”Peaceful” nuclear powerr for nuclear weaponry in space
US military eyes nuclear thermal rocket for missions in Earth-moon space, Space.com, By Mike Wall 1 Oct 20,
DARPA awarded a $14 million task order to help make it happen. The U.S. military aims to get a nuclear thermal rocket up and running, to boost its ability to monitor the goings-on in Earth-moon space.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) just awarded a $14 million task order to Gryphon Technologies, a company in Washington, D.C., that provides engineering and technical solutions to national security organizations.
The money will support DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program, whose main goal is to demonstrate a nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) system in Earth orbit. ……. https://www.space.com/darpa-nuclear-thermal-rocket-for-moon-contract
Trump with Covid-19 – a potential power vacuum. E-6B Mercury nuclear war command posts in flight on each coast
Covid 19 coronavirus: Why ‘doomsday’ nuclear planes have taken to the skies in the US, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12369993 By: Jamie Seidel, 2 Oct 20, America’s doomsday planes are in the air following news that the nation’s commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump, has Covid-19.
Two US Navy E-6B Mercury nuclear war command posts were observed in flight Friday, one on each coast of the United States. They were initiating the “Take Charge and Move Out” (TACAMO) defence protocol – essentially dispersing the command and communications facilities needed to control the US nuclear arsenal.
These aircraft are activated by the Pentagon when it is deemed necessary to communicate with the US Navy’s secretive nuclear missile submarines, stealth bombers and missile silos.
The move underscores the potential severity of the situation.
The President of the United States is also the commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces, including its nuclear forces. The incapacitation of whoever holds this position could be seen as an opportunity by potential belligerents.
Covid-19, which has so far killed 200,000 US citizens, is particularly deadly among older sufferers. President Trump is 74 years old.
It was announced this morning that he is already experiencing “mild symptoms”.
The two E-6Bs appeared on flight tracking systems 30 minutes before Trump announced his condition.
It’s no accident the aircraft were seen.
Military aircraft and ships usually fly with their radio identification transponders turned off in order to avoid being tracked and identified.
Doomsday Planes
Based on Boeing 707 airliner airframes, the E-6B aircraft have been built to be particularly resistant to electronic warfare and the electromagnetic-pulse generated by nuclear bursts.
About 16 of the aircraft were delivered from 1986. The fleet underwent a major upgrade in 2006.
Their job is to get into the air in the time of crisis. But an unknown number is also maintained aloft at any one time.
In the event of war, their job is to relay commands from the president and defense secretary directly to the deterrent nuclear force. The heart of this force are the Ohio-class nuclear ballistic-missile submarines hiding deep in the world’s oceans. Their immense payloads of nuclear missiles constantly threaten the prospect of a devastating retaliatory blow.
I would expect them to pop up if he tests positive,” US open-source intelligence hobbyist Tim Hogan tweeted with flight tracking maps identifying the flights.
“It’s the plane that has the ability to order the killing of everyone on earth if someone attacks the US with nukes in a first strike. It can talk to our missile subs under water even if DC is gone.”
Talking to submarines deep underwater is no easy task.
Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio can reach about 20m beneath the ocean’s surface. But its transmission speed is very slow and require large, high powered emitters for broadcast. In order to operate this equipment, the E-6B must unspool a kilometres-long wire to act as an aerial.
Command and Control
The US Constitution deals with the prospect of a president who is physically or mentally unable to discharge his duties. The role “shall devolve on the vice president”, it states.
What it doesn’t make clear is how the judgement to “devolve” should be made, or by whom.
The 25th Amendment, enacted in 1967, is supposed to provide a framework for this decision. But it was not initiated in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan was shot. For 10 days Reagan lay near death. But his key powers were not transferred to Vice President George H. W. Bush.
This has raised further questions about how presidential powers would be divested in an emergency. The 25th Amendment calls for a signed statement from the serving President, or if “the vice president and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” a similar statement.
The resulting power vacuum, especially in the role of US Commander-in-Chief, potentially poses a strategic risk in times of international – and internal – crisis.
As Donald Trump gets coronavirus, USA’s ”doomsday” planes take flight
Donald Trump Tests Positive For COVID—And America’s Nuclear Doomsday Planes Launch Controversy, Forbes,
David AxeContributor 2 Sept 20, U.S. president Donald Trump tested positive for the novel-
coronavirus on Friday morning. Shortly before the news broke, the U.S. Navy’s doomsday planes launched on both American coasts.
Some observers asserted that the two things were related. But military spokespeople and some experts explained it was coincidence.
The Navy has 16 Mercuries. One often is in the air, and it’s not unheard-of for two or more to be airborne at the same time. But the timing of Friday’s twin sorties seemed noteworthy to some.
In an atomic war, the E-6s would relay orders to the Ohio boomers, helping the boats’ crews to target enemy cities and military bases with nuclear-tipped Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs.
It could be no accident that E-6s were airborne over both coasts in the minutes before Trump’s announcement that he was infected, tweeted Tim Hogan, an American open-source intelligence practitioner. “I would expect them to pop up if he tests positive.”………. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/10/02/donald-trump-tests-positive-for-covid-and-americas-nuclear-doomsday-planes-launch/#3022db8658ba
Call to Indonesia to ratify UN Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty
“Indonesia running in circles in bid to ratify anti-nuclear weapons treaty”. Dian Septiari The Jakarta Post Jakarta / Fri, October 2, 2020
Indonesia is still dragging its feet in the ratification of an international treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons that it signed more than three years ago, even as its neighbors have one by one made good on their commitments. Malaysia was the latest to submit its instrument of ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on Wednesday, making it the 46th country to pass the treaty into law. Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the country’s ratification brought the international community one step closer to amassing the 50 national endorsements needed to bring the treaty into force, Bernama reports.
Adopted on July 7, 2017, the treaty prohibits all activities related to nuclear weapons, including their development, testing, manufacturing, acquisition, possession, stockpiling, use and stationing. In Southeast Asia, Thailand was the first nation to sign and ratify the treaty, only a few months after it was adopted. Vietnam ratified it the following year, followed by Laos in 2019. Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah said Indonesia was one of the first 50 countries to sign the treaty in 2017, but the ratification itself was still ongoing. “Of course, ratification cannot be done instantly, because it involves many stakeholders and progress is currently a bit constrained by the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said on Wednesday.
………. As the de facto leader of ASEAN, Indonesia is expected to shore up resources against global nuclear proliferation, which the bloc collectively agrees to oppose through the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) treaty. As a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and a coordinator of its working group on disarmament and nonproliferation since 1994, Indonesia was among cosponsors of the 2017 United Nations General Assembly resolution to enforce the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty. Various observers have since called on Indonesia to make good on its
The American election- what will the nuclear order look like after this?
image from MENAFN.COM
THE U.S. ELECTION AND NUCLEAR ORDER IN THE POST-PANDEMIC WORLD Limitless Life, LEON V. SIGAL, SEPTEMBER 29 2020Abstract
U.S. power and prestige may have diminished in recent years, but the United States still plays a pivotal role in international institutions, alliances, and mass media, so who becomes its president and which party controls Congress matter a lot for the global nuclear order. However unlikely it is that Donald Trump’s expressed desire to contest the election’s outcome could succeed, whether the nation can avert a violent backlash among disappointed partisans is less clear.
Nuclear weapons are often thought to be the esoteric domain of experts. Yet one need only recall that although mass activism does not guarantee policy change, three of the most significant developments in recent decades – the ban on above-ground nuclear tests, the INF
Treaty, and the collapse of the Berlin Wall – would not have happened without mass protests in many countries. And citizen involvement, organized by NGOs, can even facilitate monitoring of arms agreements and nuclear developments in some countries.
positive change to the global nuclear order will continue to be marginal and fitful. This makes the international milieu critical for the nuclear future – a milieu that a president can influence but not determine.
President Trump’s reelection is likely to have a pernicious effect on that milieu, hindering international cooperation to limit nuclear weapons and accelerating a qualitative arms race that could endanger crisis stability. Yet two of Trump’s more positive impulses are likely to continue. He is unlikely to increase the risk of an intense crisis leading to nuclear war because he wants to avoid U.S. involvement in any wars, not start new ones. He will also try to sustain negotiations
with North Korea to curb nuclear developments there, though whether he is prepared to satisfy Pyongyang’s stiffer demands remains in doubt.His opponent, Joseph Biden, will face those same demands. Personnel is policy, and the Biden administration will likely be staffed with officials who served under President Obama. That means a return to shoring up alliances and international cooperation. It also means continuity with Obama’s nuclear policies. Whether he will curtail Obama’s modernization plans is not clear, but in contrast to Trump, he will try his best to restore the JCPOA, which could head off nuclear weapons development not only in Iran but also in Saudi Arabia. He will also strive to save START, seek technical talks with China, and not abandon the Open Skies accord……….. https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/2663585/posts/2938659215
Heavy military clashes between Armenian and Azeri forces
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Fierce clashes rage in Azerbaijan’s ethnic Armenian enclave, SMH, by Nvard Hovhannisyan and Nailia Bagirova
September 29, 2020 Yerevan: Armenian and Azeri forces have deployed heavy artillery during the latest fighting over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, they both said.
The Azeri Defence Ministry said the opposing forces attempted to recover lost ground by launching counter-attacks in the directions of Fizuli, Jabrayil, Agdere and Terter. The ministry said in a statement there was fighting around Fizuli city and the Armenian army shelled the Dashkesan region on the border between the two countries, miles away from Nagorno-Karabakh on Tuesday morning. Armenia denied those reports but reported fighting throughout the night and said that Nagorno-Karabakh’s army repelled attacks in several directions along the line of contact. At least 29 people were killed on Monday when the two sides pounded each other with rockets and artillery in the fiercest round of the decades-old conflict in more than a quarter of a century. “This is a life-and-death war,” Arayik Harutyunyan, the Nagorno-Karabakh leader, told a briefing. Any move to all-out war could drag in major regional powers Russia and Turkey. Moscow has a defence alliance with Armenia, which provides vital support to the enclave and is its lifeline to the outside world, while Ankara backs its own ethnic Turkic kin in Azerbaijan. “We haven’t seen anything like this since the ceasefire to the war in the 1990s. The fighting is taking place along all sections of the front line,” said Olesya Vartanyan, senior analyst for the South Caucasus region at Crisis Group…….. Vartanyan said the use of rockets and artillery brought a higher risk of civilian casualties that could make the escalation hard to stop by diplomatic means: “If there are mass casualties, it will be extremely difficult to contain this fighting and we will definitely see a full-fledged war that will have a potential intervention of Turkey or Russia, or both of them.” Russia called for an immediate ceasefire, and Turkey said it would support Azerbaijan……….. https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/fierce-clashes-rage-in-azerbaijan-s-ethnic-armenian-enclave-20200929-p56051.html |
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The Trump administration’s stances on nuclear negotiations don’t even make sense as a starting point.
 Washington’s Arms Control Delusions and Bluffs https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/09/washingtons-arms-control-delusions-and-bluffs/168817/
The Trump administration’s stances on nuclear negotiations don’t even make sense as a starting point. BY STEVEN PIFER This is delusion and bluff. If the administration does not change course, New START will lapse and, for the first time in decades, U.S. and Russian nuclear forces will be under no constraints. The terms of New START permit its extension for up to five years. Keeping Russian strategic forces limited and maintaining the current flow of information about those forces are very much in the U.S. interest. The Kremlin is ready to extend. Yet the Trump administration has laid down conditions, apparently believing that Moscow is desperate to continue the agreement. The first condition is expanding the scope of the agreement. President Trump’s arms control envoy, Marshall Billingslea, has said that Russia must agree to new negotiations that cover all U.S. and Russian nuclear arms. This is not an unreasonable goal; it was proposed by the Obama administration in 2010. But Moscow has already responded by saying that any new negotiations would have to address questions of interest to Russia, starting with missile defense — and Mr. Billingslea has made clear that limits on missile defense are not on offer. The second condition is improved verification. Mr. Billingslea claims that New START’s monitoring measures have significant shortcomings. However, the U.S. military and intelligence community deemed those measures sufficient in 2010, when the treaty was signed, and that remains the case today. Indeed, the State Department certified last spring that Russia was in compliance with New START.Indeed, the biggest New START compliance issue has been raised by Russian officials. They express concern that the procedures used by the U.S. military to convert heavy bombers and launch tubes on ballistic missile submarines so that they will no longer be counted by New START can easily be reversed. (Mr. Billingslea seemed to confirm this in a recent interview, when he said the United States would immediately reverse the conversions if the treaty lapses in February.) Over the summer, the Trump administration appeared to drop a third condition—that China, which has nothing to do with New START, agree to join arms negotiations with the United States and Russia—but Mr. Billingslea ten days ago said a new treaty must include China. The Kremlin does not appear inclined to accept the U.S. conditions. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov termed them “too far-fetched and devoid of appealing elements,” even as Mr. Billingslea seems to have doubled down. He has warned that Washington may demand more if Moscow does not agree to the U.S. conditions by November. He offered no strategic reason for saying November; it appears obvious that he wants a pre-election agreement and photo op for Mr. Trump. The U.S. arms control envoy also has threatened to spend Russia “into oblivion” with an arms race if New START ends and there is no replacement treaty. He bluntly told a Russian journalist: “we can afford it, but you can’t.” Really? The Pentagon is struggling to fund its already planned nuclear modernization programs, which are sucking up funds from conventional weapons programs. At the same time, the Navy wants to expand its current 290 large ships to 355, while the Air Force wants 386 squadrons, a 25 percent increase over the current number. The Department of Defense is developing new intermediate-range missile programs, whose costs will run into the billions of dollars. Where will the Pentagon find the money for a strategic nuclear arms race? Moreover, U.S. strategic force modernization programs will not begin producing new weapons until the end of the 2020s. Russia, on the other hand, has hot production lines now churning out new ballistic missile submarines, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, among other things. It could keep those lines running. If necessary, the Kremlin has nearly $600 billion in reserves as well as a large national wealth fund on which it could draw. Illusory leverage and empty threats will not get Russia to agree to the Trump administration’s approach. Washington should agree to extend New START to February 2026, perhaps in conjunction with a short joint statement by Presidents Trump and Putin that the two countries will explore further nuclear arms reductions and the full range of related issues, including third-country nuclear forces and missile defense. That approach would ensure U.S. and Russian strategic forces remain limited until 2026. It would give negotiators time to work through some very thorny issues. It would make Americans safer. And, most importantly for Mr. Trump, it would give him his photo op. Steven Pifer is a William Perry Research Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a retired Foreign Service officer. |
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USA threatens putting more weapons on bombers and submarines if Russia doesn’t agree to USA conditions for arms talks
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Trump administration orders assessment on bolstering nuclear warheads as talks with Russia stall U.S. diplomats are trying to play hardball with Russia in negotiations over whether to extend New START, Politico, .By DANIEL LIPPMAN, BRYAN BENDER and LARA SELIGMAN, 09/28/2020 The Trump administration has asked the military to assess how quickly it could pull nuclear weapons out of storage and load them onto bombers and submarines if an arms control treaty with Russia is allowed to expire in February, according to three people familiar with the discussions. The request to U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska is part of a strategy to pressure Moscow into renegotiating the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty before the U.S. presidential election, the people said. In making the request, the Trump administration wants to underscore that it is serious about letting the treaty lapse if Russia fails to meet U.S. demands. The negotiating team is leery that Russia is dragging out the talks in the hope that Joe Biden — who has pledged to extend New START under what Moscow believes will be more favorable terms than what this White House is offering — wins the election. “It’s a clear signal that the costs for not negotiating before the election are going to go up,” said one of the people, who requested anonymity to relay sensitive discussions. The Trump administration is “trying to create an incentive, and it’s a real incentive, for the Russians to sit down and actually negotiate.”
The request for the assessment came in the last two weeks from a group of officials at the National Security Council and State, Defense and Energy departments that’s supporting Ambassador Marshall Billingslea in negotiations with Moscow to try to replace New START before it runs out in February. The assessment will determine how long it would take to load nuclear weapons now in reserve onto long-range bombers, ballistic missile submarines and land-based silos to beef up the U.S. nuclear force in the event Russia increases its arsenal. It comes as Billingslea has publicly raised the possibility of putting more weapons on bombers and submarines if New START lapses and has sharpened his rhetoric in recent days to try to secure more concessions from the Russians. It would certainly be a question that you would want to ask STRATCOM,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, who oversaw nuclear forces before serving as head of the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration. “You would want to fully understand all the possible implications of your negotiating approach, both if it should succeed or, alternatively, if it should fail.” But former senior arms control and military officials also consider the move a risky gambit. It could send a message that the Trump administration, which has already pulled out of two other nuclear-related treaties with Russia, is no longer interested in any limits on the world’s largest arsenals. And it could goad the Russians into taking similar steps. I call that megaphone diplomacy,” said Rose Gottemoeller, who served as deputy secretary general of NATO until last year and negotiated New START when she was at the State Department. “Do we want to end up in a less stable place? Because we would be nuclear arms racing.” “It’s very stupid,” added a former GOP arms control official who declined to be identified because he still advises the government. “It makes absolutely no sense to threaten to upload. It becomes a valid leveraging point only if the other side can’t do it. The Russians can do it, too.” “But more importantly,” this person added, “the systems we have deployed today are the ones we believe are necessary to provide an adequate deterrent. There is no obvious reason and every reason not to in the absence of a change in the threat. It’s not going to scare the Russians. The likelihood of success with the Russians is about nil.” A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on Billingslea’s behalf. Capt. Bill Clinton, a spokesperson for Strategic Command, declined to address the military’s role in the deliberations. “We don’t talk about future operations, and really can’t speculate on arms control talks (as that is not [our] responsibility),” he wrote in an email. An NSC spokesperson declined to comment. New START, signed in 2010, mandated both sides draw down to 1,550 deployed strategic weapons and includes provisions to verify compliance, including reciprocal on-site inspections of nuclear bases. The pact is set to expire on Feb. 5 unless both sides agree to an extension for up to five years. apply. Russia in December offered to extend the treaty without preconditions. ………https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/28/trump-russia-nuclear-deal-talks-422736 |
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Near to flaspoint – disputes between India, Pakistan,China
 Tensions between 3 nuclear-armed powers are rising toward the boiling point ABBY POKRAKA, RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT
SEP 30, 2020,
For decades, India and Pakistan have clashed over Kashmir, the mountainous region both countries claim. But to make matters more complicated, China has a stake in the area, too. The Aksai Chin region — located between Kashmir and Tibet — is under Chinese control and has been a source of conflict between India and China since 1962.
The borderlands between these three nuclear-armed states is increasingly a flashpoint for conflict. The international community ignores these growing challenges at its peril and should be looking for ways to help manage potential crises in the region. And while the United States can play a role, in this particular instance, direct US involvement is probably not the best way forward…………. China was drawn into a dispute between India and Pakistan when India revoked Kashmir’s autonomy in August 2019 and wanted to incorporate parts of “Xinjiang and Tibet into its Ladakh union territory,” which China believes violates its dominion due to its occupation of Tibet. It appears that over the last year the situation in Kashmir has not gotten better. ……It seems clear that after decades of poor relations, the tensions in this part of the world may reach a boiling point. Finding a solution to these half-century conflicts seems daunting, but it is necessary. While many nations have fought throughout history, a conflict between nuclear-armed states carries an unbearable risk of escalation. To start, these countries can take small steps to stabilise the security of the region and pave the way for better relations. Starting a dialogue, bilateral or trilateral, can improve communication in the longer term, which can help reduce the likelihood of conflict. Establishing crisis communications was an important step the United States and the Soviet Union took in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and de-escalation practices the two countries implemented in the early 1960s remained in place through the end of the Cold War. A third party could help facilitate regional discussions. Given its history in the region, the United States might have seemed like a good option for such facilitation, but that is not the case at this time……. This week, President Trump took aim at China before the United Nations, blaming it for the global COVID pandemic. At this point, there is no reason China would see the United States as a desirable mediator for any regional conflict…… friction among China, India, and Pakistan continues to grow. The only way to diffuse the tension and prevent destructive escalation is through diplomacy. Other countries need to step up and work to reduce the hostilities. Make no mistake, a large-scale, regional conflict among nuclear-armed states would have global consequences. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/httpsresponsiblestatecraftorg20200925india-china-pakistan-three-nuclear-powers-hurtling-towards-the-boiling-point-2020-9 |
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UN nuclear watchdog inspects second Iran site
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UN nuclear watchdog inspects second Iran site, Aljazeera, 30 Sept 20,
IAEA says it gained access to the second site in Iran where nuclear activity may have taken place in the early 2000s. The United Nations nuclear watchdog inspected the second of two suspected former secret atomic sites in Iran as agreed with Tehran last month in a deal that ended a standoff over access, the agency said on Wednesday.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not named either of the two undeclared sites, but it has described activities it suspects took place there in 2003, the year it and US intelligence services believe Iran halted a secret and coordinated nuclear weapons programme. ………The spokesman of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, confirmed the news of the inspection, saying he hopes it will stop the United States from taking advantage of the issue. ……..The Kamalvandi said he hopes the move will prevent the US and other countries that wish to politicise Iran’s case and “drag it to the UN Security Council” from further pressuring the IAEA…….https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/30/un-nuclear-watchdog-inspects-second-iran-site |
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USA provocation of China, Iran, Russia.
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Lest you fear that peace might break out in the Middle East, there’s always the possibility of a U.S. assault on Iran. That chance greatly increased with the Trump regime’s monumental blunder of smashing the Iran nuclear treaty. Trump clearly thought his high-handed rejection would cow the Iranians. He was wrong. In an apparent rage, he ratcheted up sanctions, threats, insults and then – an assassination, the logical conclusion of which was war, had Trump not come to his senses. Since then things have cooled down a bit, though not enough to stop the Trump regime from interfering with Iran’s oil trade with Venezuela or from making preposterous accusations about Iranian plots against the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, an official with no relation to Iran, known mostly for her business in expensive handbags and for donating to Trump. What the idiotically bellicose U.S. policy toward Iran – including the recent U.S. push for more sanctions – has mainly achieved is a warm embrace between Iran and China. And that’s not a matter susceptible to piracy on the high seas – the preferred U.S. approach to tankers taking Iranian fuel to Caracas. Nor will wild charges about planned assassinations of obscure, random U.S. bureaucrats affect this relationship. The Trump regime has blustered, threatened, insulted and caused the great Iran-China friendship to sink deep roots and blossom. Lest you fear that peace might break out in the Middle East, there’s always the possibility of a U.S. assault on Iran. That chance greatly increased with the Trump regime’s monumental blunder of smashing the Iran nuclear treaty. Trump clearly thought his high-handed rejection would cow the Iranians. He was wrong. In an apparent rage, he ratcheted up sanctions, threats, insults and then – an assassination, the logical conclusion of which was war, had Trump not come to his senses. Since then things have cooled down a bit, though not enough to stop the Trump regime from interfering with Iran’s oil trade with Venezuela or from making preposterous accusations about Iranian plots against the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, an official with no relation to Iran, known mostly for her business in expensive handbags and for donating to Trump.
What the idiotically bellicose U.S. policy toward Iran – including the recent U.S. push for more sanctions – has mainly achieved is a warm embrace between Iran and China. And that’s not a matter susceptible to piracy on the high seas – the preferred U.S. approach to tankers taking Iranian fuel to Caracas. Nor will wild charges about planned assassinations of obscure, random U.S. bureaucrats affect this relationship. The Trump regime has blustered, threatened, insulted and caused the great Iran-China friendship to sink deep roots and blossom. It probably would have anyway, but Trump surely deserves credit for nourishing it. As Time reported on July 29, Iran is negotiating a 25-year deal with China, with “billions of dollars worth of Chinese investments in energy, transportation, banking and cybersecurity in Iran.” There also could be “weapons development and intelligence sharing and joint military drills.” In short, this $400 billion deal is huge and alarm bells are ringing frantically in Washington. They shouldn’t be. If the Trump regime had been paying attention, they would have seen this coming, because it’s the logical outcome of their absurd hostility to both countries. But then, cultural illiteracy regarding Iran is a feature of Republican policy in the Middle East. After all, the Bush regime invaded, conquered and destroyed Iraq – war crimes whose main beneficiary was Iran, which had no love, to say the least, for Saddam Hussein and was more than happy to cement its brotherhood with newly ascendant Iraqi Shia. This is the sort of stuff any high schooler could have alerted the Bush regime to in advance. But alas, the GOP’s geopolitical geniuses had no use for even high school wisdom. To ensure we all got that point, the Trump regime quickly pounced on one of Obama’s few decent and intelligent moves in the Middle East – the Iran nuclear treaty – and shredded it. Still, the U.S. military’s focus has shifted. That shift started with Obama’s odious “pivot to China.” According to Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi, quoted by Russia Today, U.S. intervention in the South China Sea is “the main driver of militarization there.” Currently several countries in the region claim territory in the South China Sea – China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei. Some of these claims overlap, thus causing disputes, RT reports. The U.S. stirs the pot with its “freedom of navigation” military patrols. Naturally this intervention has led to incidents between the Chinese and U.S. militaries. And worse could happen any time. China regards the South China Sea as its backyard and the U.S. presence there as a provocation. After all, how would Washington react to Chinese military patrols in the Gulf of Mexico? That is the territorial equivalent of what the U.S. does to China, though Washington refuses to recognize this in its quest for global dominance. It’s the same with U.S. aggression in the Black Sea, where the target is Russia. In August, the U.S. held military drills in the Black Sea, known, in the not too distant past, as the shores of Russia. Earlier, Andrei Krasov of the State Duma Defense Committee told the Interfax agency: “The actions of American reconnaissance aircraft will not remain without reaction.” Indeed, in late July, Russia reported intercepting an American reconnaissance flight over the Black Sea. Two much of this sort of stuff could lead to war. So what we have here is the U.S. fishing in troubled waters. NATO has already nearly surrounded Russia, which now boasts supersonic nuclear weapons. In response, Trump recently revealed that the U.S. has some sort of secret “super” weapon. Which only makes the Black Sea brinksmanship more dangerous. Both adversaries are armed to the teeth. To make matters worse, Trump has ripped up all nuclear treaties with Russia except START – and that is at death’s door. A war with either Russia, China or Iran would be catastrophic, as anyone with a brain knows. Nor would it solve any of the myriad disasters currently besetting the U.S.: an out-of-control pandemic, with more fatalities than any other country in the world and no end in sight; economic collapse, with tens of millions jobless and millions facing eviction and homelessness in a few months; a climate taking revenge on fossil fuel capitalism by burning up large swaths of the globe, including the American West Coast; other human-induced, climate change, extreme weather events elsewhere in the U.S., like the currently soggy Gulf Coast; the rise of violent, over-armed, know-nothing, radical right-wing vigilantes; racial unrest. And those are just the big, obvious monster weeds in the American front yard. Washington should take a page from Voltaire and tend its own garden. Forget about the Black Sea, the South China Sea and the Gulf of Oman. Now is not the time for new conflict. Because as every school child knows, never is the only time for nuclear war. |
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Heightened risk of nuclear confrontation between the US and China
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‘Needs to be carefully monitored’: Heightened risk of nuclear confrontation between the US and China, SMH, By Anthony Galloway, September 29, 2020, The risk of a nuclear confrontation between the United States and China is growing, as Beijing acquires new weapons allowing it to potentially strike its adversaries first.As both countries enter into a new period of intense strategic competition, there is a small risk of deliberate nuclear use and a bigger risk of either the US or China inadvertently using nuclear weapons against the other.
This could occur if one of the countries degrades the other’s nuclear arsenal using conventional weapons, whether by accident or collateral damage, causing that nation to respond with nuclear weapons. A new report by the United States Studies Centre says a US conventional strike or cyber attack disabling China’s ability to launch conventional ballistic missiles could accidentally damage its nuclear missiles. Beijing could then see this attack as a prelude to disarming its nuclear weapons, and choose to use them first before they were further degraded. Alternatively, China could launch a space attack against US satellites, or a cyber attack, to interfere with US missile defences, sparking a US nuclear counter-attack. China’s nuclear strategy over recent decades has focused on deterring nuclear threats, but it has been acquiring new capabilities – such as launchers for its DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile – that could enable a shift to a nuclear “first-use” strategy. The new report by the centre’s non-resident fellow Fiona Cunningham has called for Australia and other countries to urge the US and China back to arms control talks. ………. “China’s nuclear strategy still looks quite different from countries that explicitly threaten first-use like Pakistan, or don’t rule out the option of using nuclear weapons first, like the United States.”…….. The lower stakes for the United States and China in a South China Sea confrontation, and low intensity with which a conflict could start, would give both countries more opportunities to end a confrontation before it got to the point of nuclear threats or use.” https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/needs-to-be-carefully-monitored-heightened-risk-of-nuclear-confrontation-between-the-us-and-china-20200928-p55zwp.html |
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‘The Bomb’ Presents A ‘Secret History’ Of Nuclear War Planning In America
Heard on Fresh Air
DAVE DAVIES, Author Fred Kaplan reveals how U.S. presidents, their advisers and generals have thought about, planned for — and sometimes narrowly avoided — nuclear war. Originally broadcast Jan. 27, 2020.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
Kaplan read thousands of declassified documents and interviewed former military leaders and government officials. The result is his new book about how American presidents and their advisers and generals have thought about, planned for and sometimes narrowly avoided nuclear war over the past 70 years. Fred Kaplan is a national security columnist for Slate and the author of five previous books. His latest is “The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, And The Secret History Of Nuclear War.”
‘Reverse course’ towards full nuclear disarmament – UN chief
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‘Reverse course’ towards full nuclear disarmament – UN chief, https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/09/1073832
25 September 2020, Peace and Security
On the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons marked on Saturday, the UN chief has underscored the need to “reverse course and return to a common path to nuclear disarmament”. Almost 75 years since the adoption of the first General Assembly resolution in 1946, which committed the UN to the goal of ridding the planet of nuclear weapons, “the world continues to live in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message commemorating the day. Relationships between States possessing nuclear weapons are characterized by “division, distrust and an absence of dialogue”, he warned, noting that as they increasingly choose to pursue strategic competition over cooperation, “the dangers posed by nuclear weapons are becoming more acute”. According to the UN chief, all States have a responsibility to ensure that such deadly armaments “eliminated completely” from national arsenals. COVID in the mixDrawing attention to the wide range of global fragilities brought about by COVID-19 – from pandemic readiness and inequality to climate change to lawlessness in cyberspace – the top UN official called “preparedness to address the threat of nuclear weapons” one of those vulnerabilities. “We need a strengthened, inclusive and renewed multilateralism built on trust and based on international law that can guide us to our shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons”, he said. Pressurize nuclear powers The UN has long upheld that the onus to lead disarmament is on the States that possess nuclear weapons. Mr. Guterres concurred that those nations must “return to real, good-faith dialogue to restore trust and confidence, reduce nuclear risk and take tangible steps in nuclear disarmament”. He also stressed that they reaffirm the shared understanding that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought” and take steps to implement the commitments they have made. A gloomy pictureYet, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), some 13,400 nuclear weapons remain today. Moreover, the countries possessing these weapons have well-funded, long-term plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals. And while the number of deployed nuclear weapons has significantly decreased since the height of the Cold War, SIPRI attests that not one nuclear weapon had been physically destroyed pursuant to a treaty. Additionally, no meaningful nuclear disarmament negotiations are currently underway. Mr. Guterres emphasized that the death, suffering and destruction caused by the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki “must not be repeated”. “The only guarantee against the use of these abhorrent weapons is their total elimination”, spelled out the Secretary-General, adding that the UN “stands ready to work with all States to achieve this shared goal”.
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After 4 decades of Plowshares Actions, It’s Nuclear Warfare that Should Be on Trial — Not Activists
Most of the Kings Bay Plowshares still await sentencing. Mom was sentenced to time served by video conference in June — a surreal and dislocating experience that is now more and more common in our criminal justice system. Her co-defendants opted to postpone sentencing in hopes that it could be in person, but it is unclear if that will happen.
After 4 decades of Plowshares Actions, It’s Nuclear Warfare that Should Be on Trial — Not Activists, Forty years ago, the Plowshares Eight sparked a movement of nuclear disarmers that continues to take responsibility for weapons of mass destruction.
Before him were eight activists, including two priests and a nun. As Judge Salus tried to preside over the government’s prosecution of them for their trespass onto — and destruction of — private property, the eight were trying to put nuclear warfare, nuclear weapons, nuclear policy and U.S. exceptionalism on trial.
That was 40 years ago this week — ancient history by some measures. And no one reading this will be surprised to find that the eight were found guilty and the human family is still threatened by almost 15,000 nuclear warheads. So, four decades later, why isn’t nuclear warfare on trial?
They are the crime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians 75 years ago. They have littered the landscape with radioactive waste. They have cost the United States more than $5 trillion from the public coffers. They are the apocalyptic nightmare on hair-trigger alert that haunt our children’s dreams.
On September 9, 1980, my father, Philip Berrigan, along with his brother Daniel, John Schuchardt, Dean Hammer, Elmer Maas, Molly Rush, Sister Anne Montgomery, and Father Carl Kabat, gained entry into the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Once inside the complex, they poured blood over two nuclear weapons’ nose cones, and used household hammers to dent the metal. They came to be known as The Plowshares Eight. Continue reading
1 This Month
22 June – Virtual Event –Climate Change: New Data, New Debate
Monday, June 22, 2026 2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. CT
YouTube. Register here
25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5
From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
1st July – Webinar Waste of Space: The Environmental Harm of Military and Civil Space Activity st July, 7 pm
Report Launch Online: We are seeing an increasing exploitation of space for military and commercial purposes. This must change.
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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