Dr. Gordon Prather discusses the different uses for varying yield nuclear weapons for missile defense, the tactical and strategic handicaps of our missile defense systems, what it takes to build a nuclear weapon and the difference between a nuclear weapons program and what the Iranians are doing.

MP3 here. (31:09)

Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. — ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Wade Boese, research director of the Arms Control Association and contributing writer to Arms Control Today, discusses the missile defense system being implemented in Poland and the Czech Republic, under the facade of defense from Iran while actually threatening Russia and China, the current and future status of Iran’s missile capabilities, the reality that Iran has no reason to attack the west anyway, the threat still posed by U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, the unwillingness of the Bush war party to reduce U.S. nuclear weapons despite the START Treaty with Russia initiating the process, possible changes to U.S. nuclear posture by the two presidential candidates, the futility of missile countermeasures and how an effective missile defense system would likely only increase U.S. aggressiveness.

MP3 here. (41:26)

Wade Boese is the research director of the Arms Control Association. Boese writes for Arms Control Today, prepares ACA fact sheets, and maintains contact with the press and public on these issues. His work has been published in The American Prospect Online, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Defense News, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Times, and Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. He also contributed to Challenging Conventional Wisdom: Debunking the Myths and Exposing the Risks of Arms Export Reform.