In a 2012 article from Foreign Policy magazine entitled "Are We Focusing on the Wrong Nuclear Threat?," Victor Asal and Bryan Early from the University at Albany - SUNY utilize a Nuclear Annihilation Threat (NAT) Index to determine the countries that pose the highest risks of nuclear annihilation to another country. The results of the NAT Index indicate that China and Russia pose the highest -- and equivalent -- risks of nuclear annihilation to the USA. This is a reasonable result. However, the NAT Index suggests that France, the United Kingdom (UK), and Pakistan are tied for third place in terms of the nuclear annihilation risk they each pose to the USA. Tied for sixth place on the NAT Index against the USA are India and Israel, and tied for eighth place are Iran and North Korea. There are clearly some problems with the validity and utility of this index. A major problem is the inherent premise in the index -- nuclear annihilation risk. Yes, very few countries possess a sufficient...(Read Full Post)