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Nuclear War and Climate Change: The Urgency for Action — The Center for Climate & Security

Christine Parthemore speaks on nuclear war and climate change at a COP26 side event hosted by the International Forum for Understanding, Nov 1, 2021. Source: International Forum for Understanding By Christine Parthemore I had the honor of delivering a keynote speech at a COP26 side event hosted by the International Forum for Understanding on November…

Nuclear War and Climate Change: The Urgency for Action — The Center for Climate & Security

EXPLORING THE SECURITY RISKS OF CLIMATE CHANGE   Nuclear War and Climate Change: The Urgency for Action By Christine Parthemore
–There is urgency in this Conference’s proceedings. The urgency is greater because the world’s leaders, to date, have not yet taken the climate crisis seriously enough. Not even close. Yet this echoes a shared challenge: across the most catastrophic risks facing humanity, whether climate change, biological risks, or the risk of nuclear war, we have historically underestimated these threats. 

Nuclear weapons  – shared history of underestimating effects

What happens when our policies and plans do not fully account for the damage they may cause to the world?

Just as we are witnessing the answers to this question unfolding regarding the climate crisis, there is a similar and in many ways shared history of underestimatingthe catastrophic effects that could come from nuclear weapons. 

During World War II, in the surge by the United States to ready nuclear weapons for potential use in the war, most estimates of damage focused on immediate blast effects of the use of these weapons — not secondary or enduring damage that may come after. And our knowledge of those effects was not robust. 

Those who created nuclear weapons largely seemed to believe that everyone within the area hit by these weapons would die from the nuclear blast itself — that everything would be obliterated quickly. That, it would be learned, was not necessarily the case. 

The first evidence came from the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The full human toll will never truly be known — estimates are between 110,000 and 210,000 people killed. 

Yet those who lost their lives directly from the attacks were just one aspect. The degree to which the use of atomic bombs in conflict caused serious, lasting, devastating injuries was underestimated. For those who were not immediately lost, thousands suffered ghastly burns, loss of skin, and shrapnel embedded in their bodies that caused excruciating pain for as long as they lived. This is in addition to extreme suffering beyond injuries and sickness, in years and in some cases lifetimes of economic hardship, social stigma, and psychological damage.

Under-estimating the damage of nuclear weapons contributed to the United States and Soviet Union producing astronomical numbers of them — tens of thousands — in part driven by the belief that they needed tens of thousands of nuclear warheads in order to effectively deter one another from war—or to effectively wipe out the other nation.

Along with these growing nuclear arsenals came increasing nuclear tests. Soviet and U.S. citizens  – and those of other nations – were subject to radiation effects from the detonation sites. 

Some of the early U.S. nuclear tests were carried out in the Marshall Islands. Others, in the desert of the U.S. southwest. 

Almost one quarter of all nuclear tests in history were conducted at one test site in what is now Kazakhstan from 1949 to 1989. The citizens of nearby villages that were exposed now tell the story of the radiation damage caused, including significant genetic effects that crossed generations. 

 On these terrible legacies of nuclear weapons tests was built significant knowledge of their effects. Before the international community united to ban them, mostly ending the practice, this included more than 2,000 nuclear tests. 

Though results were classified in their earliest decades, extensive data from these tests revealed that the use of nuclear weapons could cause major disruptions to temperature patterns, sunlight, and precipitation. Into the 1970s and 80s, it became clearer that such nuclear weapons effects could cause more geographically dispersed and longer-enduring harm than previously realized. 

With such data, the world was able to create mathematical and computer models of ever-increasing sophistication. 

mportantly, the results of modeling potential effects of nuclear war started becoming public in the last decades of the 20th Century. Citizens of the world began to learn more about how the use of nuclear weapons could cause dramatic changes in weather patterns, and how this could drive severe changes in the availability of food and water, and how it would affect peoples’ health and their ability to care for their families. One such initiative labeled the potential damages of nuclear war as a “nuclear winter” that would befall the planet in some scenarios.  ………..

Arms race today / Inflection Point

Unfortunately, this momentum has not been sustained. In the earliest decades of this Century, we have begun moving back in the wrong direction. 

During this time, the risk of nuclear war has begun rising again. Most nuclear-armed nations are trying to expand the types of nuclear capabilities they possess, adding even more scenarios for how these weapons might be used in conflict. 

Unfortunately, several nations — including my own — are reigniting interest in types of nuclear weapons that are envisioned to be more usable in conflict. These include increasing focus on the horrifically mis-labeled, so-called low-yield nuclear weapon options. 

Even more dangerous than the mere presence of such weapons is the mindset that, in the heat of a conflict, it may be feasible to use one nuclear weapon without it being reciprocated. This is a fallacy, and we should not accept it as an assumption steering policy. 

While this wasn’t the case early in the Cold War, this time, under-estimating the effects of using such nuclear weapons is not an excuse. We have to assume that the use of even one nuclear weapon would be followed by another, and potentially lead to a broader nuclear exchange and the catastrophic damage that would follow. Today, we know in great detail what that could look like…………..

Convergence

If the intersection of nuclear weapons use and climate change is rooted in work to understand how our atmosphere and our world may be altered by both, today we have an even more daunting task. We have to consider how these threats may actually manifest together. 

Some effects of climate change are reigniting attention to past nuclear weapons damages. The Marshall Islands are a central case: at one atoll where the United States conducted nuclear weapon tests, a concrete dome that was designed to encase debris contaminated by these tests is now being inundated by rising seas. We don’t have to model this damage — it has been measured, and we have drone footage recording this occurring………………..

We know that in addition to the immediate death and destruction, such a nuclear conflict also risks significant damage to agricultural production through contamination or disruptions in weather patterns. Now combine this with a scenario in which such conflict occurs when extreme weather exacerbated by climate change has already spent years devastating the world’s food supplies. 

How many more millions of people could starve? How many millions of people will try to move in order to save themselves and their families, and how many communities could descend into instability or internal conflict if pressure is not relieved any other way? 

This is the reality of the world that we live in today — in which several catastrophic risks to humanity are occurring simultaneously, and they are not isolated from one another in time or space. ………….

 I urge the leaders of our nations to commit to serious progress in addressing the climate crisis in the days ahead. We must then also act with urgency, expanding those efforts to rally similar momentum to reduce the risks of nuclear war as well. https://climateandsecurity.org/2021/11/nuclear-war-and-climate-change-the-urgency-for-action/#more-29718

November 13, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The environmental dimension of the use of nuclear weapons

The environmental dimension of the use of nuclear weapons, AT TOP https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/the-environmental-dimension-of-the-use-of-nuclear-weapons/ European Leadership Network, Carlo Trezza |Former Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, Former Chairman of the Missile Technology Control Regime, 12 Nov 21,  In 2010, Jakob Kellenberger, the then President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, demonstrated extraordinary courage when he gathered all the accredited ambassadors in Geneva and made it clear that his organisation would not be able to ensure the required international standards of humanitarian assistance to civilian populations in the case of the use of nuclear weapons. In his words, “The mere assumption that atomic weapons may be used, for whatever reason, is enough to make illusory any attempt to protect non-combatants.”

That statement was made on the eve of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York, and was instrumental to the adoption by that conference of the concept of the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons”, which nuclear-armed states had traditionally been reluctant to accept. One year earlier, with his historic speech in Prague (in which he promised to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”), President Obama had already prepared the ground for the inclusion of the “catastrophic consequences” principle in the final document of the New York conference. During three international conferences subsequently convened by Norway, Mexico and Austria, the “humanitarian catastrophic” nature of any use of atomic weapons was further confirmed. This concept should be reiterated during the upcoming NPT Review Conference, scheduled for January 2022.

As the world’s leaders gather to discuss how to tackle climate change, it is also necessary to add that the use of nuclear weapons would have dangerous consequences for the environment. The environmental impact of nuclear weapons has been amply evidenced by the over 2000 nuclear tests carried out in deserted and uninhabited areas, while the dangers of radiation have also been demonstrated by the major accidents at the civilian nuclear power plants of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Today the environmental impact of a nuclear attack on inhabited centres and industrial areas can only be calculated through simulations. The deadly environmental effects of the

 two bombs that annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki can hardly be considered a precedent since they would pale in comparison to what would happen if only part of the 13,000 nuclear devices currently possessed by the nuclear powers were to be detonated today. Studies on the environmental side of the nuclear coin have intensified in parallel with the growing nightmare of climate change and the increase of nuclear risks. While there are debates over the precise modelling (such as a controversy between scientists over whether an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange would be enough to cause a global nuclear winter), multiple studies raise alarming prospects that in the event of a nuclear conflict, there would be shocks akin to climate change, but on a much faster timescale and with an exponential impact.            

Nonetheless, the international community and the nuclear-armed states have not yet drawn political conclusions from the anticipated environmental impacts of the use of nuclear weapons. This concept has so far only been mentioned in some official texts (the Partial Test Ban Treaty, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons), while the ENMOD (Environmental Modification Convention) Treaty adopted in 1978 is mostly focused on prohibiting the hostile use of environmental weather modification techniques but does not address the nuclear threat.

In his memorable statement on 11th November 2017 at the Vatican, Pope Francis expressed his “genuine concern” for the “catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices”.   More recently, on 28th October of this year, an event chaired by World Future Council and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament was dedicated to the Climate /Nuclear Disarmament Nexus. Climate protection and nuclear risk reduction were the core subjects debated during the meeting which was called in preparation for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) and the incoming NPT RevCon.

This is the first step. A process similar to the 2010 humanitarian initiative should be launched during next year’s NPT conference, leading to the recognition of the “catastrophic environmental consequences of any use of nuclear weapons”. Hopefully, on the occasion of that conference, one or more international leaders will have the vision to promote this topic as Jakob Kellenberger did in 2010. The tragic consequences of climate change will be dramatically amplified if the Damocles sword of a nuclear disaster continues hanging over humanity. 

November 13, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, environment, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Risks of Nuclear Modernization

The Risks of Nuclear Modernization  AntiWar.com, by Starté Butone November 12, 2021

The US military establishment seems set to start a new Cold War with China, Russia, and every other country it can paint as an enemy. As with the first Cold War, it will not be complete without an arms race. This is exactly what is happening right now with various programs being implemented by the US government. Currently, the US has not produced any new nuclear warheads since 1991, and the assembly lines at the Pantex plant (where almost all US nuclear weapons are assembled) have laid dormant for decades. This may soon change, however. Congress and the President have already approved research for the new B-21 bomber and Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, a new ICBM to replace the Minuteman III, as well as building new tactical nuclear warheads, the W93 and W76-2, a small number of which have already been created.

In addition, more components of nuclear modernization are included in this year’s National “Defense” Authorization Act (NDAA). These include the Columbia class of ballistic missile submarines to replace the Ohio class and the Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) air-launch cruise missile (ALCM). The modernization plan also includes upgrading existing W87-0 warheads (yield of 300 Kilotons of TNT) to their W87-1 variant (yield 475 KT), among other things.

There are 6 designs of nuclear weapons currently deployed in the US nuclear arsenal. These include the W76 (SLBM warhead, mostly 76-1 variant, yield 90 KT), W78 (ICBM warhead, yield 475 KT), W80 (ALCM warhead, yield 5-150 KT), B83 (Strategic bomber weapon, yield 1.2 MT), W87 (ICBM warhead, yield 300 KT), and W88 (SLBM warhead, yield 475 KT). W93 (in development, unknown yield and type) and most W76-2 (SLBM warhead, yield 5-7 KT) have not yet been deployed to delivery devices. The W76-2 is also created by re-purposing other W76s, thus not requiring new warheads to be manufactured. W76s make up the majority of the 1750 deployed nuclear weapons currently in the US arsenal. Up to 12 of them (limited to 8 by treaty) can be placed on Trident II Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), of which there are 240 assigned to carry nuclear warheads………………………

  the human costs of such weapons being produced make any financial costs infinitesimal by comparison. ICBMs are a particularly high risk, as they are not equipped with self-destruct systems (unlike virtually every other weapons system in the US military), due to them increasing rocket weight, thus decreasing payloads. This causes an accidental launch of these weapons to be irreversible. However, nuclear planners in the early Cold War period saw hundreds of millions of unintentional deaths as an acceptable risk for increasing missile payloads. This has not changed in the last 65 years, as educational and media coverage have desensitized the public to such existential threats.  https://original.antiwar.com/butone/2021/11/11/the-risks-of-nuclear-modernization/

November 13, 2021 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia sends nuclear-capable bombers on patrol over Belarus for second day amid migration crisis’


Russia sends nuclear-capable bombers on patrol over Belarus for second day amid migration crisis, ABC12 Nov 21,  Russia sent two nuclear-capable strategic bombers on a training mission over Belarus for the second day in a row, in support for its ally amid a dispute over migration at EU borders with Poland and Lithuania .

Key points:Russia backed Belarus as thousands of migrants try to enter the EU at its border
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said the patrols were a necessary response to the migration crisis at the border 

Thousands of migrants are currently stranded at the Belarus/Poland border as they try to enter the EUTwo Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers practised bombing runs at the Ruzany firing range, about 60 kilometres east of Belarus’ border with Poland on Wednesday and Thursday. The Belarusian Defence Ministry said such Russian flights will now be conducted on a regular basis as part of joint training missions and that Belarusian fighter jets simulated an intercept. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he needed the bombers to help him navigate what has become a tense border stand-off, as thousands of migrants and refugees gather on the Belarusian side of the Poland border in the hope of crossing into Western Europe. …………….. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-12/russia-sends-nuclear-capable-bombers-on-patrol-over-belarus/100614600

November 13, 2021 Posted by | Belarus, Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Australian-UK-US nuclear submarine deal makes the connection clear between civilian and military nuclear activities.

In failing fully to investigate this link between military nuclear and civil energy policy, the UK media have also missed more intimate connections. The senior Energy Ministry figure who negotiated the extraordinarily costly electricity contracts with France from the sole UK nuclear power plant currently under development went on to become the leading official in the Defence Ministry.

This same individual confirmed under questioning by Parliament that the nuclear submarine program is connected to civil nuclear policy. And it is this same person who is reported to have played a lead role in brokering the AUKUS deal.

In the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Australia, policies in non-military, non-nuclear areas are often shaped by military nuclear interests. The AUKUS alliance is driven, in part, by a longstanding crisis in the nuclear submarine industry’s efforts to realize economies of scale.

In these countries, energy policy is steered towards risky, costly, delay-prone nuclear options rather than alternatives. In the process, policymakers impede progress on vital climate targets. Throughout, the public remains unaware. So, the gravest damage inflicted by hidden nuclear military interests is not their warping effects on non-military policy but on the health of democracy. 

Australian-UK-US nuclear submarine deal exposes civilian-military links,  https://thebulletin.org/2021/11/australian-uk-us-nuclear-submarine-deal-exposes-civilian-military-links/ Bulletin, By, Phil Johnstone | November 9, 2021 Andy Stirling Andy Stirling is Professor of Science and Technology Policy in the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University where he co-directs the ESRC. Phil Johnstone is a Senior Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University. Phil has researched and published widely .

Under the AUKUS agreement, the United States and the United Kingdom plan to transfer nuclear submarine technologies to Australia. One international security scholar characterized the deal as “a terrible decision for the nonproliferation regime,” noting grave concerns for peace and security worldwide. Others have expressed concerns about “loopholes” surrounding nuclear submarine fissile materials, increased nuclear risks in the Pacific, and a potential acceleration of an arms race in the region. Still others doubt the purported efficacy of nuclear-propelled submarine designs.

Within national borders, nuclear activities often depend on expensive access to specific skills, supply chains, regulatory and design capabilities, educational and research institutions, and waste management and security infrastructures. These dependencies are especially strong in national struggles to build, maintain, and operate nuclear-propelled submarines. The AUKUS announcement overturned normally sacrosanct nuclear secrecy on these matters. It also raised bigger questions about energy policy, climate strategies, and democracy itself.

In democratic nuclear weapons states such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, shared civil-military nuclear industrial bases are largely—albeit indirectly—funded by electricity consumers. Colossal investments in new nuclear power are underwritten by anticipated revenues from future electricity sales. These investments flow through nuclear construction supply chains and outward to support military nuclear activities. In this way, crucial support is given to military infrastructures, outside of defense budgets and off the public books. But as civil nuclear power declines, this massive hidden funding flow may diminish, which presents problems for nuclear submarines whose costs are not only often prohibitive but escalating.

The AUKUS deal makes more sense when viewed in light of this crisis in the US, UK, and French national nuclear submarine industries. Spiralling civil nuclear construction delays, technological failures, bankruptcies, and fraud exercise little effect on government commitments to civil nuclear power, given pressure to underpin military capability. This is why these governments are failing to recognize the radical technology and market changes that render baseload power, according to industry, “outdated.” This is why policymakers so often neglect renewables and storage options that are outcompeting nuclear power. This is why some argue that nuclear power must persist as a “necessary part of the mix” in nuclear weapons states, despite diverse alternatives offering sufficient volumes of zero carbon power more quickly and cheaply than can nuclear.

Although well documented in the defense policy documents of existing and aspiring nuclear weapons states, these military drivers have been seriously neglected in discussions of energy and climate strategies. Recently however, some countries have begun to acknowledge the strong connections between civil and military nuclear capabilities.

In the United States, for instance, a report led by former energy secretary Ernest Moniz said in 2017 that “a strong domestic supply chain is needed to provide for nuclear Navy requirements. This supply chain has an inherent and very strong overlap with … commercial nuclear energy.” Since then, multiple high level reports have acknowledged that US military nuclear programs depend on a vibrant civil nuclear sector. “The connectivity of the civilian and military nuclear value chain—including shared equipment, services, and human capital—has created a mutually reinforcing feedback loop, wherein a robust civilian nuclear industry supports the nuclear elements of the national security establishment,” according to one study. Civil nuclear activities transfer an effective value of $26.1 billion dollars to the US military nuclear enterprise, according to this study.

In recent years, French press reports have hinted that dwindling civil nuclear power threatens national military nuclear capabilities. President Macron confirmed this when he said that “without civil nuclear power, there can be no military nuclear power.” Military drivers of civil nuclear activities are also acknowledged in more authoritarian nuclear states like Russia and China.

Australia possesses some of the most abundant and competitive renewable energy resources in the world. Yet the Australian nuclear lobby argues that acquiring military nuclear technology will benefit the claimed imperative to establish a civil nuclear industry. Prime Minister Scott Morrison asserted that he is not pushing for a civil nuclear power program, but other prominent voices disagree. Referring to submarine-derived small modular reactors, Australian politician and UK trade advisor Tony Abbott said that “if nuclear power is ok at sea, pretty soon it will be ok on land, too.” The Minerals Council for Australia claims that acquiring military nuclear technology is an “incredible opportunity” because it “connect[s] [Australia]… to the growing global nuclear power industry and its supply chains.”

Australian civil nuclear proponents welcome the aspirations of military nuclear proponents—and the reverse is also true. Australia’s military is concerned that a lack of a civil nuclear industry may pose difficulties for sustaining nuclear submarine competencies. Australian Navy Admiral Chris Barry pointed out that the absence of a civil nuclear industry left a “big gap” in the country’s ability to manage nuclear submarines. Some argue that a civil nuclear sector in Australia could provide the skills and expertise to enable military nuclear capability. Others are concerned that Australia will be the only country with nuclear submarines but no civilian nuclear industry. Military nuclear ambitions drive otherwise-inexplicable civil nuclear attachments.

In the United Kingdom, some worry about a post-imperial loss of a coveted “seat at the top table” of world affairs. Here again, nuclear submarine capabilities take center stage. Former prime minister Tony Blair worried that relinquishing nuclear capabilities would be “too big a downgrading of our status as a nation.” Meanwhile, detailed official energy policy analyses urged the government to set nuclear plans aside, given trends in renewables and related options. But shortly after a Defence Ministry report on submarine capabilities, Tony Blair swapped the open energy policy consultation for a quicker, covert process, after which the government proclaimed a “nuclear renaissance.”

The Royal Courts of Justice found reasoning for this policy insufficient, but Blair doubled down. “Nuclear power is back with a vengeance,” he said, invoking the name of the recently launched ballistic missile submarine, HMS Vengeance. He did not mention the military rationale. Since then, UK government white papers have failed to justify the country’s civil nuclear commitments—for instance by comparing nuclear costs with those of renewable alternatives. The commitment is taken for granted.

In the United Kingdom, the submarine industry’s openness about military pressures for civil nuclear power contrasts with energy policymakers’ silence. Now-declassified defense reports express grave worries that faltering civil nuclear programs undermine provision for essential military skills. Submarine-builder BAE Systems admits that funding for civil programs “masks” military costs. Naval reactor manufacturer Rolls Royce states that their expensive, government-funded efforts on ostensibly civilian small modular reactors can “relieve the burden” on Defence Ministry efforts to retain skills and capabilities for military programs.  Numerous other government documents highlight synergies between civil and military nuclear skills. Yet when challenged, the UK Government denies that civil nuclear commitments influence military activities.

Boris Johnson emphasized that the AUKUS deal offers the United Kingdom “a new opportunity to strengthen Britain’s position as a science and technology superpower, and … could reduce the cost of the next generation of nuclear submarines for the Royal Navy.” Indeed, as discussed in this publication, the deal is “…likely to have particular significance for the UK’s nuclear program” because “the UK is struggling through a number of issues related to the revamping of its nuclear enterprise.” Despite government denials, Johnson’s statement confirms that the AUKUS deal is influenced by the same cost pressures and economies of scale associated with dogged maintenance of a shared civil-military industrial base.

In failing fully to investigate this link between military nuclear and civil energy policy, the UK media have also missed more intimate connections. The senior Energy Ministry figure who negotiated the extraordinarily costly electricity contracts with France from the sole UK nuclear power plant currently under development went on to become the leading official in the Defence Ministry. This same individual confirmed under questioning by Parliament that the nuclear submarine program is connected to civil nuclear policy. And it is this same person who is reported to have played a lead role in brokering the AUKUS deal.

In the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Australia, policies in non-military, non-nuclear areas are often shaped by military nuclear interests. The AUKUS alliance is driven, in part, by a longstanding crisis in the nuclear submarine industry’s efforts to realize economies of scale. In these countries, energy policy is steered towards risky, costly, delay-prone nuclear options rather than alternatives. In the process, policymakers impede progress on vital climate targets. Throughout, the public remains unaware. So, the gravest damage inflicted by hidden nuclear military interests is not their warping effects on non-military policy but on the health of democracy. 

November 11, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Biden and Congress agree: Build Back Bombs Better

Biden and Congress agree: Build Back Bombs Better, $1.75 trillion for the social welfare/climate bill; $1.75 trillion for ‘modernizing’ nukes. Asia Times, By JOHN WALSH, NOVEMBER 8, 2021  Last Friday, the US Congress passed the “Infrastructure” Bill, which will be signed into law post haste, says the White House. The bill, designed to upgrade roads, bridges, transport and broadband, is a bricks-and-mortar affair and will benefit industry and commerce. It is the first of two bills that have been the center of attention in the US for months now

The second bill is the Build Back Better bill. This bill has provisions for childcare and preschool, elder care, health care, prescription-drug pricing, immigration and curbing greenhouse-gas emissions. This might be described as a bill for people, not for bricks and mortar. It has been the darling of progressives in Congress. The White House has now promised it will come up for a vote by November 15.

Whatever one may think of the Build Back Better bill, there is no doubt it is a shadow of its original self. The total for the Build Back Better plan was to be in the neighborhood of $6 trillion, as originally envisaged by congressional progressives, and then it slipped to about $3 trillion, and now it has shrunk again to $1.75 trillion – the incredible shrinking Build Back Better bill. 

It is woefully inadequate. On health care, greenhouse gases, family leave, education and other matters, it is little more than a stingy beginning.

Now look at the cost of “upgrading” and “modernizing” the US nuclear arsenal, a program that was originated by Barack Obama, after he got his Nobel Peace Prize, and has now ballooned beyond its original $1 trillion price tag to a stunning $1.75 trillion. No shrinkage there. For both main US political parties, no cost is too high to keep us Americans poised every instant on the razor edge of Accidental Armageddon.

Nuclear weapon “modernization,” however, is only one small corner of the total picture.  Let’s look at the entire military budget. ………..

The situation is even more barbaric when we look at the entire “national security” budget, which includes the yearly budget of the 17 “intel” agencies and comes to $1.3 trillion. No expenditure is too great, it seems, to ensure that the feds track all our phone conversations and e-mails and harass every unsuspecting Chinese student and academic they can get their mitts on. It would take only 13% of that $1.3 trillion to fund Build Back Better.     …………

From all of the above, a compelling proposal emerges. A 23% cut in the military budget (or if you wish to cast your net wider, a 13% cut in the “national security” budget) would fund the entire Build Back Better Bill – with no more cuts. 

With a 23% cut for fiscal 2022, the military budget drops from $750 billion to $580 billion. That is still well in excess of the combined military expenditures of $314 billion for China ($252 billion) and Russia ($62 billion). In fact a cut of 50% in the military outlay would still leave it at $375 billion, still higher than the combined expenditure of Russia and China.

If an elected official cannot agree to that, he or she is either paranoid or a hegemonist up to no good. In either event. they should be barred from public office………..

Bomb Back Better,” if we might call it that, will sail through Congress and the White House as effortlessly as a vulture on the wing.

Common sense suggests we Americans transfer our hard-earned dollars from guns to butter, but no such prospect is in sight. Only one act is required to get to that promised land. We must not vote for anyone who cannot see his or her way to an ironclad commitment to a 50% cut in the National “Security” Budget – for starters. It’s as easy as that.  https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/biden-and-congress-agree-build-back-bombs-better/

November 11, 2021 Posted by | politics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Escalation of nuclear tensions between USA and China as a result of the AUKUS deal


AUKUS, WEAPON PLANS SIGNAL NUCLEAR ESCALATION IN US-CHINA TENSIONS  https://ctnewsjunkie.com/2021/11/10/op-ed-aukus/

by Jamil RaglandNovember 10, 2021,  What do Groton, Connecticut, and Adelaide, Australia, have in common? Soon, both will be home to one of the United States’ most guarded secrets: nuclear submarine technology.

In mid-September, the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia announced the AUKUS trilateral security partnership (the acronym AUKUS is the combination of the abbreviation for each nation). The key feature of this new security partnership is that the United States will share its knowledge and capabilities in building nuclear-powered submarines with the Australian government. This is a major move, as the US has only shared this technology with Great Britain, the other member of AUKUS.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stressed that these would only be nuclear-powered submarines, not nuclear armed. Yet as the leaders of the AUKUS nations described their intent to “preserve security and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” all eyes turned to China, the nation which went unmentioned in the remarks, yet who was clearly the focus of the new partnership.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian responded by saying that the security partnership was “extremely irresponsible.” He went on to say that the nuclear submarine cooperation among AUKUS “has seriously undermined regional peace and stability, intensified the arms race, and undermined international non-proliferation efforts.” 

Yet China itself tested a new kind of missile in August which ups the ante in terms of weaponry. Known as a hypersonic missile, this weapon is designed to evade US missile defense systems that were built to shoot down old-style ballistic missiles that follow a predictable trajectory after launch. The new Chinese missile enters the atmosphere from a lower point and is maneuverable, which makes intercepting them much more difficult. And the missile is capable of carrying a nuclear payload.

It seems that 50 years of living with “mutually assured destruction” as an actual policy during the US-Soviet Cold War has taught the leaders of the largest nations in the world nothing about the dangers of nuclear posturing. After near accidents and close calls such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought both nations to the brink of war, it appeared that maybe a lesson had been learned. Real progress was made between the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States in reducing nuclear stockpiles. At the global peak, there were more than 70,000 nuclear weapons around the world; that number is now down to about 13,000.

But this progress is threatened by the foolhardy arms race the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson warned about, even as his nation was participating in it. We now have US military personnel bragging about the “exquisite timing” with which they can now detonate nuclear weapons to maximize their horrifying destructive capabilities. This is almost certainly a response to China’s new hypersonic missile. And up the ladder of escalation we go.

I’m too young to have experienced bomb drills during the height of the Cold War, but I had teachers who did. My eighth-grade history teacher was obsessed with impressing upon us the power of nuclear weapons; he described in detail the blast radius of a 50-megaton thermonuclear bomb. He showed us the movie The Day After, which showed the after-effects of a nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

He told us that even though we didn’t live near the nuclear silos like the families in the movies, we still weren’t safe. Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, and of course the naval base at Groton, would put Connecticut on the front lines of a nuclear conflict. I had nightmares for weeks about my impending vaporization.

But ultimately, I realized I was worried about nothing. The Soviet Union had collapsed, and Russia and the United States, while not exactly friends, weren’t exactly enemies either. We were living in what policymakers and writers called the “unipolar moment,” where the United States stood unchallenged in the world. The potential for nuclear war was confined to the movies, no matter how real they seemed.

Now though, what seemed like fantasy is creeping back into the realm of the possible. New weapons, partnerships, and acronyms can’t mask the feeling of historical déjà vu that we’re experiencing now. We even have an island nation to serve as a potential flashpoint for Armageddon – Taiwan in this case, not Cuba. Unless our leaders head off potential conflict and find a peaceful way to coexist, we may have to live with a day after that none of us want.

Jamil Ragland writes and lives in East Hartford. You can read more of his writing at www.nutmeggerdaily.com.

November 11, 2021 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Children Who Suffered When a U.S. Nuclear Test Went Wrong

The Children Who SufferedWhen a U.S. Nuclear Test Went Wrong  https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-children-who-suffered-when-a-us-nuclear-test-went-wrong

YEARS OF SUFFERING

In 1954 the U.S. executed its largest nuclear detonation. The people of the Marshall Islands would endure the effects of fallout for years.Walter Pincus Nov. 07, 2021. During the 1954 Castle Bravo test over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, America executed its largest nuclear detonation, a thousand times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Nuclear fallout rained down on inhabitants of atolls more than 100 miles away, including Rongelap.

What follows is an excerpt of Blown to Hell: America’s Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders, where Dr. Robert A. Conard, a former Navy doctor who was among those who first examined the Marshall Island natives after Bravo, discovers a new impact of the radioactive fallout on children. Beginning in 1956, as an employee of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, Conard led annual medical examinations of the Rongelapese.

Over the years, Dr. Robert A. Conard and pediatricians he brought with him to Rongelap carefully watched the slow development of several children who had been exposed to the 1954 fallout. In the survey done in March 1963, the doctors’ attention was initially focused on two boys who had been one-year-olds at the time of the fallout.

Both showed early signs of cretinism, a condition of stunted physical and mental growth owing to a deficiency of a thyroid hormone often related to iodine deficiency.

Also of particular interest was the development of a palpable nodule in the thyroid gland of 13-year-old Disi Tima, a fisherman’s daughter, who had been exposed to the Bravo fallout when she was four years old.

November 9, 2021 Posted by | children, OCEANIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ethical Investors press Serco to drop bid for contract with the Atomic Weapons Establishment

Best known for its involvement with NHS test and trace during the
coronavirus pandemic Serco is believed to have had plans to compete for
contracts with the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which makes and maintains
warheads. Serco abandoned its bid after investors warned that if the
FTSE250 company began working on nuclear weapons they may have to dump
shares to meet Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards, the
Telegraph first reported. A spokesperson for Serco declined to comment on
the news.

 City AM 7th Nov 2021

https://www.cityam.com/serco-pulls-out-of-race-to-manage-uk-nuclear-weapons/

November 9, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Winning and losing the nuclear peace

HOW TO AVOID NUCLEAR WAR, War on the Rocks, MICHAEL KREPON  8 Nov 21,  Arms control has become passé. Russian and U.S. leaders have cast aside treaties as inconvenient to their pursuit of freedom of action. Republican presidents produced great arms control achievements. At present, most Republican senators and aspirants for higher office denigrate arms control and treaty-making as a failed, unnecessary, and unwise pursuit. Arms control provided necessary guardrails in the past. Now, dangerous military practices are on the rise, especially in Ukraine and across the Taiwan Strait. U.S.-Chinese relations are trending toward crisis. Four nuclear-armed states in Asia — China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea — are increasing their nuclear arsenals. Every nuclear-armed competitor is relying increasingly on deterrence as the diplomacy of arms control is in the doldrums. If unaltered, these trend lines point toward tragedy.

Many have forgotten what is crucial to remember: Deterrence is dangerous by design and has a track record of failure in lesser cases. ……………………………………..

Those who denigrate arms control forget that, by the end of the Cold War, conditions for lasting nuclear peace were in hand — not because of strengthened deterrence, but because champions of deterrence adopted the practices of arms control. The United States and Russia were no longer enemies. Crucial norms were in place alongside the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which codified national vulnerability, thereby removing one incentive for increased nuclear force levels. Strategic forces were no longer threatening: Indeed, Boris Yeltsin agreed in the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to the prohibition of land-based missiles carrying multiple warheads. Conditions for strategic, crisis, and arms race stability were therefore at hand. Deep cuts were envisioned. Dangerous military practices were absent. Major powers respected the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of others.

This was the inheritance that Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump found unnecessary and inconvenient. ……………………..

In my book, Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace: The Rise, Demise, and Revival of Arms Control, I propose that we embrace an ambitious goal of extending the three norms of no use, no testing, and no new proliferation to the 100th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…………………………………………..

Michael Krepon is the co-founder of the Stimson Center and the author of Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace: The Rise, Demise, and Revival of Arms Control, from which this essay is drawn.   https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/how-to-avoid-nuclear-war/

November 9, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, resources - print, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Time for American lawmakers to press for USA to sign up to the UN Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty

Local Opinion: U.S. should limit nuclear weapons, Raymond Graap, Special to the Arizona Daily Star, 8 Nov 21,

ED. The writer first outlines the near misses – almost nuclear war, that have occurred from the 1960sc onward 

”……………This story is told to show how close we came, and how one individual prevented nuclear catastrophe. There have been at least seven other instances when we came very close. Nearly all were terminated by the action of one person, utilizing human judgement instead of reliance on computer warning systems. Humans have made errors, too. The last was a false alarm in Hawaii on Jan. 13, 2018, when a technician sent out the following: “EMERGENCY ALERT. BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL”. Chaotic activity throughout the state followed until a second message 38 minutes later went out advising that the first was an error.

  • So, what have we learned about controlling these global terminating weapons? That we must have a different approach. Instead of restraint, the U.S. is on a frantic race to modernize and replace all our bombers, land-based missiles and submarines. So, what are other nuclear-armed countries doing? The same. All are spending huge amounts of money on weapons that no one can use without committing national and global suicide.
  • However, for the first time in our history, a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons was passed by the United Nations in 2017 and entered into force in January of this year after the 50th nation ratified it. This represents our only hope as it outlaws the use, possession, manufacture, threat of use, and transfer of nuclear weapons. The goal is the global elimination of these sordid inventions of the human mind.

How many of the nuclear weapons-armed nations have signed on? None, the U.S. included. Our senators and representatives need to vigorously support this effort.

Graap is a retired physician and board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, , Arizona Chapter. Information about current efforts to abolish nuclear weapons is available at www.preventnuclearwar.org.  https://tucson.com/opinion/local/local-opinion-u-s-should-limit-nuclear-weapons/article_1b44011e-3e50-11ec-b9b4-c3cf4a446a5d.html

November 9, 2021 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Much pressure on President Biden to drop plans to limit nuclear weapons

Pentagon bearing down on Biden to shelve nuclear reforms

The president has pledged to narrow the role of atomic weapons. But others cite China to argue for the status quo. Politico, By BRYAN BENDER, ALEXANDER WARD and PAUL MCLEARY 11/05/2021,

President Joe Biden’s pledge to limit the role of nuclear weapons is facing growing resistance from Pentagon officials and their hawkish allies, who are arguing to keep the status quo in the face of Chinese and Russian arms buildups.

Biden’s top national security advisers will soon review the conditions under which the United States might resort to using nuclear weapons. Among the options are adopting a “no first use” policy, or declaring that the “sole purpose” of the arsenal is to deter a nuclear conflict and not use them in response to a conventional war or other strategic assault like a cyber attack.

Both would mark major departures from the current posture, which has been purposely ambiguous throughout the nuclear age about whether the United States might strike first, and holds that atomic weapons are for “deterrence of nuclear and non-nuclear attack.”

Biden’s National Security Council plans to convene a high-level meeting on nuclear declaratory policy this month, according to a White House official who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

But China’s surprising nuclear expansion in recent months alongside Russia’s modernization of its arsenal has strengthened the hand of military leaders who oppose any policy changes or significant cuts to a new generation of missiles, bombers and other atomic weapons, according to a half a dozen current and former government officials privy to the discussions.

Lack of answers’

Biden’s allies in Congress are also beginning to complain about the lack of details from the administration on the nuclear review process, who is advising it, and what it might mean for the president’s goals.

“The Nuclear Posture Review must reflect the President’s guidance to ‘reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national strategy,’” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and co-chair of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group, told POLITICO.

Markey penned a letter to Biden in September seeking further explanation on why the Pentagon removed Leonor Tomero from her position running the nuclear review. Tomero, a longtime nuclear policy official, previously worked for Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, who has promised legislation to adopt a no first use policy………………..

The “Pentagon’s lack of answers to date about the Nuclear Posture Review leave me concerned the policy review will prioritize the old assumptions of the military industrial complex at the expense of diverse voices seeking to reduce nuclear risks,” Markey told POLITICO in a statement.

…………………..  leading arms control advocates don’t sound hopeful that Biden will get the full menu to choose from. “We want to make sure that the president is presented with a full range of options even those that particular agencies — NSC, the Pentagon — may not prefer or recommend,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “And it would be a disservice to the president’s Nuclear Posture Review if the nuclear weapons blob at the Pentagon were to give him a limited range of options.”  https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/05/pentagon-biden-nuclear-weapons-519738

November 8, 2021 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Serco pulls out of bidding for work on UK’s nuclear arsenal, because of ethical investing concerns

The rise of ethical investing has forced the outsourcer Serco to
pull out of bidding to help manage Britain’s nuclear weapons arsenal,
leaving the Ministry of Defence reliant on fewer potential partners for the
critical work. The FTSE 250 company has abandoned plans to compete for
contracts with the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which designs, makes and
maintains warheads, City sources revealed. The decision follows warnings
from fund managers that working with nuclear weapons might force them to
dump Serco shares due to non-compliance with Environmental, Social and
Governance (ESG) standards.

 Telegraph 6th Nov 2021

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/11/06/ethical-investors-block-bid-nuclear-weapons-contracts/c

November 8, 2021 Posted by | business and costs, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UN ”Code of Conduct” towards preventing arms race in space, but no treaty banning weapons in space

Alice Slater, 7 Nov 21, The arms controllers have advanced their proposal for a Code of Conduct in space instead of a treaty to ban weapons in space.   The country’s who have repeatedly been denied an opportunity to negotiate a space ban treaty in the consensus bound Disarmament Committee in Geneva,  like Russia and China, have opposed this proposal, because it won’t create binding law and is an end run and distraction around negotiating a treaty to ban weapons in space.  It will look like we’re doing something when we aren’t willing to be legally bound by it!   The new American Empire way!!

Outer Space: UN Committee Advances Proposal on Rules Governing Behavior in Space

A United Nations panel overwhelmingly approved a resolution Nov. 1 to create a working group aimed at preventing an arms race in outer space, setting up the measure to pass in the General Assembly. The resolution, introduced by the United Kingdom with the support of more than 30 other nations, including the U.S., would establish an open-ended working group that would “ make recommendations on possible norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviors relating to threats by States to space systems.” The measure was approved by the U.N.’s First Committee, which deals with disarmament and international security threats, in a landslide 163-8 vote, with nine abstentions. Those opposed included Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Syria. (Air Force Magazine)

See also: UN Committee says yes to establishing space rules group (Space Watch)

See also: UN Committee Votes ‘Yes’ On UK-US-Backed Space Rules Group (Breaking Defense)

See also: The United Nations Could Finally Create New Rules for Space (Wired)

November 8, 2021 Posted by | 2 WORLD, space travel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

NATO chief advises UK to deal with climate change threat to its Trident nuclear weapons at Faslane

 COP26: NATO chief says it is up to UK to address Trident climate change flooding threat. NATO’s secretary general has stressed that it is up to individual nation members of the alliance to take action to protect military resources from the impacts of climate change, amid warnings that Faslane, the home of the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent, could be
impacted by flooding due to rising sea levels.

 Scotsman 3rd Nov 2021

https://www.scotsman.com/news/defence/cop26-nato-chief-says-it-is-up-to-uk-to-address-trident-climate-change-flooding-threat-3443798

November 6, 2021 Posted by | climate change, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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