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It’s time to be fearful of nuclear war again

Nuclear War Makes a Comeback  https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/nuclear-war-makes-comeback     It’s time to revisit the old fear that kept your parents up at night, BY CAROL POLSGROVE | AUG 31 2020 On websites where policymakers, scholars, and military leaders gather, concern about the possibility of nuclear war has been rising sharply in recent months as China, the United States, and Russia develop new weapons and new ways of using old ones.

On War on the Rocks, an online platform for national security articles and podcasts, Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, reported August 11 on public calls in China “to quickly and massively build up its nuclear forces” on the theory that only a “more robust nuclear posture” would prevent war with the United States.

The biggest nuclear arms budget ever is nearing approval in the US Congress, and the Trump administration has raised the possibility of resuming nuclear tests. President Trump has pulled the United States out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, while the New Start Treaty capping Russian and US nuclear warheads and delivery systems is set to expire next February if the two countries don’t agree to extend it.

For its part, Russia appears poised to equip its navy with hypersonic nuclear strike weapons, and according to the British newspaper The Independent, “The Russian premier has repeatedly spoken of his wish to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons that can be targeted anywhere on the planet.”

Meanwhile, momentum to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons has faltered. Nine nations now hold nuclear arms in an increasingly unsettled international scene. Recent research has shown that a nuclear exchange between just two of those with lesser arsenals—India and Pakistan—“could directly kill about 2.5 times as many as died worldwide in WWII, and in this nuclear war, the fatalities could occur in a single week.” Burning cities would throw so much soot into the upper atmosphere that temperatures and precipitation levels would fall across much of the earth—bringing widespread drought, famine, and death.

Clashes between India, Pakistan, and other nuclear-armed states have become frequent enough that the International Red Cross marked the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a warning: “[T]he risk of use of nuclear weapons has risen to levels not seen since the end of the Cold War.”

For 75 years, the nuclear Sword of Damocles has dangled over the earth. There is widespread agreement among analysts that the long lull may soon be over—owing, in part, to the end of the Cold War. During those decades, the United States and the USSR cooperated not only to avoid bombing each other into oblivion but also to discourage other nations from gaining their own nuclear arms, in part by spreading their nuclear umbrellas over their allies.

That international system has dissolved. In addition to the United States, Russia, and China, other nations have nuclear weapons and more are likely to soon acquire them. And a new possibility has appeared on the horizon: the increased likelihood that nuclear weapons could be introduced into conventional warfare in regional wars.

In a monograph published by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, US defense policy and strategy analyst John K. Warden writes that “in the capitals of potential adversary countries,” the idea is taking hold “that nuclear wars can be won because they can be kept limited, and thus can be fought—even against the United States.”

What can the United States do to convince adversaries not to introduce nuclear weapons into a conventional war—to make clear, in advance, that taking such a step would lead to fatal consequences for the country that took it?

The answer from the US national security establishment, as the fiscal 2021 defense budget suggests, is a readiness to fight fire with fire: If the “adversaries” of the United States hold out the threat of introducing nuclear weapons in a conventional war, then (the argument goes) they should expect that the United States will respond in kind.

How many weapons and delivery systems would that require? A lot, according to the nuclear budget for the Departments of Defense and Energy now going through Congress. At a time when COVID-19 has shaken the foundations of the federal budget, Congress is close to approving $44.5 billion for fiscal 2021 to modernize nuclear warheads, delivery systems, and the infrastructure that supports them.

Sierra Club nuclear policy director John Coequyt has called on Congress “to resist the current renewal of the nuclear arms race and to ban the use of nuclear weapons,” and Sierra Club members have mobilized to try to stop funding for nuclear war projects in their neighborhoods.

In South Carolina, for instance, Tom Clements, Sierra Club member and director of Savannah River Site Watch, has joined other groups in challenging plans for expanded plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site. And the Ohio Sierra Club’s Nuclear Free Committee has opposed production at the Portsmouth Nuclear Site in Piketon of “high-assay low-enriched uranium” that could be upgraded for weapons use, in the United States or elsewhere.

While such efforts often focus on local effects of nuclear weapons production, they also manifest a larger concern. Says the Club’s Nuclear Free Core Team’s Mark Muhich, the renewed nuclear arms race is “an existential threat both to human civilization and to the earth.”

Join the conversation in the Nuclear Free Campaign room of the Sierra Club Grassroots Network. 

Read the Sierra Club’s policy statements on nuclear weapons here.

September 1, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Plowshares’ Clare Grady, longtime Catholic Worker and peace activist, may face 21 years in gaol

September 1, 2020 Posted by | Legal, PERSONAL STORIES, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

“Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World.” – new book

 

Fallout’: New book sobering reminder of nuclear devastation 75 years after entering atomic age   https://www.dailylobo.com/article/2020/08/fallout-new-book-sobering-reminder-of-nuclear-devastation-75-years-after-entering-atomic-age  By Hevyn Heckes  31 Aug 20,  New Mexicans are perhaps more acutely aware of U.S. nuclear capabilities and the bomb, “Little Boy,” dropped on Hiroshima, since its predecessors were developed and tested in our own backyard. However, most people alive today will not remember the immediate aftereffects of the outsized attack on Japanese citizens that capped off the second world war.

Modern awareness of the atomic bomb and the events of WWII are mostly relegated to fictionalized accounts contained in films such as “Pearl Harbor” and “Schindler’s List.” The events surrounding WWII have long since become a cultural legend, and first-person memories of these events no longer exist. We’ve simply forgotten the horrors of global war — until now.

Leslie M. M. Blume set out to refresh our collective memory regarding the widely recognized end of WWII in “Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World.” She has done so in spectacular fashion – recalling our consciousness to the famous New Yorker article written by one John Hersey.

Blume details the difficulties Hersey confronted in reporting the truth of the atomic bomb’s lingering effects on Japanese citizens and the censorship levied against war correspondents prior to and during Hersey’s investigative presence in Japan.

Blume somehow manages to insert the reader in a manner usually only employed by fiction novels. She plies the reader with insight into how Hersey was able to convince Japanese victims to talk to him – a man they had every reason to hate and mistrust as a representative of their enemies in the U.S.

She explains that Hersey’s interviewees found him affable, educated and empathetic. His personal qualities endeared him to these people who would otherwise have gladly sent him on his way without a word.

Reading this book provides a timely and poignant reminder on the 75th anniversary of the bombings. One is forced to confront the human cost of nuclear weapons. Blume brilliantly interweaves Hersey’s reporting with her own so the reader is able to feel present with Hersey during his research and the victims of Little Boy’s aftereffects.

It becomes more and more clear that those who perished immediately with the bomb’s initial blast were the lucky ones.

Hersey and Blume graphically recount the physiological and psychological trauma Little Boy’s victims endured. One particularly memorable excerpt states, “(Japanese soldiers’) eyes had melted away in their sockets; the liquid had run in rivulets down their faces, which were burned beyond recognition.” Other excerpts tell of victims whose faces had “melted” with the blast so that their appearance seemed blurred.

Clearly, this novel contains sensitive and graphic depictions of physical trauma suffered by Japanese citizens of Hiroshima. This fact takes nothing away from the importance of the reader confronting these depictions to truly understand the catastrophic risks of nuclear war.

Fictional chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm (played memorably by Jeff Goldblum) said in the film “Jurassic Park,” “Your scientists were so concerned with figuring out if they could that they didn’t stop to ask themselves whether or not they should.” This concept and ethical philosophy is perhaps more applicable to the invention of the atomic bomb — a weapon capable of far more devastating effects, up to and including nuclear winter, environmental devastation and species annihilation, than a few stray T-Rexes in a theme park.

As Hersey conveys and Blume emphasizes, nuclear weapons are a tool that could potentially bring about humanity’s self-inflicted extinction. Hersey’s reporting on the atomic bomb’s effects on the citizens of Hiroshima is perhaps a deterrent preventing nuclear disaster, but we must keep these consequences at the front of our minds to continue avoiding the doomsday clock finally tolling the midnight hour. “Fallout” is the poignant reminder we need right now.

Hevyn Heckes is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @H_Squared90

September 1, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, resources - print, weapons and war | Leave a comment

75 years on, the plan is still for planet-ending nuclear confrontation

It’s been 75 years   Why are we still planning for the ultimate planet-ending act?,  By Ray Acheson, on August 30, 2020 by beyondnuclearinternational

Reaching Critical Will, a program of the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, has released its new report — Assuring Destruction Forever: 2020 edition. This is its introduction, (edited here for publication timing), a powerful reminder of the lessons humanity has yet to learn, 75 years after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It’s August 2020. Seventy-five years since a US president sitting in Washington, DC decided to drop two atomic bombs on the people of Japan—one on the city of Hiroshima, the other on Nagasaki. Thus began the nuclear age, marked with the construction of multiple “doomsday machines” programmed for unwinnable wars and global conflagration; astonishing wastes of human and financial resources; bullish, masculinised conflicts among states that deploy violence here and there while dancing around their potential for planet-ending acts; and the relentless peddling of all this as completely, totally, and undeniably rational.

Seventy-five years of apocalyptic potential

But it is not rational. And the continued investment by certain governments in not just the maintenance but also the “modernisation”—the upgrading, updating, and life- extending—of nuclear weapons is absurd, dangerous, and immoral. Fortunately, during the COVID-19 crisis, people are starting to take notice of where all of the money—in many cases, taxpayers’ money—has gone; of why their governments cannot provide basic protective equipment and medical supplies and services during a global pandemic. And even more fortunately, there is something we can do to get rid of the threat of nuclear weapons and release trillions of dollars to deal with real, rather than imagined, crises of security, safety, and stability: we can divest, and we can disarm.

For seventy-five years, the world has lived under the threat of radioactive blast and firestorm, the effects of which are immediately devastating and punishingly intergenerational. For seventy five years, from production to testing and use to storage of radioactive waste, nuclear weapon activities have contaminated land and water—and will continue to do so for thousands of years more. For seventy-five years, a very few governments—nine, at current count—have decided to invest trillions of dollars into these instruments of death and destruction. For seventy-five years, corporations like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Bechtel have reaped incredible profits from government contracts for bombs and bombers. Certain academics, politicians, and bureaucrats have risen through the ranks of think tanks or government administrations in positions bankrolled by the nuclear profiteers, spinning theories of “nuclear deterrence” and “strategic stability” to justify this massive, unconscionable investment in technologies of massive violence.

It’s been seventy-five years. Will we reach one hundred if we continue on like this? Can we survive a century with nuclear weapons? Can we survive a century of wasted money and ingenuity; a century of tensions between human beings armed to the death with the capacity to destroy entire cities, countries, the world, in moments; a century of living with this existential threat while another, that of climate change, promises even more damage and uncertainty ahead?

The question of can we, though, is not as relevant as should we. Should we just keep going, the way the nuclear war mongers want? They say we’ll be fine. Better than if we were to disarm, they argue. Eliminating nuclear weapons will “destabilise” international relations, they assert. It will mean another global conflict, invasions and occupations, “dogs and cats living together.”

Preparing for major apocalypse in the midst of a “minor” one

Right now, we are in the midst of a global pandemic for which no governments were sufficiently prepared. We do not have enough basic equipment like ventilators and protection for health care workers. Capitalist economies are tanking as the majority of workers have been ordered to stay at home to prevent the virus from spreading even more rampantly than it has already. Millions of people have lost or will lose their jobs. Hundreds of thousands have and will lose their lives.

But don’t worry: the nuclear-armed states can still launch their nuclear weapons! US Strategic Command has said that the coronavirus has had “no impact” on the ability of the United States to launch its nuclear weapons. “Right now across the command, we are working to make sure that our ICBMs remain on alert and our critical command and control capabilities stay viable,” say those in charge of the US doomsday machine.

While nuclear weapon forces in all nuclear-armed states are likely to be affected by the pandemic and may have to delay or reduce active deployments or other activities they deem necessary for the effectiveness of their “deterrence” doctrines, the fact is that there are still approximately 13,410 nuclear weapons in the world. While this is significantly less than the 70,000+ kicking around in the 1980s, it is still more than enough to destroy our planet many, many times over………….

Even without the detonation of a nuclear bomb, accidentally or on purpose, these weapons are costing lives. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has calculated annual nuclear weapon spending in three countries and compared it to the costs of meeting immediate health care needs during the coronavirus pandemic. In France, for example, which spends approximately €4.5 billion a year right now on its nuclear weapon programme, the government could redirect those funds to pay for 100,000 hospital beds for intensive care units, 10,000 ventilators, and the salaries of French nurses and 10,000 doctors. In each of the nuclear-armed states, the money spent on nuclear weapons has directly impacted the resources available to deal with the pandemic. ……….

it is not just during the COVID-19 pandemic that we need to be concerned with nuclear weapon maintenance, modernisation, or use. This is a pandemic we live with every day, to the point where it has become completely normal for the vast majority of people in the world. Out of sight, out of mind. Missile tests don’t even make the news. Nuclear weapon tests, such as those most recently by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), grab the headlines for a moment—but the fact that those most vocally condemning the DPRK’s actions possess far larger nuclear arsenals themselves is virtually never discussed outside of antinuclear activist circles.

We cannot wait until a nuclear weapon is used again before we pay attention and act to end the threat of nuclear war. We don’t have to.

In 2017, the majority of the world’s countries negotiated and adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It outlaws the possession, use, threat of use, and development of nuclear weapons. It closes existing legal gaps in international law, provides for nuclear disarmament, and categorically rejects the idea nuclear weapons provide security or stability.

Among other things, this treaty precludes nuclear weapon modernisation, and bans any assistance—material or otherwise—with such programmes. This follows the letter and spirit of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which obligates nuclear-armed states both to nuclear disarmament and to ceasing the nuclear arms race. None of the nuclear-armed governments are in compliance with either treaty. It is here, on the basis of international law and all of the commitments and actions to which these governments have voluntarily subscribed over the past fifty years, that we can demand an end to nuclear weapons.

It is also on the basis of public health, environmental protection, and of morality and human rights, that we can demand nuclear weapon divestment and disarmament. It is past time to unleash the funds and the forces of human ingenuity to more productive, positive, progressive ends: towards a Green New Deal and a Red Deal. Towards health care, housing, education, food, decarceration and prison abolition, migration, and more. Towards international relations and transnational cooperation based on peace, equity, justice, and solidarity, instead of weapons and war.

Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. This article forms the introduction to the organizations’ new report — Assuring Destruction Forever. We have elected not to change its British spellings.  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/08/30/its-been-75-years/

 

August 31, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Shoeshone people – theirs the most nuclear bombed territory on Earth

August 31, 2020 Posted by | environment, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Nuclear colonialism. ICAN says that France must clean up its nucleat test wastelands in Algeria

France must clean up Algerian nuclear test sites: group,  https://www.france24.com/en/20200826-france-must-clean-up-algerian-nuclear-test-sites-group  28 Aug 20, France must clean up nuclear test sites in Algeria where radioactive waste remains from testing in the former colony during the 1960s, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning group said Wednesday.

France carried out 17 nuclear explosions in the Algerian part of the Sahara Desert between 1960 and 1966.

Eleven of the tests came after the 1962 Evian Accords ended the six-year war of independence and 132 years of colonial rule.
“France must give the Algerian authorities the full list of where the contaminated toxic waste was buried,” the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said in a new 60-page report.

“The ‘nuclear past’ must no longer remain deeply buried under the sand,” ICAN said, citing the concerned areas as the western Reggane region and a zone close to the In Ekker village.

The campaign group identified contaminated, radioactive elements that have either been buried, or are easily accessible.

“The majority of the waste is in the open air, without any security, and accessible by the population, creating a high level of sanitary and environmental insecurity,” ICAN said.The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize laureate group added that almost nothing has been done to clean the sites, inform the populations and evaluate the risks.

Exposure to radioactive material can cause cancer.

“This case study shows once more an asymmetry of power and an injustice that we find all through nuclear history,” Giorgio Franceschini, director of the Heinrich Boll Foundation which published the report, said in his forward.

“It is not a coincidence that France tested its first nuclear weapon in Algeria, that was still a French colony in 1960,” he added.

France refused to sign up the UN’s 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, whereas Algeria signed and is in the process of ratifying the legally binding agreement.

Since Algeria’s independence, Franco-Algerian relations have been tumultuous.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in July called on France to fully apologise for its colonial past.

An apology could “make it possible to cool tensions and create a calmer atmosphere for economic and cultural relations”, especially for the more than six million Algerians who live in France, he said.

August 29, 2020 Posted by | AFRICA, France, indigenous issues, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

“Super Swarm” drones- weaponry as destructive as nuclear weapons

US, China Developing “Super Swarm” Drones With Destruction Power Equivalent To Nuclear Weapons, https://eurasiantimes.com/us-china-developing-super-swarm-drones-with-destruction-power-equivalent-to-nuclear-weapons/   August 28, 2020, EurAsian Times Global Desk

With the US and China leading the development of swarming drone capabilities, they are now looking at not just swarming techniques but also counter swarming tactics. Experts have argued that some drones that are under development are capable of sufficient destructive power to count as Weapons of Mass Destruction.

According to Isaac Kaminer, an engineering professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School who is an expert in the subject of swarming and counter swarming tactics, large-scale adversarial swarms are already an imminent threat. He suggested that stopping a swarm is not simply a matter of driving enough missiles or bullets at it; instead, the swarm has to be outsmarted.

“A swarm with 10,000 or more drones must have extremely high levels of autonomy,” said consultant Zak Kallenborn talking to the Forbes. “No human being could handle the amount of information necessary to make decisions.“

 

Kaminer defines a ‘Super Swarm’ with large numbers and multiple modes like air, surface, and subsurface threats. The US Navy has already performed offensive swarm operations with its LOCUST drone swarm developed by Raytheon.

According to the developer of LOCUST drone swarm, dozens of small unmanned aircraft systems fly together, filling the sky. Some are collecting information. Some are identifying ground targets. Others might attack the same targets.

“They fly together like a flock of birds, tracking their positions and maintaining their relative positions in the air. Human operators are not needed for every flying drone; instead, they direct the flock as one.”

 

Currently, the drones are controlled remotely by humans which limits the capabilities both due to the demand for personnel and bandwidth restrictions. Only a few numbers can be used. However, if swarming algorithms are developed it would allow the drones to control itself and hence much larger number can be used increasing its lethality.

It works similar to a swarm of birds or insects. Every member adheres to the same rules to follow cohesion without colliding with each other. This will allow it to work without any central control.

David Hambling, who is also the author of ‘Swarm Troopers: How small drones will conquer the world’, wrote that such a swarm can be defeated by taking advantage of its internal rules – if these can be figured out.

“For example, an entire swarm whose members all have a collision-avoidance rule can be ‘herded’ by a few outsider drones or may be fooled into running into each other. If the members of the swarm are all programmed to attack what they see as the highest-value target in range, then they can all be decoyed into attacking the same dummy.”

The biggest challenge for the US comes from China who is also developing swarming capability as a means of asymmetric warfare, to counterpoise the US advantage in aircraft carriers. Last year, satellite images posted on the Chinese internet displayed a lineup of several drones including the Sharp Sword stealth drone and the Wing Loong Reaper.

Considering the fast pace of development of such technologies it is important to have international laws in place. “The opportunity to develop global norms and treaties around drone swarms and other autonomous weapons is now, “ says Kallenborn. “Collective limits on the number of armed drones in a swarm would reduce the risk to civilians and national security.”

August 29, 2020 Posted by | China, Reference, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Kazakhstan’s moves toward a world free of nuclear weapons

Leading the way to a world free of nuclear weapons, Today more than ever, the world needs leadership in the field of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Kazakhstan keeps providing this leadership, writes Jonathan Granoff.   https://www.euractiv.com/section/central-asia/opinion/leading-the-way-to-a-world-free-of-nuclear-weapons/  28 Aug 20, Jonathan Granoff is the president of the Global Security Institute.In 1949, the first of over 450 nuclear explosive tests, surprised the residents in towns and villages in the northeast corner of Kazakhstan. The sky lit up with a blinding flash of light followed by an enormous mushroom cloud. In houses books falling from shelves and the crashing of dishes could be heard. They had not been forewarned.

For the next forty years, silently, in the bodies of at least one and half million citizens the consequence of the radioactive fall-out of those hundreds of explosions inflicted numerous diseases such as cancer and horrible birth defects. Not only did the explosions cause cracks in houses and roads.

It caused the crack of tragedy in the hearts of millions. The people of Kazakhstan, because of those nuclear tests in the windswept steppe test site at Semipalatinsk, know all too well the reality of nuclear weapons

Millions of activists worldwide in the late 1980s protested nuclear testing, prominent amongst those protests was the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement, bringing together the voices of citizens of the USA and the then Soviet Union.

The protesters in Kazakhstan demonstrated enormous courage for they were still living in a system where political repression posed serious dangers.

But times changed and that became very clear when Kazakhstan’s First President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, came into office. He did not ignore or avoid addressing these dreadful devices and their national and global impact.

He set out to bring his sense of responsibility as a witness to the reality of nuclear weapons into meaningful action, not only for his nation but also for the world.

First and foremost, he supported the brave activists who protested the testing in Kazakhstan and he signed the historic Decree shutting down the Semipalatinsk test site on 29 August 1991.

It should be noted Kazakhstan was then still part of the Soviet Union. In his speeches, Nazarbayev has always emphasized that the closure expressed the will of the people.

This bold gesture helped stimulate a moratorium on testing which has to this day restrained the five permanent members of the Security Council and holders of more than 97% of the world’s nuclear arsenals (the P5) – United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France from further testing.

It also gave momentum to the global movement to create a treaty to end all nuclear testing, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). 29 August is now the International Day against Nuclear Tests. It was established on December 2, 2009 at the 64th session of the United Nations General

Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, Kazakhstan, under the leadership of Nazarbayev, set a precedent in world history by abandoning the world’s 4th largest nuclear arsenal and the status of a de facto nuclear power.

This decision was crucial not only for the formation and further development of Kazakhstan but also had far-reaching global consequences. Kazakhstan had inherited more than 100 stationary-based missiles with about 1,400 nuclear warheads.

In addition, 40 strategic Tu-95 MS bombers with 240 cruise nuclear missiles were deployed in Kazakhstan. Giving up this powerful arsenal gained the nation enormous international good will and recognition, and the moral credibility to demand progress on legal duties of all nuclear weapons states to negotiate the universal elimination of nuclear weapons.

Nazarbayev’s strategic decision was instrumental in stimulating confidence in the maturity of independent Kazakhstan. It remains an action of national pride and international respect.

Kazakhstan also set out to address the nuclear non-proliferation problem. In 2017, under the leadership of Nazarbayev, it created the world’s first bank for low enriched uranium under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

This unique mechanism provides countries around the world with the opportunity to develop peaceful nuclear energy without the need to create their own uranium enrichment programs, which represents a proliferation danger.

Kazakhstan has also become an active participant in absolutely all basic international treaties and institutions in the field of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and a strong contributor to stability in the world.

For example, under Nazarbayev’s leadership, it was a leading contributor in the creation of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (CANWFZ) signed into force by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on 8 September 2006.

Current President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is continuing the country’s nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament commitments. The world needs leadership today in this field more than ever.

The Nursultan Nazarbayev Foundation has established the “Nazarbayev Prize for Nuclear Weapon Free World and Global Security”, which is awarded every 2 years on 29 August for outstanding contributions to non-proliferation and disarmament.

It was first presented in 2017 to King of Jordan Abdullah II. In 2019, the laureates were the Executive Secretary of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission, Lassina Zerbo and former IAEA Director-General Yukio Amano (posthumously).

In 2012, Nazarbayev announced the launch of the ATOM Project (Abolish Testing – Our Mission). ATOM is an online petition to world governments to forever abandon nuclear testing and to bring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty into force as soon as possible.

Speaking at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in September 2015, Kazakhstan’s First President called for making the construction of a world without nuclear weapons the main goal of mankind in the 21st century and the adoption of the UN Universal Declaration on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World.

In 2016, in his Manifesto: The World, The 21st Century”, Nazarbayev sets forth a comprehensive vision to move toward a world without reliance on militarism and war, but based on a cooperative human-centred approach to security. Now, a recognized official UN document, it contains realistic policy proposals worthy of serious debate today.

The solution of many problems in the field of global security, conflict prevention and resolution, and especially nuclear disarmament depend on the availability of environments and platforms for honest debate and dialogue.

President Nazarbayev thus established the Astana Club – a forum where annually more than 50 world renown politicians and experts discuss current security issues in Eurasia and beyond.

In November 2019, as part of the fifth meeting of the Club, Nazarbayev initiated the creation of an authoritative political platform, the Global Alliance of Leaders for a Nuclear-Free World.

GAL is an alliance of leaders that will allow for an open dialogue with members of the “nuclear club” and make a feasible contribution to strengthening global security.

Kazakhstan, within the framework of the GAL, will act as a neutral dialogue platform for both nuclear and non-nuclear states.

Those who have already supported the project and expressed their readiness to contribute to the implementation of this initiative include former heads of state, heads of international organizations and famous experts: Heinz Fischer (Austrian Federal President 2004-2016), Mohammed El-Baradei, IAEA Director General 1997-2009, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), Lassina Zerbo (CTBTO Executive Secretary), and others of similar stature.

Nazarbayev, stimulated by perestroika and President Mikhail Gorbachev’s new thinking, developed a vision of a peace loving, open minded, dynamic nation respectful of the rule of law that could be a responsible actor in world affairs.

A bold perspective given the turbulence of these times, it requires diligent and courageous perseverance and a people of enormous dynamism to help advance it, including finding a path to ensuring that the ethnic and religious diversity of their nation can remain harmonious and not lead to conflict as it has been the case so many times in other places. Again, Kazakhstan is providing a good example.

August 29, 2020 Posted by | Kazakhstan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Air Force pursues ‘dual-use’ conventional nuclear weapons. “conventional nuclear”???

Air Force pursues ‘dual-use’ conventional nuclear weapons   This contradiction forms the conceptual basis for the Pentagon’s current nuclear-weapons strategy, Fox News, By Kris Osborn | Warrior Maven 28 Aug 20,   It might seem like a paradox: be ready to fight a limited “tactical” nuclear war and maintain an ability to ensure catastrophic annihilation of an enemy with nuclear weapons to keep the peace.

This contradiction forms the conceptual basis for the Pentagon’s current nuclear-weapons strategy, which not only calls for a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), but also directs the development and deployment of several low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons options.

This includes nuclear-armed cruise missiles, submarine-launched nuclear weapons with low-yield warheads, scalable air-launched nuclear missiles and glide bombs………..

Some have raised a concern that developing nuclear and conventional variants of the same weapon might lead an adversary to mistake a conventional attack for a nuclear one, therefore causing major unwanted escalation and starting a nuclear exchange.

Others also maintain that there should not, in any fashion, be room for the concept of a “tactical” or “limited” nuclear war. Any use of nuclear weapons, the thinking goes, should result in the complete and total nuclear destruction of the attacker…….. https://www.foxnews.com/tech/air-force-pursues-dual-use-conventional-nuclear-weapons

August 29, 2020 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trump administration sends mixed signals on nuclear weapons budgeting

Trump administration sends mixed signals on nuclear weapons budgeting, Defense News, By: Joe Gould and Aaron Mehta  28 Aug 20, WASHINGTON ― Defense hawks in Congress are pushing a contentious plan to give the Pentagon a stronger hand in crafting nuclear weapons budgets, but the Trump administration has been sending mixed messaging over recent weeks about whether the change is needed.

The Senate-passed version of the annual defense policy bill would give the Pentagon-led Nuclear Weapons Council a say in the budget development of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy that’s responsible for the stockpile’s safety, security, and effectiveness.

However, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities Vic Mercado told reporters that change is unneeded; the status quo between the Defense Department’s nuclear modernization efforts and NNSA is appropriate.

“I think right now we have it about right,” Mercado said in an interview this month. Nuclear deterrence falls under Mercado’s portfolio as an adviser to the defense secretary and undersecretary for policy.

The remarks could be read as neutral as the House and Senate debate competing proposals as part of their deliberations on the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act…….. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/08/25/trump-administration-sends-mixed-signals-on-nuclear-weapons-budgeting/

August 29, 2020 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

If the arms treaty with Russia ends USA will spend even more than the planned $1.2 trillion on nuclear weapons

August 27, 2020 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Australia entangled in America’s military-industrial-intelligence-security complex 

August 27, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Frank Barnaby, nuclear weapons scientist and global hero

he gave evidence in Japan against the used of mixed uranium and plutonium oxide fuel, known as MOX, in a reactor at Fukushima. “Frank’s testimony was so impressive and read by the governor of the region that it stopped the loading of MOX fuel for more than 10 years,” said Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International. In 2011, the reactor was overwhelmed by a devastating tsunami, but because of this intervention Japan was spared the release of many hundreds of tons of fission products – “in other words the evacuation of 50 million plus and the end of central Japan as a functioning society.

August 25, 2020 Posted by | 2 WORLD, PERSONAL STORIES, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia releases previously classified film of “Tsar Bomba” the most powerful nuclear bomb blast E\eve

Russia Releases “Tsar Bomba” Test Footage Of The Most Powerful Nuclear Bomb Blast Ever This previously classified film provides a new and fascinating glimpse into the 50-megaton Cold War nuclear test that occurred nearly six decades ago. The Drive BY THOMAS NEWDICK, AUGUST 24, 2020    The nuclear bomb, codenamed “Ivan,” that was dropped by the Soviet Union over Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean on October 30, 1961, was the largest device of its kind ever detonated. The monstrous weapon had a yield of around 50 megatons — equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT. Until now, the available imagery of that test has been strictly limited, consisting of short, grainy clips and poor-quality stills.


The colossal Ivan device was developed under a program known as izdeliye 202 (meaning “product 202”, otherwise known simply as “V”). Years later, when more details became known about it in the West, the weapon would be dubbed “Tsar Bomba.”
On August 20, 2020, the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation — the Russian state concern responsible for nuclear enterprises, including nuclear weapons — released a 30-minute documentary film on its official YouTube channel showing the test in unprecedented detail, from the initial transport of the device itself to the mushroom cloud that later rose some 6.2 miles over the Arctic archipelago. The release of the film coincides with the 75th anniversary of Russia’s nuclear industry — although a thermonuclear bomb popularly described in the West as a “doomsday weapon” was perhaps an unusual choice for the commemoration. ………..
According to the video, the Tu-95V was 28 miles away from the release point, and the detonation produced a fireball visible 621 miles away, despite cloudy conditions. “The explosion was accompanied by a bright flash of unusual strength,” the narrator explains. Within seconds, a column of dust had risen to a height of around 6 miles. ………

for “dozens of kilometers” in every direction, the earth has been scorched, most of the snow vaporized, and the few structures that existed above the surface have been obliterated.

……….. the largest nuclear device ever detonated by the United States was the one it set off during the Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific on March 1, 1954.
………  Ivan’s detonation was destined to be a high watermark in atmospheric nuclear testing. Amid mounting concern about the fallout generated by above-ground tests, the Partial Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963 by the governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Thereafter, all tests were required to be conducted underground.
The Ivan bomb was ultimately too large to be of practical military use — both in terms of delivery and finding targets that warranted its use. However, the Soviet Union remained heavily engaged in developing freefall nuclear bombs alongside missiles and other delivery systems.
………  The release of this Cold War-era documentary is a sobering reminder of the lingering presence of these weapons and their awesome destructive power.
Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com    https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35953/russia-releases-tsar-bomba-test-footage-of-the-most-powerful-nuclear-bomb-blast-ever

August 25, 2020 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Chinese viewpoint on nuclear deterrence and cyberattacks

August 25, 2020 Posted by | China, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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