The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2007

wonky, but still targeted to the inside-the-Beltway com- munity, is the Global Security Newswire , a daily compila- tion of nonproliferation-related news on the Web site of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (also available as a daily list- serv). The NTI Web site also hosts the databases com- piled by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, which bills itself, without exaggeration, as “the most comprehensive open-source data resource in the world on nuclear, bio- logical and chemical weapons and missile proliferation developments.” Although the data have gaps (the chronology on nuclear and missile developments stops in 2002, for example) and the citations are not completely accurate, the CNS databases are the best resource for students researching proliferation problems. A useful resource for nonproliferation aficionados is the weekly “nuclear calendar” compiled and circulated by the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker-affiliated lobbying group. Published each Monday morning that the U.S. Congress is in session, the calendar provides a weekly update of national and inter- national events concerning nuclear weapons, disarma- ment and nonproliferation, including congressional hear- ings, NGO seminars and multinational conferences. A glance at any week’s listing is a salutary reminder of how much intellectual activity is devoted to nonproliferation topics, particularly in Washington. Attending all the interesting seminars and presentations listed in the nuclear calendar could almost be a full-time occupation by itself. It is a shame that most executive-branch offi- cials find little time to participate in such events. Several NGOs monitor nuclear activity worldwide. This January, when Georgian authorities announced the details of a sting operation last year that caught a small- time Russian sausage smuggler trying to peddle 100 grams of highly enriched uranium, the Natural Resources Council drew on its database to conclude, tentatively, that the isotopic mix of uranium particles in the smuggled goods was of Russian origin. In 1999, to bridge the gap between open-source and government-supplied informa- F O C U S J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 45