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David Wright
David Wright is a senior scientist and co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). He is an established expert on the technical aspects of arms control, particularly those related to missile defense systems, missile proliferation, and space weapons. He has testified before Congress on arms-control issues and is a frequently quoted source in the New York Times and on NPR. Dr. Wright has worked for a number of years on projects to help train technical arms control experts in other countries, especially Russia and China.Prior to joining UCS in 1992, Dr. Wright was a senior research analyst with the Federation of American Scientists and served as an SSRC-MacArthur Fellow in the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University and worked as a research physicist from 1983 to 1988. He is also currently a research affiliate in the Program on Science, Technology, and Society at MIT.
Dr. Wright has authored numerous articles and reports on arms control and international security. He is a co-author of the UCS/MIT Countermeasures report and The Physics of Space Security. Since 1990 he has been a primary organizer of the International Summer Symposiums on Science and World Affairs. These annual meetings help create an international community of scientists working on arms control and security issues. Dr. Wright was a co-recipient of the American Physical Society's 2001 Joseph A. Burton Forum Award for his arms control research and his work with international scientists.
Questions about the Unha-3 Failure
Three weeks have passed since the North Korean failed satellite launch and we’re still waiting for more information to accurately assess what happened. The United States, as well as Japan and South Korea, deployed many sensors in the region to watch the launch, and should have gathered very good data on what happened. However, it is unclear how [...]
Getting North Korea’s Rocket to the Launch Pad
I have been looking at options for how North Korea could get its rocket to the launch pad and ready for launch at the Tongchang-dong site. My conclusion is that the stages of the rocket will likely be transported separately and assembled on the pad, as North Korea apparently did in preparation for its April 2009 launch at the Musudan-ri launch [...]
North Korea’s New Launch Site
This article was originally published on 38 North on February 23, 2011. It has been reposted in light of DPRK's announced intention to launch a satellite in April 2012. Find more articles by David Wright here. Last week press stories announced that North Korea had completed a second launch site for long-range rockets, which is bigger and [...]
A North Korean Mobile ICBM?
Press stories appearing in early December 2011 raised the possibility of a North Korean mobile intercontinental range ballistic missile (ICBM). Given what is known publicly about North Korea’s missile program, this is a surprising claim that is worth examining. The impression these and other stories give is that North Korea is developing a [...]
Secretary Gates and the North Korean Missile Threat
On January 11, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made headlines during his trip to China by forecasting an increased threat of nuclear missile attack on the United States by North Korea. Referring to the next five years, Gates said, “I think that North Korea will have developed an intercontinental ballistic missile within that time [...]
