Arms Control Wonk Podcast

Aaron and Jeffrey have a lot to announce. On this special episode of the show, the two let the listeners in on their future plans, and take a look back at the history of the podcast. Support us over at Patreon.com/acwpodcast!

China has conducted a test of its JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile into the open ocean — a departure from its usual practice of lobbing missiles into the desert or splashing them down in domestic waters.

The US-Iran MOU is humiliating, it was signed at Versailles, and its still not on any government website. In fact, if you try a .gov keyword search for Iran’s commitment to not build nuclear weapons, the top result is Obama’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Aaron and Jeffrey work through why Trump was right to quit while he was behind, why continuing the fight wouldn’t have changed a single comma, and why, weeks later, you still can’t find the thing on state.gov.

Jeffrey and I have an article in Survival in which we reveal that, during 2024, South Korea deployed more than 300 Korea Tactical Surface-to-Surface Missile (KTSSM) short-range missiles. The numbers themselves are astonishing. But it’s the basing mode that really alarmed us – these missiles are deployed in fixed, concrete blockhouses, tightly clustered, across three sites in northern South Korea.

Aaron and Jeffrey sat down to discuss the Trump administration’s review of nuclear strategy, the case for uploading, and what it all means for the looming arms race. Support us over at Patreon.com/acwpodcast!

Russia tested the RS-28 Sarmat heavy ICBM, which will replace the SS-18/RS-36M Satan. What’s it for? Aaron and Jeffrey talk about the role of heavy ICBMs, the foundational assumption for counterforce, the rise of orbital bombardment systems (FOBS!!!!!!!!), the collapse of the ABM Treaty and the future of space-based interceptors. Support us over at Patreon.com/acwpodcast!

It’s been a long time, we shouldnt have left you, but we got a dope pod to step too. Or at least we think so. After a brief hiatus, Aaron and Jeffrey return to discuss the latest from the Iran war and what it means for arms control. It ends with Jeffrey geeking out on Dark Eagle, the missile CENTCOM wants and Jeffrey is obsessed with

The New York Times has a second story by Christiaan Triebert, John Ismay, Alexander Cardia, Leanne Abraham and Azmat Khanout that concludes … well, the title says it all: “New Evidence Further Implicates U.S. Missiles in Strikes That Killed 21 Civilians in Iran.” I am quoted estimating the length of the object as about fifteen feet, plus or minus two feet.

This is the longer analysis of the news story we did with Jonathan Landay, M.B. Pell, and Travis Hartman at Reuters on the Patriot incident in Bahrain on March 9, 2026. You can read the story here: https://share.google/e8kqptO7eQG8EcajI By Jeffrey Lewis, Michael Duitsman, and Sam Lair 1.

Today’s Guest Post is from Josiah Durfee a Middlebury College grad and former Team member in Monterey. He is currently based in the UK where he is getting a Masters of Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrews. In this article Josiah will take us through his deep interests in OSINT data sources, UAVs and excellent artistic presentations of data. Observers of the Russia-Ukraine war have often commented on the vital role of drones.