“They’ll be able to dream up some bogus price” – UK nuclear proponents want financing system
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UK needs new finance model for nuclear – experts, Montel News , KELLY PAUL, London 18 Jan 2021
The UK must adopt a regulated asset base model (RAB) to kickstart investment in nuclear development, or risk the country missing its target to be net zero by 2050, proponents of the financing mechanism say.
A RAB model for financing could attract pension funds, insurance firms, sovereign wealth funds and infrastructure asset managers to shore up French utility EDF’s funds and carry a new nuclear project through to completion, industry experts told Montel. The UK’s plans to build new nuclear infrastructure in the country have stalled against a backdrop of political reticence to commit, spiralling costs associated with Hinkley Point C, which EDF is building, and the steady retreat of potential investors. …… Under RAB, an economic regulator would grant a licence to a company to charge a regulated price to users in exchange for the provision of infrastructure, in this case a nuclear reactor. …….
The UK government recently confirmed it has entered into negotiations with EDF on the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk and has pledged to reach an investment decision on at least one nuclear power station by the end of the current parliament. High cost EDF itself signalled that the cost for the Hinkley C reactor would be between GBP 21.5 billion and GBP 22.5 billion, a rise of between GBP 1.9 billion and GBP 2.9 billion as compared with previous estimates. In France, meanwhile, the operator’s Flamanville reactor is running 11 years behind schedule and EDF’s estimated cost of completion has spiralled to EUR 12.4bn, up from its original estimate of EUR 3.3bn.
Blank cheque Detractors of the RAB model have dismissed the mechanism as a “blank cheque” for UK consumers to sign, while others called into question the price competitiveness of new nuclear given the falling cost of renewables. Critics maintain that by guaranteeing a significant source of capital ahead of the expensive construction phase, as RAB does, consumers are essentially being asked to pay for a reactor when they have no way of assessing how costly it will be, or if any of the delays that have marred Hinkley could occur again. At the government’s recent consultation on the RAB model, specific figures relating to financing were not discussed. “They’ll be able to dream up some bogus price,” said Stephen Thomas, emeritus professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich. https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/uk-needs-new-finance-model-for-nuclear-experts/1187367 |
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The hidden costs of France’s old, past-their-use-by-date nuclear reactors
Ian Fairlie’s Blog 16th Jan 2021, In early 2019, four French EDF scientists wrote a 22 page report on load following in French nuclear reactors. The English version was first published on April 1 2020 but this has only recently been brought to my attention (ie mid Jan 2021).
This report is instructive and worrying, and requires careful reading. In essence, it discusses how French nuclear engineers have managed to retrofit and configure France’s reactors so that they can follow the diurnal loads increasingly required by France’s electricity needs.
It should be borne in mind that EDF’s 58 nuclear reactors are very old and past their sell-by dates. Most are between 30 and 40 years old with an average age of 33 years in 2018.
Some background is necessary to explain why this report was written. French reactors have been
operating since the 1980s. Since their gross output has usually exceeded French domestic requirements, especially at night, much is exported to France’s neighbours i.e. UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Large amounts were until recently also sent to large pumped storage schemes in Switzerland at night. These transfers have been at a considerable financial loss to EDF and the French Treasury as the prices for such supplies are understood to be low. In addition, during the day, France imports significant amounts of electricity- mainly from the renewables in Germany.
https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/french-report-nuclear-power-plant-flexibility-at-edf/
Donald Trump and the ”nuclear football” on January 20
Independent 16th Jan 2021, Donald Trump will get to take the nuclear football with him when he leaves Washington DC on his final day in office – but the codes will be deactivated at the stroke of noon.
Mr Trump will be accompanied by the 45-pound briefcase when he flies to Florida on the morning of Joe Biden’s inauguration, as he is reportedly expected to do. But the nuclear codes that accompany it will stop working as soon as Mr Biden is sworn in as his successor 1,000 miles away on Wednesday.
From tears to joy — Beyond Nuclear International
First Native American nominated to US cabinet position
From tears to joy — Beyond Nuclear International
……………..“A new scintilla of hope has bloomed among us in part because Haaland, like millions of Indigenous peoples, strongly believes in and practices the Seven Generation rule,” wrote Moya-Smith. “The rule says that all significant decisions must be made with the next seven generations in mind, and includes preserving and protecting the water, the earth and the two leggeds and the four leggeds for people you will never meet — at least in this life.”
……. Haaland has been in the forefront of the fight to get restoration and compensation for Native uranium miners and their families. Getting the mines cleaned up will also likely be high on her priority list at Interior.
……Last year, Haaland was also recognized by the Nuclear Free Future Award, receiving the award in the Special Recognition category.
Biden nominates Iran nuclear deal negotiator to State Department
Biden nominates Iran nuclear deal negotiator to State Department
Wendy Sherman, Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of state, was key US negotiator of 2015 Iran nuclear accord.
United States President-elect Joe Biden has nominated a key negotiator of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement to be the US’s next deputy secretary of state, the second-highest position at the State Department.
In a statement on Saturday, Biden unveiled a string of State Department nominees, including longstanding diplomat Wendy Sherman to be deputy secretary of state……https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/16/biden-nominates-iran-nuclear-deal-negotiator-to-state-department
Trump’s behavior demonstrates that Biden must change US nuclear policy
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Trump’s behavior demonstrates that Biden must change US nuclear policy,
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While this arrangement appears especially risky now, giving any one person the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons is inherently risky and completely unnecessary. Any use of nuclear weapons would be devastating and should require both a presidential order and the agreement of two other officials.
Unlike decades ago, when sole authority was first established, there is a straightforward way to include other officials in a launch decision. President-elect Joe Biden should make this long-overdue change once in office by limiting his own authority to order a nuclear attack……………….
President Biden should move quickly to implement these two policy changes — requiring the assent of two other officials to any nuclear launch order and eliminating the option of using nuclear weapons first. Doing so would make the world safer and demonstrate that the United States is committed to reducing the risk of nuclear use and to moving away from its reliance on nuclear weapons. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/01/14/trumps-behavior-demonstrates-that-biden-must-change-us-nuclear-policy/
Property developer volunteers Allerdale, Cumbria for UK’s nuclear waste
anyone to volunteer anywhere, even an individual who doesn’t live in the area, or a company can volunteer it.
of the local population.
mirrored by the ease of withdrawing. There the government have chosen a highly prescriptive system.
What could Biden’s nuclear policy look like?
 What could Biden’s nuclear policy look like?
King County sits only miles away from one-third of the deployed U.S. nuclear arsenal. Courier Herald By Aaron January 12, 2021 For Leonard Eiger, having the U.S. Navy’s entire Pacific fleet of nuclear-armed submarines only a short excursion away doesn’t sit well with him. The longtime anti-nuclear weapons activist and former North Bend resident has for decades worked to educate Puget Sound residents about Naval Base Kitsap Bangor, which houses around one-third of the nuclear weapons that are actively deployed. Eight of the 14 Ohio-class submarines, which carry powerful nuclear weapons, are stationed out of the base in Kitsap County. “For me there’s a real futility in thinking of, and preparing to fight, a nuclear war,” Eiger said. “Because any nuclear war, any nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia, is game over.” Eiger lived in North Bend for 26 years, before recently moving to the San Juan Islands. He’s been involved with the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, which stages demonstrations against — and education campaigns about — nuclear weapons. As the Donald Trump administration winds down, he’s hoping that a Joe Biden presidency will mark a turning point in the way the U.S. approaches nuclear weapons. The Trump administration didn’t make significant progress toward renewing the New START Treaty, which expires on Feb. 5 and began deploying “low-yield” nuclear weapons on submarines, he said. The administration also did not subscribe to a “no first use” policy. It also pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. The Trump administration didn’t make significant progress toward renewing the New START Treaty, which expires on Feb. 5 and began deploying “low-yield” nuclear weapons on submarines, he said. The administration also did not subscribe to a “no first use” policy. It also pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. And if a nuclear weapon was fired at one country, other nuclear powers wouldn’t know where it was destined, and could launch their own nukes, fearing an attack, he said. These missiles are something that Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, is thinking about. He said that this could make military leaders more comfortable using them from technical and humanitarian points of view because there could be less collateral damage and fallout …….. On the first use of nuclear weapons, Biden’s policy platform states that he believes the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is to deter other countries from attacking the U.S. with nuclear weapons. If he holds to this statement, then he would enact a no first use policy, according to Kristensen………. Treaties Biden is also hoping to resurrect two important nuclear treaties. The first is the Iran nuclear deal, which was negotiated by the Obama administration while he served as vice president. Trump withdrew from the treaty and put additional sanctions on Iran……. The second significant nuclear agreement is the New START Treaty between Russia and the U.S. The treaty limits the number of nuclear weapons that the countries can own, and have deployed, at any given time. It includes all three legs of the U.S. nuclear triad, including submarine, bomber and land-based missiles. Biden’s policy platform states he will try to renew and extend the New START Treaty. The treaty could be extended up to five years, but Kristensen said the administration could choose a shorter term. If Biden chose to go with a longer five year renewal, it would likely have a calming effect on nuclear competition between the U.S. and Russia. However, a shorter term would send signals that the two countries need to address the problems with the treaty and create something stronger, Kristensen said….. ………… For activist Leonard Eiger, the world of today is only here because of a series of fortunate events. He cited the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the U.S. and Russia came close to nuclear war in 1962. “We still live under the threat of either accidental or intentional nuclear war,” he said. “So long as nuclear weapons exist, that threat will continue to exist.”……… https://www.courierherald.com/news/what-could-bidens-nuclear-policy-look-like/ |
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As pandemic cripples America, Donald Trump orders funding for military Small Nuclear Reactors in space
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Trump orders DoD to explore use of nuclear power for space, Defense News,
By: Aaron Mehta 14 Jan 21, WASHINGTON — In the waning days of his administration, U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at pushing the Department of Defense toward quickly developing and producing small nuclear reactors for military use — and to see if they could be used by military space vehicles.
The order, signed Jan. 5 and posted publicly Jan. 12, is not the first time the value of nuclear power for military operations has been studied. There is a long history of the Pentagon considering the issue, which proponents believe could alleviate the department’s massive logistics challenge of keeping fuel moving around the world……… In terms of terrestrial efforts, the executive order requires the defense secretary to, within 180 days, “establish and implement a plan to demonstrate” a micro-reactor at a domestic military installation — in other words, setting up an actual test of a nuclear reactor at a U.S. military location. However, that doesn’t mean the first test will be on a military base. One location to keep an eye on is the Nevada National Security Site, a Department of Energy location roughly 65 miles from Las Vegas……. Noted Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, “the signing of this at the very last minute of the Trump administration suggests someone is concerned [President-elect Joe Biden] might not support the program.” Specific to space, the order calls for the defense secretary, in consultation with the secretaries of state, commerce and energy as well as the NASA administrator, to “determine whether advanced nuclear reactors can be made to benefit Department of Defense future space power needs” and to “pilot a transportable micro-reactor prototype.” In addition, the order directs an analysis of alternatives for “personnel, regulatory, and technical requirements to inform future decisions with respect to nuclear power usage” as well as “an analysis of United States military uses for space nuclear power and propulsion technologies and an analysis of foreign adversaries’ space power and propulsion programs.” ……… While the order speeds up the timetable for a test of a nuclear reactor at a military installation, the idea of using nuclear power is hardly a new one for the DoD. In fact, the Pentagon currently has two different development tracts for small nuclear reactors. The first is “Project Pele,” an effort to create a small mobile nuclear reactor in the 1-5 MWe power range, being run out of the Strategic Capabilities Office. In March 2020, the department awarded three companies a combined $39.7 million to start design work for Project Pele, with plans to select one firm in 2022 to build and demonstrate a prototype. The second effort is run through the office of the undersecretary of acquisition and sustainment. That effort, ordered in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, involves a pilot program aiming to demonstrate the efficacy of a small nuclear reactor, in the 2-10 MWe range, with initial testing at a Department of Energy site around 2023. If all goes well, the goal is to have a permanent small nuclear reactor on a military base around 2027. Even if all those timelines are hit, it is unlikely microreactors could proliferate quickly throughout the military………. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2021/01/13/trump-orders-dod-to-explore-use-of-nuclear-power-for-space-systems/ |
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Trump chaos highlights risks of sole nuclear launch authority
Trump chaos highlights risks of sole nuclear launch authority, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/trump-chaos-highlights-risks-of-sole-nuclear-launch-authority/, 12 Jan 2021, |Ramesh Thakur, Critics of nuclear weapons have long pointed to two sets of risks. First, deterrence stability depends on all fail-safe mechanisms working every single time in every bomb-possessing country. That is an impossibly high bar for nuclear peace to hold indefinitely. Second, it also requires that rational decision-makers be in office in all the world’s nine nuclear-armed states.
In the past four years the latter risk has intensified in particular because of the personality traits of two of the nine leaders concerned, which is why US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were described as the godfathers of the UN nuclear ban treaty. The late Bruce Blair, a former nuclear launch officer and respected anti-nuclear campaigner, said in 2016: ‘The thought of Donald Trump with nuclear weapons scares me to death.’
The issue acquired unexpected urgency amid ugly scenes outside and inside Congress after it duly certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. On 8 January, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discussed with General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, precautions for ‘preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike’. Milley’s office confirmed to the New York Times that he had answered her questions about the nuclear command authority.
The US has no extant legal mechanism for addressing Pelosi’s concern. On 22 December 2008, in the final days of the George W. Bush presidency, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed the unchecked presidential authority.
” For 50 years, he said, ”the US president has been ‘followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football [so-called because the code word for the first set of nuclear war plans was ‘Dropkick’] that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use … He doesn’t have to check with anybody. He doesn’t have to call the Congress. He doesn’t have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in.’
Because of the launch-on-warning posture of nuclear weapons on high-alert status, the US nuclear system is designed to respond to a commander-in-chief’s launch order instantaneously. Missiles would leave their silos just four minutes after the president’s command authorising a strike, so that they launch before they’re destroyed by enemy missiles and hit their targets within 30 minutes of launch.
The one historical occasion on which the president’s unchecked power was an issue was in the dying days of Richard Nixon’s presidency amid the Watergate crisis. Writing in Politico in 2017, Garett Graff recalled how Defense Secretary James Schlesinger had issued an unprecedented set of orders, directing that if Nixon gave any nuclear launch order, military commanders were to check either with him or with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger before executing them. This was after Senator Alan Cranston had phoned Schlesinger to warn him about ‘the need for keeping a berserk president from plunging us into a holocaust’. Apparently Nixon had alarmed congressmen by telling them during a meeting: ‘I can go in my office and pick up a telephone, and in 25 minutes, millions of people will be dead’.
In 1973, Harold Hering, a US Air Force major on training to command nuclear missile silos, asked: ‘How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?’ Good question. Instead of receiving an answer, Hering was eased out of the military, lost his final appeal in 1975 and changed careers to take up long-haul trucking. Recalling Hering’s ‘forbidden question’, Ron Rosenbaum comments in How the end begins: the road to a nuclear World War III:
You might think such a question—the sanity of a president who gives a nuclear launch order—would require some extra scrutiny, but Major Hering’s inconvenient query put a spotlight on the fact that the most horrific decision in history could be executed in less than fifteen minutes by one person with no time for second-guessing.
According to law professor Anthony Colangelo, military officers have ‘a legal duty to disobey illegal nuclear strike orders’ and the use of nuclear weapons wouldn’t satisfy the tests of legality under international humanitarian and human rights laws. However, a Congressional Research Service note on 3 December restated the prevailing consensus: ‘The US President has sole authority to authorize the use of US nuclear weapons.’
A former head of US Strategic Command, General Robert Kehler, notes that military officers are bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice ‘to follow orders provided they are legal and have come from competent authority’. In a statement on 7 January, even the International Crisis Group, whose primary field of interest is the conflict-riven regions of the world, highlighted the president’s ‘unfettered power to launch nuclear weapons’ among the perils of the chaotic transition from Trump to Biden.
An angry and vengeful president in denial about the election outcome but with his finger still on the nuclear button—the same one that he’d boasted was ‘bigger and more powerful’ than Kim’s—has helped to reconcentrate minds. In the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, President John F. Kennedy kept his head while the military advisers around him, led by the notorious General Curtis LeMay, wanted to deploy nuclear weapons and invade Cuba.
Since Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, the world has desperately hoped that, given the strategically challenged president’s unpredictability and unreliability, former generals in his cabinet would act as the adults in the room in any crisis situation. It was in the context of Trump’s failure to grasp core nuclear realities that his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, famously remarked that Trump was a ‘fucking moron’.
The sole launch authority is so powerful and so unchecked that it’s truly scary. Bruce Blair’s two-step recommendation was adoption of a no-first-use policy in the short term and total elimination of all nuclear weapons through ‘global zero’ in the medium term. Biden can and should change the nuclear command structure once he’s in office and require the agreement of at least one other senior official for authorisation of a nuclear strike to be legal.
If this can be of more than theoretical concern with respect to the US, we surely are justified in having even graver concerns about the potential for nuclear weapons being used irresponsibly by some of the other leaders with their fingers on nuclear triggers. Having put ‘guardrails around the sole authority of the US president … to launch nuclear weapons’, Biden could then focus on the urgent need to reduce nuclear risks globally.
Ramesh Thakur, a former UN assistant secretary-general, is emeritus professor at the Australian National University and director of its Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.
Joe Biden under pressure from nuclear lobby, despite the failing state of their industry
The United States has about 94 traditional reactors, out of the 440 worldwide, but rising costs have forced many plants to shut with five more expected to close this year in Illinois and New York.
Nuclear power faces competition from electricity stations that burn cheap, plentiful natural gas and from renewable power, including wind and solar.
Czech government plans to impose nuclear dump on municipalities against their will
Euractiv 12th Jan 2021, Czech municipalities fight against nuclear waste repository. Czech
municipalities chosen to provide space for a deep geological repository for used nuclear fuel are ready to fight against the government’s decision “with all possible means”.
On 21 December, the Czech government decided that a radioactive waste repository will be created in one of the four selected sites.
However, although the government intends to launch exploratory works in order to find the most suitable location, there is no possibility for affected areas to have their say in this matter. Four municipalities hoped that their negotiating position would be strengthened by a new law but it has never been proposed by the government despite its previous promises.
Amid ongoing lawsuits about nuclear corruption, Ohio regulators will stall the nuclear bailout law
 Ohio regulators set to officially pause nuclear bailout fees created through tainted energy bill https://www.cleveland.com/open/2021/01/ohio-regulators-set-to-officially-pause-nuclear-bailout-fees-created-through-tainted-energy-bill.html Jan 11, 2021 By Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio — State regulators have ordered a pause on the $170 million in annual new fees created through the controversial House Bill 6, following a judge’s recent ruling in a lawsuit brought by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and officials in Cincinnati and Columbus. The Ohio Air Quality Development Authority will formally suspend the charges, $150 million of which would bail out two financially troubled Ohio nuclear plants owned by a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, during a scheduled meeting on Tuesday, the agency’s executive director wrote in a recent letter to officials with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. As part of the same official process, the PUCO on Dec. 30 acted to prevent the new fee from going into effect while the legal challenge continues. Both agencies cited a Dec. 21 ruling from a Franklin County judge who, ruling on the lawsuit from Yost and two Ohio cities, ordered the fees be blocked from going into effect. The fees, worth more than $1 billion to the nuclear plants, were to have appeared on Ohioans’ power bills starting on Jan. 1.
But the pause could remain in place at least until a March 5 hearing in the Franklin County case, according to a PUCO spokesman.
Yost and the local officials sued over the law after federal investigators said it was the product of an elaborate corruption scheme financed by FirstEnergy and its affiliates that led to the arrest of former House Speaker Larry Householder and others last July. Prosecutors have said in exchange for $61 million, spent to help Householder become speaker and on a political campaign supporting the law, Householder agreed to push the bill through the legislature. FirstEnergy, based in Akron, hasn’t been charged or officially accused of wrongdoing. Householder has pleaded not guilty to a federal corruption charge, but two associates who helped pass House Bill 6, Jeff Longstreth and Juan Cespedes, have pleaded guilty to participating in the scheme.
The fees will remain blocked even though the Ohio Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a different HB6 legal challenge filed by the Ohio Manufacturers Association, a business group. The Supreme Court previously ordered the fees paused while it considered OMA’s arguments. The OMA had asked permission to drop its challenge, saying the issue was moot since the PUCO had agreed to pause the nuclear subsidies in response to the Franklin County case.
DeWine and state legislative leaders have called for House Bill 6 to be repealed or at least, revisited. But state lawmakers failed to do so during their lame duck session in December, since House members were unable to agree on what specific action to take. The law’s future remains unclear, with legislators expected to reconvene in the coming weeks.
Numerous HB6-related state and federal investigations, including from the FBI and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are ongoing, as are numerous lawsuits.
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Could Trump start a nuclear war?- a satchel, a biscuit and a football
A satchel, a biscuit and a football, https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72759838/posts/3119714732 , Could Trump start a nuclear war? By Linda Pentz Gunter, 10 Jan 21,
All that’s involved is a satchel, a biscuit, and a football.
It sounds so benign, doesn’t it? Like schoolboy games. It’s anything but. If the President of the United States opens that satchel with his biscuit to access the football, that simple action could propel us into Armageddon.
The satchel, which goes everywhere the president does, contains the nuclear “football.” Only the president can open the satchel, using an ID card known as the “biscuit”.
As Time magazine explained it — the first time alarm bells rang around the possibility that an unhinged Donald Trump might “press the nuclear button” — the “biscuit enables him to identify himself to officials at the Pentagon with unique codes letting them know he is authorizing a nuclear strike. He would also need to specify the type of attack he wanted to carry out; the different options are delineated in the nuclear football.
“Once Trump has successfully conveyed his orders, Strategic Command, which has operational control over U.S. nuclear forces, would implement them.”
So while there is no actual nuclear button — Trump’s boasts to North Korea about his big one notwithstanding — it would be all too easy for a petulant madman to start a nuclear war. And we have one in the White House.
No one here needs to be reminded of the eye-stretching scenes of mob violence that unfolded at the Capitol on January 6, egged on by Trump on the day itself, and fueled by the reckless rhetoric and actions of the White House and its Republican lackeys over the past four years.
The events of January 6 in part prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to speak to the “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.
“The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy,” Politico reported Pelosi as saying on Friday.
In a statement issued on January 7, Physicians for Social Responsibility wrote that the scenes of mayhem at the Capitol, brought on by Trump’s “increasingly irresponsible and reckless behavior” should finally “put to rest any doubt about the danger posed by giving any president sole authority for the decision to launch a nuclear weapon. While the incident yesterday did not directly involve that power, President Trump’s alarming conduct demonstrated incontrovertibly why providing a president with the sole authority to launch a nuclear weapon needs to be changed—right now.”
How easy would it be for Trump to launch a nuclear strike? Global Zero explains it, chillingly, in this video, which suggests that starting a nuclear war would be “as easy as ordering a pizza.”
In a January 24, 2018 article in The Straits Times, Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear non-proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, was quoted in an interview he gave to the BBC.
“There are no checks and balances on the president’s authority to launch a nuclear strike,” he said. “But between the time he authorizes one and the time it’s carried out there are other people involved.”
We’ve been saved more than once from nuclear disaster, most notably by Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union’s Air Defense Forces who, on the night of September 26, 1983 just happened to be in charge of monitoring his country’s satellite system that watched for a potential launch of nuclear weapons by the United States. In the early hours, such a launch appeared to have happened.
Petrov had only minutes to decide if the launch was genuine. He was supposed to report the alert up the chain of command. Doing so would almost certainly have led to a counterstrike, triggering a full-on nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the U.S. Instead, Petrov decided to check if there was a computer malfunction, later discovered to have been the case. Petrov became known as “the man who saved the world.”
But back at the White House, with only conspiracy-theory believing acolytes left around a man who doesn’t in any case listen to anyone’s advice, we cannot count on there being any Petrovs to save us this time.
Of course, as the PSR statement concluded: “the best way to protect ourselves and the rest of the world from the danger posed by the dysfunctional leadership of a nuclear-armed nation is to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether.
“The incoming Biden administration should embrace the principles of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and lead negotiations that move us toward a nuclear-weapons free world.”
That Treaty will become international law on January 22. Not a moment too soon.
According to experts, the U.S. military cannot legally prevent Trump’s accessto nuclear codes
 The Military Can’t Legally Curb a President’s Access to Nuclear Codes, Experts Say https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/01/08/military-cant-legally-curb-presidents-access-nuclear-codes-experts-say.html 8 Jan 2021 By Gina Harkins and Oriana Pawlyk
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley Friday morning to discuss what she described as necessary precautions to prevent an “unhinged” president from accessing nuclear codes. But experts and officials said there’s no place in the system for the military — or Congress — to intervene in a sitting president’s access to the nuclear arsenal. The situation of this unhinged president could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Friday in a circulated letter. She and dozens of other lawmakers — mostly Democrats — have called for President Donald Trump’s removal from office following Wednesday’s violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol by the commander in chief’s supporters. Milley’s office confirmed that the call took place. “Speaker Pelosi initiated a call with the Chairman,” said Army Col. Dave Butler, Milley’s spokesman. “He answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority.” Pelosi said Friday that Trump should not be allowed to initiate “military hostilities or [access] the launch codes [to order] a nuclear strike.” CNN reported that, after her call with Milley, Pelosi told her caucus she received assurances about safeguards should Trump decide to launch a nuclear weapon. It’s unclear what those assurances would have been since, as the Congressional Research Service wrote last month, “The President does not need the concurrence of either his military advisors or the U.S. Congress to order the launch of nuclear weapons. “In addition, neither the military nor Congress can overrule these orders,” a December report titled “Defense Primer: Command and Control of Nuclear Forces” states. Ankit Panda, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s nuclear policy program, also noted that, short of removing Trump from office, there’s no legal remedy that Milley or Pelosi can take to prevent the president from issuing a valid and legal order to use nuclear weapons. “It’s how we designed the system,” he wrote Friday. “We could change it, of course. … If there’s a way in which the American presidency is effectively monarchical and absolute, it’s this one.” Officials with U.S. Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, which oversees nuclear weapons, referred questions from Military.com about Pelosi’s call to Milley back to the Pentagon. Adm. Charles “Chas” Richard, the head of STRATCOM, told reporters this week that he would not recommend changes to the system the U.S. has had in place for decades. He would, however, decline to follow illegal orders to deploy a nuclear weapon, Richard added. “I will follow any legal order that I’m given — I will not follow any illegal orders,” he said. “And if you go much further, if I were to say anything else, we’re starting to call in civilian control of the military, which I think is a prized American attribute.” Ultimately, he said, who has the authority to carry out a nuclear strike is “a political question.” “I’m prepared to execute whatever the political leadership of this nation would like to do,” he said. In the event of preparing for a nuclear strike, the president consults with military and civilian advisers. Advisers have the ability to push back on an order they believe does not meet stipulations outlined under the laws of armed conflict, or LOAC, according to the Congressional Research Service. During a Senate hearing in 2017, Robert Kehler, a retired Air Force general who previously served as the commander of STRATCOM, testified before lawmakers that military members can refuse what they deem to be an “illegal” order, but added, “Only the president of the United States can order the employment of U.S. nuclear weapons.” Kehler pointed out that the process is not automatic. “This is a system controlled by human beings,” he said, according to a report from CNN. The process “includes assessment, review and consultation between the president and key civilian and military leaders, followed by transmission and implementation of any presidential decision by the forces themselves.” Aside from nuclear weapon authorities, Milley’s role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs also, by law, falls outside of the chain of command. The role of the chairman is to serve as the president’s top military adviser. Several experts on civilian-military relations also noted Friday that if Pelosi and other politicians are concerned about Trump posing a security risk, they should find a political solution — not a military one. Pelosi and other lawmakers have said they will move ahead with impeachment proceedings if the vice president and Cabinet members do not invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office. Richard Sisk contributed to this report. — Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins. |
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