From Interfax: The prospect of deploying arms in outer space and making conventionally-armed strategic offensive weapons could undermine global strategic stability, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"If we are to seriously discuss what practical steps must be taken to advance toward a world without nuclear weapons, we must pay attention to a number of factors which could potentially upset global strategic stability," Lavrov said at a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

"This involves in the first place the prospect of deploying weapons in outer space. The second factor that could seriously destabilize the global situation is conventionally-armed strategic offensive weapons," he said.

"Therefore, before practical steps toward the so-called ‘nuclear zero’ are negotiated, one must look at other aspects of global security which could shake strategic stability," Lavrov said.

"I don’t think nations will put up with a situation where nuclear weapons disappear, and the vacancy is filled with no less destabilizing weapons available to individual countries, which will in fact tackle the same tasks militarily and strategically," Lavrov said.  (graphic: John Macneill/Popular Science)

From the San Francisco Chronicle:  Rods From God.

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