted ~35 during the 1958-1961 test moratorium. As a Harvard-educated lawyer, he can understand this—if it’s to his benefit.
After consultations with Director Ratcliffe and his team, they have confirmed to me that the CIA assesses that both Russia and China have conducted super-critical nuclear weapons tests in excess of the U.S. zero-yield standard. These tests are not historic and are part of their
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You've all been trolled.
If you get upgraded on a flight but your girlfriend/wife doesn’t, do you downgrade and both suffer or do you take the upgrade? I need an answer in 5 minutes.
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Holding aside decoupling and the effects of depth of burial, the sort of nuclear explosions in the low hundred kgs that one might not detect are for things like one-point safety tests, validating unboosted fission designs, and addressing some stockpile and design code issues.
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That's for 90% detection at ≥3 stations. One can look for smaller events if there is collateral evidence to look closer, like radionuclides for the 2010 DPRK enigma which, using a conventional depth of burial (120 m), is ~120-270 kilograms. https://t.co/c1yYMaMyWM
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Trump said Russia and China "test way underground where people don't know exactly what's happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration." FWIW: Seismic monitoring at Novaya Zemlya and Lop Nor is highly effective down to Mb ~2.2 or ~5 tons of TNT.
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