We develop a mathematical model to find the optimal inspection strategy for detecting a nuclear weapon (or nuclear material to make a weapon) from being smuggled into the United States in a shipping container, subject to constraints of port congestion and an overall budget. We consider an 11-layer security system consisting of shipper certification, container seals, and a targeting software system, followed by passive (neutron and gamma), active (gamma radiography), and manual testing at overseas and domestic ports. Currently implemented policies achieve a low detection probability, and improved security requires passive and active testing of trusted containers and manually opening containers that cannot be penetrated by radiography. The annual cost of achieving a high detection probability of a plutonium weapon using existing equipment in traditional ways is roughly several billion dollars if testing is done domestically, and is approximately five times higher if testing is performed overseas. Our results suggest that employing high-energy x-ray radiography and elongating the passive neutron tests at overseas ports may provide significant cost savings, and several developing technologies, radiation sensors inside containers and tamper-resistant electronic seals, should be pursued aggressively. Further effort is critically needed to develop a practical neutron interrogation scheme that reliably detects moderately shielded, highly enriched uranium.

To reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism, we must prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons or materials. This will require, among other things, a sustained effort to keep dangerous nations from going nuclear--in particular North Korea. This article reviews the efforts the United States has undertaken through the years to keep North Korea from building a nuclear arsenal, arguing that the history of proliferation on the Korean Peninsula is marked by five nuclear crises. A sixth could be on the horizon, further compromising American efforts to lessen the likelihood of a nuclear attack on U.S. soil.

One of the serious risks associated with the strategic nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States is that an accidental launch might result from a false alarm or from misinterpreting information provided by an early-warning system. This risk will not be reduced by bringing down the number of strategic missiles on high alert to the level of about 500 warheads on each side because this measure will not significantly affect first-strike vulnerability of the Russian strategic forces. Other measures that have been suggested so far, namely an upgrade of the Russian early-warning system, establishing additional channels of real-time exchange of early-warning data, or transparent and verifiable de-alerting of strategic forces, are more likely to increase the probability of an accident than to reduce it. To address the problem of an accidental launch in the short term, the United States and Russia, while continuing to work toward deep reductions of their strategic nuclear forces, should develop and implement measures that would keep their entire forces at low levels of readiness without revealing their actual alert status.

Nuclear energy is undergoing a renaissance driven by two very loosely coupled needs; the first for much more energy to support economic growth worldwide, and the second to mitigate global warming driven by the emission of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel. A new generation of power reactors has been developed that are safer, easier to operate, and purported to have lower capital costs. This, coupled with rising costs of fossil fuels and concerns about environmental pollution from fossil fuel power plants, has lead to an increase in orders for new plants, mainly from Asia, but beginning to impact North America and Europe as well.

The nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons is today's greatest security concern. The importance of keeping fissile materials out of the hands of terrorists is now generally accepted. The difficulty of doing so is not. Lack of appreciation, especially for the technical difficulties, is hampering our ability to build a comprehensive safeguards system and prevent nuclear terrorism.

The debate over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program is clouded by historical amnesia. Nuclear proliferation has been stopped before, and it can and should be stopped in this case as well. Unfortunately, with Tehran -- as with some of its predecessors -- the price for Washington will be relinquishing the threat of regime change by force.

Authors should always be so fortunate as to have such thoughtful and stimulating readings of one's work. What follows: Eden turns some comments by Renee Anspach, Hugh Gusterson, and Thomas Hughes into invitations to do further research. She then discusses organizational frames in the context of other conceptions of frames. Last, she tackles the difficult issue of taking a stand on the science in Whole World on Fire(Eden, 2004) while claiming to be a thoroughgoing social constructivist.

Lynn Eden received the 2005 Robert K. Merton Professional Award from the Science, Knowledge & Technology Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA), for her book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, & Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Cornell University Press, 2004). The book was featured in an Author Meets Critics session at the 2005 ASA meetings in Philadelphia, with Renee Anspach, Hugh

Gusterson, and Thomas P. Hughes as the critics. The journal invited the participants to submit their comments for a review symposium published in Social Studies of Science, and was delighted to receive the review essays from Professors Anspach, Gusterson, and Hughes, and the reply from Professor Eden.

The debate over the India nuclear deal has been too one-dimensional. Nearly all commentary has focused on whether this proposal would undermine efforts to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Dissent along these lines has been based on a series of largely overblown claims. And the singular focus on proliferation has allowed the debate to lose sight of other ways that this deal is in the interests of the United States and India alike.

Chief among those other reasons is environmental. The fuller use of commercial nuclear power, if done to exacting standards of safety and protection against proliferation, can play an important role as part of a larger strategy to slow the growth in emissions of the gases that cause global warming. That's because nuclear power emits essentially no carbon dioxide (CO₂), the most prevalent of these so-called "greenhouse gases." While this benefit is hardly the chief reason for initiating this deal, with time it will become one of the main benefits from the arrangement. The nuclear deal probably will lead India to emit substantially less CO₂ than it would if the country were not able to build such a large commercial nuclear fleet. The annual reductions by the year 2020 alone will be on the scale of all of the European Union's efforts to meet its Kyoto Protocol commitments. In addition, if this arrangement is successful it will offer a model framework for a more effective way to engage developing countries in the global effort to manage the problem of climate change. No arrangement to manage climate change can be adequately successful without these countries' participation; to date the existing schemes for encouraging these countries to make an effort have failed; a better approach is urgently needed.