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Nothing to stop angry, entitled Donald Trump, from making a nuclear attack

There Is No Check on Trump’s Rage Going Nuclear  An angry, entitled man has total control over devastating weapons. Foreign Policy, BY ANNE HARRINGTON, CHERYL ROFER,  MAY 22, 2019, DONALD TRUMP IS TAKING THE UNITED STATES BACK TO AN EARLIER TIME – ONE MOST PEOPLE THOUGHT HAD BEEN LEFT BEHIND. HIS AGGRESSIVE BOORISHNESS, ENTITLEMENT, AND BELIEF THAT HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS ARE QUALITIES FROM AN AGE WHEN MEN’S CONTROL WAS ASSUMED, AND OTHERS STAYED SILENT. AND NOWHERE IS HIS RETROGRADE MASCULINITY MORE DANGEROUS THAN IN HIS CONTROL OF THE NUCLEAR BUTTON.

As president of the United States, Trump has absolute authority to launch nuclear weapons – without anyone else’s consent. In the past, it was taken for granted that the president would follow an established protocol that included consultation with the military, his cabinet, and others before taking such a grave step, but Trump is not legally bound to these procedures. Presidential launch authority is a matter of directive and precedent rather than specific law.

Trump’s bravado, penchant for inflated rhetoric, and impulsive decision-making style—including catching his leadership off guard by informing them of policy directives via tweet—have stoked old fears about placing the authority to launch in the wrong hands. So has his constant violation of once cherished presidential norms, including refusing to make public his tax returns and failing to read his daily intelligence brief.

Debates about launch authority have always been intimately bound up with whether we consider nukes’ function to be primarily military or political. Nuclear weapons are so destructive that, since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even the explicit threat of their use has been sparing. They have been used as political deterrents and levers, instead of direct weapons of war.

Reserving launch authority for the president was a key way to emphasize the political nature of the nuclear mission.

Historians trace the precedent of presidential launch authority to President Harry Truman’s decision to check his generals’ use of nuclear weapons.

After destroying  Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they planned to bomb a third Japanese city, but Truman forbade them to carry out the attack without his express consent and ultimately decided against it. According to Truman’s commerce secretary, Henry Wallace, the president thought killing “another 100,000 people was too horrible.” By assuming personal responsibility for the launch order, Truman started a tradition of differentiating this new technology from conventional weapons.

Reserving launch authority for the president not only underscored the special status of nuclear weapons as a political asset, but it also took them out of the hands of the generals—men like Gen. Curtis LeMay. LeMay was a laconic man’s man, known for his ruthlessness and impolitic statements. During World War II, he directed the firebombing of 63 Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people. It was LeMay who relayed the orders for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and later, as the head of Strategic Air Command (SAC), oversaw the war plans for an all-out nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. LeMay had no patience for subordinating operational effectiveness to moral concerns, or what he referred to as an American “phobia” against the use of nuclear weapons.

LeMay resented the fact that SAC was subject to presidential launch authority. According to the historian Richard Rhodes, he had his own launch plans, ignoring national policy. While LeMay continued to believe that the United States could obliterate the Soviet Union while minimizing its own losses, in the civilian world ideas about the use of nuclear weapons were evolving. A new breed of defense intellectual was pushing the idea that the primary purpose of nuclear weapons was not to decimate U.S. adversaries but to prevent such weapons being used at all. Anchored in a game theoretic approach, these intellectuals assumed that the holders of nuclear weapons would be rational and that what each side believed about the other—credibility—was central to deterring nuclear use.

Robert McNamara, who served as President John F. Kennedy’s defense secretary, was emblematic of this new approach and responsible for introducing this new breed of defense intellectual into the Pentagon. …….

Where LeMay’s approach openly celebrated slaughter, McNamara’s bloodlessness could lead to just as much destruction. The fact that teams of scientists provided mathematical justifications for the Cold War buildup in nuclear arms did not make the possibility of their use any less brutal……….

McNamara’s approach prevailed—not only politically but culturally. The 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove rejected LeMay’s approach to nuclear weapons. The cigar-chomping Gen. Jack D. Ripper is portrayed as insane, his paranoia leading him to release an airborne nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Maj. T.J. “King” Kong rides the bomb down, brandishing his cowboy hat.

LeMay and McNamara not only represent two different approaches to nuclear strategy but two different ideals of masculinity.  The election of Trump has reversed the usual stereotypes of generals and civilians. In the Trump White House, generals like H.R. McMaster and James Mattis inspired confidence in their respect for social norms and display of restraint, while Trump represents the rejected LeMay model of masculinity—without the virtues of actual service and endurance that LeMay also exemplified.

Trump’s personal manner is like LeMay’s—belligerent, inarticulate, refusing meaningful discussion, and deflecting criticism. And, like LeMay, his statements about nuclear weapons prioritize use over doctrine………

Trump’s focus on the individual, the leader is not just narcissistic but also deeply patriarchal. For Trump’s supporters, it is precisely the hope that Trump might “make America great again” by restoring their social world to its “natural” order, one in which the (white) man’s home is once again his castle. His masculine bravado and willingness to eschew social norms in favor of social aggression and emotional combativeness are his attractive qualities, but it is precisely these characteristics that lead to senseless and irrational conflicts—conflicts that could quickly become global catastrophes in the nuclear era. These days Trump not only brags about grabbing women by the pussy but also boasts about how his nuclear button is bigger than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s………..
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Would Trump be willing to use nuclear weapons? That’s unknowable—but he certainly doesn’t need your, or anyone else’s, consent to do it.
Anne Harrington is a Lecturer in International Relations at Cardiff University.
Cheryl Rofer writes scientific and political commentary. She was a chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 35 years. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/22/theres-no-check-on-trumps-rage-going-nuclear/

May 23, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Funding for Yucca nuclear waste dump rejected in U.S. Congress House committee

May 23, 2019 Posted by | politics, wastes | 1 Comment

Eight in Ten Support Nuclear Arms Control with Russia, Disagree with Trump Decision to Withdraw from Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

May 21, 2019 Posted by | public opinion, USA | Leave a comment

Sweden: Vattenfall determined to close 2 aging nuclear reactors

A Tiny Hole at Sweden’s Oldest Atomic Plant Upends Nuclear Revival
Industry and lawmakers in Sweden want Vattenfall to reverse a decision to close two aging reactors. Bloomberg, By Jesper Starn, May 20, 2019

A hole just a few millimeters deep at Sweden’s oldest nuclear plant is upending the debate about whether to revive the technology to ensure that the Nordic region’s biggest economy has enough power. 

Regulators assume such a small gap exists at the Ringhals-2 plant on the nation’s west coast because repairs to similar cavities were made earlier in the decade on about half of an area covering 700 square meters (7,535 square feet). The owner Vattenfall AB won’t carry out more costly repairs and its permit expires at the end of the year.

While the state-controlled power company doubts that further faults exist, it would rather scrap the plant than uproot the meter-thick slab of concrete surrounding the massive steel plates that make up the reactor containment……..

For the moment, Vattenfall isn’t budging on the decision it made in 2015 to wind down operations at the plant, which includes two reactors that  began operations in 1975 and 1976. Those reactors lack the independent core cooling systems required by the regulator for all nuclear plants to operate after 2020. Vattenfall invested 900 million kronor ($93 million) to upgrade two younger reactors at the site.

“I regard it as completely ruled out, both technically and financially,” to reverse the decision to close the Ringhals reactors, Torbjorn Wahlborg, the company’s head of generation, said in an interview.  “It would require such a big investment and long halts.”

At its peak, nuclear energy accounted for about half of the nation’s power. Hydroelectric plants covered the rest. Now it’s 40%  and wind parks being built in the north of the country are seen as a major future source. The problem is that the growth of wind has not been able to match the decline in capacity at reactors and  fossil-fuel plants and Sweden is already depending on imports to meet demand on cold winter days.

A Sifo poll from March show that two thirds of Swedes want to keep or build more reactors. 

 In 2016, five political parties formed a long-term energy agreement that lowered nuclear taxes enough to allow life-span extensions of six reactors built in the 1980s until the 2040s, while four older reactors would be shut. But the largest opposition party, the Moderates, is now threatening to abandon that agreement unless it’s renegotiated to be more supportive of nuclear power. It has the support of the Christian Democrats, which is also part of the accord.

The Liberals, which were not part of the deal, has also proposed to extend the lifespan of Ringhals 1 and 2, and may get support from the nationalist Sweden Democrats, which also wants to invest in nuclear. The Moderates and the Christian Democrats have called for a review to be made into the possibility to stop the closure of the two reactors.

Still, it would be an uphill battle to garner enough support for any new energy plan, as the remaining parties in the agreement together with the Left Party have a majority in parliament. It all hinges on the governing Social Democrats. It wants nuclear power to be gradually phased out, but is under pressure from Swedish industry to change its stance.

As Vattenfall is fully state-owned,  the government could adjust its directive to extend the life-span of the reactors. Lobby groups for the forest, metals, chemical and mining industry are calling for an investigation to see if this is possible. This would however be against the spirit of the original agreement, where market-based decisions was a key-part to get parties with opposing views to compromise on energy, according to the Swedish government. …… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/swedish-nuclear-plant-s-tiny-hole-nobody-has-seen-halts-revival

 

May 21, 2019 Posted by | politics, Sweden | Leave a comment

Proposed nuclear bailout for Ohio

May 21, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Climate change action is a top priority for UK’s moderate Conservatives

Guardian 19th May 2019 , Moderate Conservatives including Nicky Morgan and Amber Rudd are urging contenders for their party’s leadership to put the battle against the climate emergency at the forefront of the contest.

The 60-strong One Nation group of senior Tories, created as a bulwark against what they perceive as their party’s lurch to the right, is calling for the environment to form a central part of the leadership debate. The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/19/tories-urge-leadership-contenders-to-prioritise-climate-emergency

May 21, 2019 Posted by | climate change, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s remorseless focus on Labor’s costs outweighed climate concerns

Times 20th May 2019, Australia’s jubilant conservatives have credited their unexpected election win to a remorseless questioning of the costs of Labor’s green policies. Labor went into polling day as overwhelming favourites, armed with a range of plans for emissions cuts and government spending plans designed to combat climate change.
Voters, however, re-elected Scott Morrison’s centre-right Liberal-led coalition, which offered comparatively modest countermeasures, despite Australia being gripped by drought after its hottest summer on record.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uncosted-climate-policies-send-labor-to-shock-defeat-gc0z830pc

May 21, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics | Leave a comment

A record year for heat in Australia, but money tops climate in the election

Times 20th May 2019 The environment could be a vote loser if it is associated only with economic cost. In the Australian election what happened to Tony Abbott was supposed to be a metaphor for the campaign as a whole. In Warringah, the
former Liberal prime minister lost his seat to Zali Steggall, a climate change activist. Australia has just endured its hottest ever summer and storms and dengue fever are turning up in new locations.

This was supposed to be the first election in which climate change was the decisive issue. In the event, the ruling Liberal-National coalition is close to securing the 76 seats needed for a majority in the House of Representatives. The coalition – which has been, to say the least, inactive on climate change – had been trailing for three years and the exit polls handed the victory to Labor, which had run on a programme of higher taxes and lower emissions. In the immediate aftermath of their defeat Labour strategists admitted they did not know what had hit them.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0573748a-7a5a-11e9-bed7-b51375720f1f

May 21, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics | Leave a comment

France’s Citizens’ Convention for the Climate

Times 20th May 2019 , France will enter new democratic territory next month when 150 randomly selected citizens will be asked to overhaul the country’s environmental policies, President Macron’s government announced yesterday.
The group will draw up plans on issues ranging from global warming to biodiversity which Mr Macron has pledged to implement, to put to a referendum or to turn into legislation that will go before parliament. The Citizens’ Convention
for the Climate is being organised in an attempt to meet yellow-vest protesters’ demands for MPs to be bypassed in a move towards direct democracy.

Yet the initiative is fraught with dangers for Mr Macron, who risks losing control of the political agenda. Some of his supporters fear that far from appeasing the campaigners, the process could inflame their  anger by reintroducing the fuel duty rises that ignited the protest movement in November.

May 21, 2019 Posted by | climate change, France, politics | Leave a comment

Ohio’s Nuclear Plant Subsidy Proposal, Should Be Rejected – 5 Reasons Why

5 Reason’s Why HB 6, Ohio’s Nuclear Plant Subsidy Proposal, Should Be Rejected, Uniion of Concerned Scientists,  STEVE CLEMMER, DIRECTOR OF ENERGY RESEARCH, CLEAN ENERGY | MAY 16, 2019  Last November, UCS released Nuclear Power Dilemma, which found that more than one-third of existing nuclear plants, representing 22 percent of total US nuclear capacity, are uneconomic or slated to close over the next decade. This included the Davis-Besse and Perry plants in Ohio that are owned by Akron-based FirstEnergy Solutions. Replacing these plants with natural gas would cause emissions to rise at a time when we need to achieve deep cuts in emissions to limit the worst impacts of climate change.

When we released our report, my colleague Jeff Deyette described how a proposal backed by FirstEnergy to subsidize its unprofitable nuclear plants in Ohio was deeply flawed and did not meet the conditions recommended in our report. By providing a blatant handout to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries at the expense of renewable energy and energy efficiency, ironically, the latest proposal to create a “Clean Air Program” in Ohio (House Bill 6) is bad for consumers, the economy and the environment.

Here are five reasons why this proposal is flawed and should be rejected:

1. HB 6 doesn’t protect consumers

…………..HB 6 doesn’t require FirstEnergy Solutions to demonstrate need or limit the amount and duration of the subsidies to protect consumers and avoid windfall profits as recommended in our report. It simply sets the starting price at $9.25/MWh and increases that value annually for inflation.  ……… FirstEnergy Solutions nuclear plants would receive approximately $170 million per year in subsidies, or 55% of the total…..

2. HB 6 is a bait and switch tactic to gut Ohio’s clean energy laws

But here’s the rub. HB 6 would effectively gut the state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards to pay for the subsidies for Ohio’s existing nuclear, coal and natural gas plants. It would make the standards voluntary by exempting customers from the charges collected from these affordable and successful programs unless they chose to opt-in to the standards. This could result in a net increase in emissions and a net loss of jobs in Ohio over time.

This political hit job is outrageous, but not at all surprising. It is just another attempt in a long series of efforts by clean energy opponents to rollback Ohio’s renewable and efficiency standards over the past five years …….

the cost of wind and solar has fallen by more than 70 percent over the past decade, making them more affordable for consumers and competitive with natural gas power plants in many parts of the country. ……

Energy efficiency programs are especially important for low-income households. By lowering their energy bills, they have more money to spend on food, health care and other necessities.

3. HB6 creates a false sense of competition

While renewable energy technologies are technically eligible to compete for funding under HB 6, several criteria would effectively exclude them:

  • It excludes any projects that have received tax incentives like the federal production tax credit or investment tax credit, which applies to nearly every renewable energy project.
  • Eligible facilities must be larger than 50 MW, which excludes most solar projects, and wind projects have to be between 5 MW and 50 MW, which is smaller than most existing utility scale wind projects in the state.
  • Eligible projects must receive compensation through organized wholesale energy markets, which excludes smaller customer-owned projects like rooftop solar photovoltaic systems.

When combined with the rollback to the renewable standard, this absurdly stringent criteria would create too much uncertainty for renewable developers to obtain financing to build new projects in Ohio.

4. HB 6 will increase Ohio’s reliance on natural gas

While HB 6 could temporarily prevent the replacement of Ohio’s nuclear plants with natural gas, gutting the renewables and efficiency standards would undermine the state’s pathway to achieving a truly low-carbon future by locking in more gas generation as coal plants retire.  …….

5. HB 6 includes no safety criteria or transition plans

HB 6 does not require FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants to meet strong safety standards as a condition for receiving subsidies, as recommended in our report. While Davis-Besse and Perry are currently meeting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) safety standards–as measured by their reactor oversight process (ROP) action matrix quarterly rating system–both plants have had problems with critical back-up systems during the past two years that put them out of compliance.

The nuclear industry has been trying to weaken the ROP for years………

A better approach

On May 2, House Democrats announced an alternative “Clean Energy Jobs Plan” that would address many of the problems with HB 6. The plan would modify the state’s Alternative Energy Standard (AES) by increasing the contribution from renewable energy from 12.5% by 2027 to 50% by 2050and fix the onerous set-back requirements that have been a major impediment to large scale wind development. It would expand the AES to maintain a 15% baseline for nuclear power. In addition, it would improve the state’s energy efficiency standards, expand weatherization programs for low-income households, and create new clean energy job training programs…….

With more than 112,000 clean energy jobs in 2018, Ohio ranks third in the Midwest and eighth in the country. Ohio added nearly 5,000 new clean energy jobs in 2018.  While most of the clean energy jobs are in the energy efficiency industry, Ohio is also a leading manufacturer of components for the wind and solar industries.

To capitalize on these rapidly growing global industries, lawmakers in Ohio should reject HB 6 and move forward with a real clean air program that ramps-up investments in renewables and efficiency and achieves the deep cuts in emissions that are needed to limit the worst impacts of climate change.  https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/5-reasons-why-hb6-should-be-rejected

May 20, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Australia’s election result disastrous for climate action – a negative example for the world

May 19, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics | 5 Comments

Delay in vote on bailing out Ohio’s nuclear reactors

May 18, 2019 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

With belligerent John Bolton as National Security, Trump could take USA to the brink of war with Iran

With Bolton whispering in Trump’s ear, war with Iran is no longer unthinkable, Guardian, Owen Jones 16 May 19, Antiwar activists must do everything they can to prevent it, and that includes pressuring US allies

It was a deception that would lead to millions of civilian deaths, and the deaths of nearly 60,000 US soldiers. In August 1964 President Lyndon B Johnson solemnly declared that, after two apparent North Vietnamese attacks on US navy destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, military action would take place.

Four years later, Senator Albert Gore – father of Bill Clinton’s future vice-president – warned in a closed Foreign Relations Committee session that, “If this country has been misled … the consequences are very great.” His suspicions were correct. The second Gulf of Tonkin attack might never have happened – and perhaps neither did. Communications to make it look like the attack occurred had been falsified. But US policy was already set on a dramatic escalation of the Vietnam war: and here was the perfect pretext.

This week it emerged that the US government is discussing sending up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East for possible military action against Iran. “We’ll see what happens with Iran,” declared President Trump. “If they do anything, it will be a bad mistake.” The principal driving force behind this is Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, a man who thinks there is no problem to which the answer isn’t war: in the Bush era, his militarism was too much for the commander-in-chief who laid waste to Iraq. You can see them scrabbling for excuses already: the Trump administration says Iran-backed proxy groups are preparing attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, a claim forcefully denied this week by British major-general Christopher Ghika, the deputy commander of counter-terror operations in both countries. The US has blamed Iran, without evidence, for damage to Saudi oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Could an Iranian Gulf of Tonkin be looming?

It is easy to dismiss these fears as alarmist. Is Trump not the man who confounded his critics by seeking peace on the Korean peninsula? Trump boasts that he “actually tempers” Bolton; Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, states: “There won’t be any war.” As Sanam Vakil, a research fellow at Chatham House, tells me: “Both sides are posturing, sending [threats] back and forth, and I don’t think heading for any direct military interventions.” Bolton, she reassures me, is just one of many voices in the room, and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo himself says that the US is not seeking war……..

A senior Senate aide tells me that the triumph of Bolton’s plans is all too conceivable: Bolton could exploit Trump’s ignorance of policy, an area in which he excels. While any war would not be popular with Trump’s base he could be convinced by Bolton that it is possible to escalate up to a point, then pull back at the brink: but by then it may be impossible to do so. Rightwing thinktanks and broadcasters are already hyping up links between Iran and al-Qaida.

The consequences of an Iranian conflagration should horrify us. Dan Plesch – a specialist at Soas University of London’s Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy – details the US air and naval power potentially ranged against Iran: it’s what one of his colleagues describes as “a tsunami of precision-guided molten metal”. The “lethality of US force”, says Plesch, “to very rapidly destroy military, civil, political and economic infrastructure is hugely underestimated” – and is far greater than in 2003. The US would seek to impose a government-in-exile with no roots in the country; a bloody balkanisation could follow. Iran would mobilise its regional influence – dramatically increased by the Iraq catastrophe – raising the prospect of wider regional conflict.

The risk is already too real for us to wait and see before acting. Pressure must be exerted by the public on US allies to declare their total opposition to any war with Iran, including not permitting their military bases to be used. The mass protests that will greet Trump’s visit in three weeks’ time must include demands that no British support for such a bloody adventure be offered. Feeling blasé about the danger? Well, consider this: all that stands between Bolton’s violent fantasy being executed is Donald Trump himself.  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/15/war-with-iran-john-bolton-donald-trump-usa?CMP=share_btn_tw

May 18, 2019 Posted by | politics, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chinese public’s trust in government means that nuclear power better able to go ahead in China

May 16, 2019 Posted by | China, public opinion | 2 Comments

Unnecessary to bail out Ohio’s nuclear and coal plants, but a bonanza for FirstEnergy Solutions

May 14, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

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