Sam Lair

With everyone talking about sea otters, Taylor Swift, and the Monterey Aquarium, I want to share some of @slair.bsky.social’s thesis research. Because before David Packard funded the rescue of sea otters at the Aquarium, he helped kill about a thousand of them in a nuclear test.

Shallow Ramparts: Air and Missile Defenses in the June 2025 Israel-Iran War - Foreign Policy Research Institute Sam Lair, “Exhaustion and Inflection: Estimating Interceptor Expenditures in the Israel-Iran Conflict ,” Arms Control Wonk, June 24, 2025,

Get all the details, including what my analysis suggests for future regional conflicts here:
www.fpri.org/article/2025...

How did Iranian & Israeli air and missile defenses perform during the 12-Day War? Read all about it in my new piece
@fpri.bsky.social

TLDR: Poor Iranian AD enabled Israel's highly effective missile defeat strategy, BUT, even then, Israeli defenses were severely strained and almost broke down

American Missiles and Russian Dachas: Tomahawk and the Future of Stability and Deterrence in Europe There are ample reasons for the United States to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons.

@aaronstein1.bsky.social and I wrote for @fpri.bsky.social about everyone's favorite once-and-future GLCM, the Tomahawk, and its potential redeployment to Europe: open.substack.com/pub/behindth...

American Missiles and Russian Dachas: Tomahawk and the Future of Stability and Deterrence in Europe There are ample reasons for the United States to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons.

I teamed up w/ @fpri.bsky.social fellow @slair.bsky.social to write about one of our favorite missiles :: American Missiles and Russian Dachas: Tomahawk and the Future of Stability and Deterrence in Europe open.substack.com/pub/behindth...

$3.2 Million in Grants to Reduce Nuclear Dangers Awarded by Carnegie Corporation of New York | Carnegie Corporation of New York Selected through a national call for proposals, seven grantees will explore the implications of emerging and disruptive technologies on nuclear risks

Very pleased to announce that @fpri.bsky.social will be teaming up with/ @armscontrolwonk.bsky.social & @slair.bsky.social for a 2-year Carnegie Corps funded project. We will be working directly with commercial space on a roadmap to strengthen space security

www.carnegie.org/news/article...

Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: The Technological Arms Race for (In)visibility A robust nonproliferation regime has contained the spread of nuclear weapons to just nine states. Yet, emerging and disruptive technologies are reshaping the landscape of nuclear risks, presenting a ...

1/7
How might AI enable the (non)proliferation of nuclear weapons? In a new #OpenAccess article in Risk Analysis (@socriskanalysis.bsky.social), Dave Allison & I explore this question. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I'm happy to share that my second book, Wiring an Empire: Information Networks and U.S. Global Power in the Cold War, is under advance contract with MIT Press.

FPRI Welcomes Dr. Jeffrey Lewis and Sam Lair as National Security Program Fellows - Foreign Policy Research Institute Philadelphia, PA

We have big plans @fpri.bsky.social and cannot wait to get started with our new distringuished fellow @armscontrolwonk.bsky.social and fellow @slair.bsky.social

www.fpri.org/news/2025/09...

Iran’s Plan for a Post-War Military Revamp: Financing Gaps, Similar Mistakes, and Sanctions Risks Iran’s parliament is moving forward with a Plan to Strengthen the Armed Forces, presenting it as a path to rebuild after the 12-day war.

Wrote a Substack post about Iran's lackluster plan to rebuild its military after the 12-day war with Israel russiairan.substack.com/p/irans-plan...

New blog post up on Israeli & U.S. missile defense performance during True Promise II

I broke up the defenses into midcourse and terminal phases, & looked at how well each performed

Come for the effectiveness rates, stay for weird Arrow-3 launch buildings.

www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1220...

2025 Outrider Nuclear Reporting Summit This fall, in a former nuclear missile silo, we'll convene journalists at the nexus of health, climate, artificial intelligence, outer space, and national security to discuss how these issues are inte...

Journalists: Please join us at the @outrider.org Nuclear Reporting Summit on October 9-10!

This free, two-day event will focus on how #nuclearweapons issues intersect with AI, community health, #climatechange, local economies, and the #environment.

🔗 APPLY NOW: outrider.org/conference/2...

Please decker, it was only 8 million per year

The Countdown to Prevent Another Iranian Nuclear Crisis Just Began Three European countries triggered the snapback mechanism for sanctions on Tehran. Now, Washington needs to step up.

The Countdown to Prevent Another Iranian Nuclear Crisis Just Began

My thoughts on snapback for @carnegieendowment.org carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1220...

I wrote about Iran's missile failure rates during True Promise II
Folks get caught up in the 50% failure rate figure from TP I and assume similar numbers are true for TP II and the 12 Day War. But, official statements and video evidence suggest its the failure rate is only 10%!

Link below:

Seth wrote about the Houthis converting Russian air-to-air missiles to SAMs and mounting them on trucks. Truly some of the technicals of all time:

www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1220...

My colleague Seth Hosford and I wrote about Houthi SAMs.
Turns out the Houthis are making jank thermal batteries to maintain their older SA-7b MANPADS, but the process behind it is wild!

www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1220...

Y'all should check out my colleague Seth's ACW blog post on the Iskander-M ballistic missile!

Turns out some of its maneuvers may be wholly random to bamboozle defenses

www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1220...

A lot of technical assessments of Iran’s nuclear program feel rushed. There’s an overreliance on fuel cycle basics and projections built on major unknowns while overlooking domestic factors eg institutional disruption, procurement challenges, and acute paranoia.

Congrats! Very excited

MDA FY26 procurement requests:
🔶 37 THAADs
🔶12 SM-3 IIAs
According to recent work by @slair.bsky.social the US Army might have used 39ish THAADs in defense of Israel. So this figure might count for the replacements and gives some credibility to Sam's figures.

History of U.S. Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy, 1969-1977, Detailed in New Declassified Documents Collection Washington, D.C., June 25, 2025 – During August 1976 talks with the Shah of Iran over the sale of U.S. nuclear reactors, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger “made it clear that reprocessing [spent...

Ooh, new document collection from @nsarchive.bsky.social (1400 documents on the DNSA database, but with free sample documents on the post) illuminates the history of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy between 1969 and 1977, including negotiations with Iran and intel on South Korea
🗃️

Why America's giant bunker-busting bombs may have failed to reach their target Reaching Iran's most fortified nuclear enrichment site is a challenge, even for the world's biggest conventional weapons.

"It depends enormously on the type of rock."

My god

Based on videos taken in Jordan, @slair.bsky.social was able to identify all of Israel's missile defense sites, determine the interceptor type based on their burn-time and then estimate the number of interceptors fired. A tour-de-force.
www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1220...

It's really incredible how clearly one can make out the locations and interceptor types. The 39 THAAD rounds alone cost $495 million.

www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1220...

I've worked up an assessment of U.S. and Israeli missile defense interceptor expenditures since June 13

Based on video evidence AT LEAST, 39 THAAD, 34 Arrow-3, & ~9 Arrow-2s have been used. For more on the methodology, ABM sites in Israel, and implications, check out the article

For everyone being supremely confident that we can definitely detect and strike any future clandestine enrichment hall, let me remind you that North Korea built an entire enrichment cascade at Yongbyon and the IC completely missed it.