Nuclear-powered U.S. Aircraft Carrier Roosevelt now carrying Coronavirus
Coronavirus Diverts U.S. Aircraft Carrier From Mission In Western Pacific https://getaka.co.in/usa-news/coronavirus-diverts-u-s-aircraft-carrier-from-mission-in-western-pacific/ March 26, 2020 npr.org First it was commercial cruise ships that became floating petri dishes for the coronavirus.
Now the U.S. Navy’s nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt has been diverted to the U.S. “There were three [crew members who] initial[ly tested positive], there were five more that were flown off the ship or in the process of being flown off the ship, and then there are several others that are in isolation right now,” Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said Thursday at the Pentagon. “But the ship is going to be pulling into Guam, and they’re going to figure out from there who needs to come off, who can stay on, looking at the level of symptoms and things like that. “
Other U.S. officials have said there are now dozens aboard the Roosevelt who have been found to be infected with the coronavirus.
“We are already starting the process of testing 100 percent of the crew to ensure that we’ve got that contained,” said Modly.
There are 5,000 sailors aboard the carrier, and Modly says some are being tested with approximately 800 test kits available and a limited laboratory capacity to process them on board.
With 133 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday morning, the Navy accounts for nearly half of the U.S. military’s 280 reported cases.
“Our forces are all over the world all the time, that may have something to do with it,” Modly said, “and we also have big fleet concentration in areas such as San Diego, Norfolk and other areas where we have a lot of people that are together.”
The acting Navy secretary spoke shortly after Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Reuters that the Pentagon would no longer be disclosing in granular detail where cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. military have been detected.
“What we want to do is give you aggregated numbers,” the wire service quotes Esper as saying. “But we’re not going to disaggregate numbers because it could reveal information about where we may be affected at a higher rate than maybe some other places.”
Modly acknowledged that the Navy had not been disclosing which of its ships had been impacted by the outbreak.
“But obviously the information about the [Roosevelt] came out and we felt it was responsible for us to come out and give you all the straight story about what’s happening there,” he told reporters in the Pentagon briefing room. “We’ll follow the direction of the secretary of defense in terms of this, but from my perspective, being as transparent as possible is probably the best path.”
With all eyes on pandemic, Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty still needs attention
 Nuclear Proliferation Treaty Troubles Remain Unaddressed Amid a Global Pandemic, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/nuclear-proliferation-treaty-troubles-remain-unaddressed-amid-global-pandemic-138162 It is vital that would-be bombmakers be disabused of any notion that they could evade tough international sanctions. We need a country-neutral, reasonably predictable, more-or-less automatic sanction regime that puts all countries on notice, even friends of the powerful.
by Victor Gilinsky Henry Sokolski, 27 Mar 20, Just as we’ve had to discard business-as-usual thinking to deal with the current worldwide health emergency; it’s time to get serious about the spread of nuclear weapons. It doesn’t have the immediacy of the coronavirus, but it will last a lot longer and is no less threatening. In particular, we need to fortify the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which is fifty years old this year and badly needs fixing. The April 2020 Review Conference will likely be postponed, which provides time to develop something more than the usual charade of incremental proposals that nibble at the problem.
What needs fixing? Five problems: The NPT allows withdrawal on three months notice; it does not bar the use of nuclear explosives as fuels; its inspection arm, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is too much involved in promoting nuclear energy; it lacks an established enforcement system, so each violation requires an improvised response; and it is undermined by the holdouts—India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan—thumbing their noses at the treaty. International lawyers may scream, but we need to make it essentially impossible to exercise the NPT’s withdrawal provision. This is vital because the member states’ safeguards agreements with the IAEA remain in force only so long as the states remain parties to the treaty. A country should not be allowed to gather the wherewithal for a bomb while a member and then free itself of its treaty responsibilities by announcing its withdrawal. It shouldn’t be allowed to leave the treaty with technology, imported or indigenous, it obtained as a member, because it did so with the forbearance of other members on the assumption that it was doing so for peaceful uses.There has to be a wide safety margin between genuinely peaceful and potentially military applications to make it impossible to surprise the world with a bomb.
The oft-cited “inalienable right” to “nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” in the NPT’s Article IV has to be interpreted strictly in terms of the treaty’s overriding objective expressed in Article I (nuclear weapons countries can’t help others get bombs), and Article II (non-weapons countries can’t get them, period). That’s a long way of saying no commercial use of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, which today has no economic justification.
Another relic embedded in the NPT and the IAEA Statute is their promotion of nuclear power. With mind-numbing regularity, IAEA officials argue that accommodating countries on nuclear energy technology helps to gain their assent to control measures. But this approach weakens the NPT by creating a zero-sum game in which nonproliferation obligations of the many members are held hostage to technology sharing by the main supplier states. Unfortunately, too many members want dangerous technologies. That is not all. The agency’s singling out of nuclear energy as the anointed energy source leads to a misallocation of economic and scientific resources in countries that can’t afford it.
In the initial years of the NPT, there was an implicit assumption that the Western states and Soviets would police their spheres. But now, with the Cold War over, the NPT needs an established enforcement mechanism to deal predictably with violations, instead of each instance requiring improvisation by the leading members. The logic of “safeguards” assumes rapid international reaction, but experience shows it is more often measured in years. It is vital that would-be bombmakers be disabused of any notion that they could evade tough international sanctions. We need a country-neutral, reasonably predictable, more-or-less automatic sanction regime that puts all countries on notice, even friends of the powerful. A permanent secretariat attached to the treaty would help. Finally, it undermines the treaty when a non-member is used to enforce it, as when the United States acquiesced in Israel’s 2007 bombing of Syria’s clandestine reactor, instead of involving the IAEA, or when it cooperated with Israel in sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program.
The most difficult issue is what to do about the three NPT holdouts—India, Israel, and Pakistan—and the member-in-violation, North Korea. The drafters’ intent to only recognize five nuclear states was to first make sure that number did not grow larger while treating reductions among the five separately. To add new nuclear weapon members in addition to these five would undermine the treaty. However impossible it may now seem, the only way that all states can be brought under the NPT system is if all commit themselves to reduce their nuclear weapons to zero. The United States and Russia have made substantial reductions, but the continuation of that process requires all nuclear states to join in further cuts. Towards this end, we would universalize the treaty—that is, regard it as applicable to all states. The three holdouts would then be in non-compliance. Of course, as a legal matter, you cannot force a country to join a treaty. But if the 190 NPT members so decided, they could treat the three holdouts, and North Korea, as countries in non-compliance, with appropriate disadvantages that would follow from that. At the same time, if these countries joined the weapons reductions process under adequate monitoring, they could be considered as approaching compliance, and disadvantages could be moderated.
This much is clear: Incremental, least-common-denominator steps are never going to get us to where we need to be, and serious people responsible for security know it. To cope with proliferation hazards in the face of weak international controls over nuclear programs, the world seems to be slipping—witness the case of Iran—into relying on greatly increased national intelligence operations backed up in the last instance by bombing and even assassinations. It is difficult to imagine that this is a workable solution for the long term.
To stop the further spread of nuclear weapons, we have to stop downplaying the NPT. Instead, we should strengthen and use it. Victor Gilinsky is a program advisor for the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) in Arlington, Virginia. He served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Henry Sokolski is executive director of NPEC and the author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (second edition 2019). He served as deputy for nonproliferation policy in the Cheney Pentagon. |
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Coronavirus IS a concern for USA’s nuclear military awareness
For now, Kristensen says, “probably the healthiest people in America are those who are coming back from the longest submarine patrols,” which currently last as long as 78 days.
They’ve been underwater since almost the beginning of the year.
THE U.S. MILITARY’S BEHIND-THE-SCENES MOVES TO PROTECT NUCLEAR READINESS AMID CORONAVIRUS https://www.newsweek.com/us-militarys-behind-scenes-moves-protect-nuclear-readiness-amid-coronavirus-1493829
Though Pentagon officials continue to insist that the coronavirus pandemic has had no impact on operational readiness of the armed forces, behind the scenes military exercises and deployments are being scaled down and canceled, and plans are being put in place to sustain essential operations. That includes the so-called triad of bombers, land-based missiles and submarines that make up the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Last week, the head of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Adm. Charles A. “Chas” Richard, said that nuclear readiness was unaffected by coronavirus. The nuclear forces, he said, “remain ready to execute” their war plans despite coronavirus and that the pandemic has had “no impact to our ability” to carry out missions.
Adm. Richard said that his Omaha, Nebraska-based command “had plans in place that we have updated and are executing,” to deal with a pandemic. The nuclear force, he said, was designed to operate isolated for long periods of time.
But an active force that is constantly kept on alert is also one that is more exposed. According to a military tally compiled as of Sunday and reviewed by Newsweek, units feeding STRATCOM have a cumulative 106 uniformed personnel not on duty due to coronavirus, either because of confirmed cases or “protective self-quarantine.” Six bases are listed where bombers, missiles, aerial refueling tankers and supporting command and communications units that support the nuclear force are reporting coronavirus cases, according to the data compiled by the Defense Department.
One positive case of coronavirus was reported Saturday at Whiteman air force base in Johnson County, Missouri, where the B-2 stealth bomber force is deployed. Three of those bombers returned to base over the weekend from a “deterrent” mission deployment to Europe. That mission, observers say, was cut short in comparison with previous bomber deployments.
The United States currently has a total of about 850 nuclear warheads on alert – 400 nuclear-armed land-based intercontinental missiles in three western states, and 450 warheads on five ballistic missile submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. These are the weapons that are ready to instantly respond to presidential commands, according to the Federation of American Scientists. An additional 1,300 warheads can be brought up to alert status quickly on four or five additional submarines and on 60 nuclear-configured B-2 and B-52 bombers at bases, all in a matter of a few days.
Last week, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein said that the nuclear deterrent has had no changes in its operations due to coronavirus.
An example of those operations is the deployment of the three B-2 stealth bombers to Europe on March 8, the bombers and their maintainers first landing at Lajes Field in the Azores, an archipelago of nine islands 850 miles off the coast of Portugal. The next day, the bombers flew to RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire in the southwest U.K. There, they conducted various practice missions – over the North Sea on March 12, an Icelandic Air Policing mission on March 16 and 17, over the North Sea on March 18, and then over the Arctic Ocean on March 20. The bombers practiced flying with British, Dutch and Norwegian fighter planes, practicing escort and the procedures for the bombing of Russia.
“A credible deterrent for the high North region,” Lt. Gen. Steven Basham said, in describing the operations. “Operating B-2s in the Arctic allow us to shape that environment by demonstrating our resolve to deliver combat power anywhere in the world if called upon.”
“The world expects that NATO and the U.S. continue to execute our mission with decisiveness, regardless of any external challenge,” said Gen. Jeff Harrigian, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe.
Instead, the Department is in a constant cycle of keeping the existing stockpile of bomber and missile warheads healthy. Nuclear weapons expert and observer Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists says that includes “taking apart and surveying existing warheads in the stockpile” at the rate of about a dozen or so warheads per month. This is primarily accomplished at the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, though the two nuclear laboratories –Los Alamos in New Mexico and Livermore in California – also get involved in more complex and problem cases discovered in what are called “surveillance” activities. The current U.S. nuclear stockpile is made up of seven different basic types of warheads, and some sampling of each is shipped from active bases back to Pantex and the laboratories in a complex and secret ongoing process.
Kristensen says that though there have been few signs of how coronavirus is impacting nuclear forces, the B-2 mission in Europe was “dramatically shortened” in comparison with previous years. “Last fall when they deployed the B-2s, they were there [at RAF Fairford] for a month,” he says. Kristensen is been closely following bases where nuclear weapons are deployed, as well as the operations of the force, expecting that there will be significant changes if the virus persists in its growth.
Though U.S. European Command says its readiness remains high “for the foreseeable future,” it admits it is already curtailing numerous military exercises due to coronavirus. In the coming months, Gen. Tod Wolters, overall European commander says, it is likely that between 30 and 65 percent of exercises will be reduced or canceled. Other commands have similarly canceled or postponed Russia-oriented military exercises, including a Red Flag exercise planned for Alaska and a high-profile test of a new all-domain warfighting system planned for next month, one that would have practiced the integration of nuclear, conventional, cyber and space weaponry.
“My organization is designed to be able to operate isolated for long periods of time,” STRATCOM commander Adm. Richard insists.
The 3,000 person headquarters in Omaha has taken steps to institute social distancing, and it has shifted some people and functions to alternate and subordinate commands, improving redundancies and guarding against spread of the virus.
Though alerts, exercises, and the shuffling around of warheads continues, a senior officer at U.S. Strategic Command (who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to public speak on the matter) says that everyone is anticipating that there will be significant changes are coming. “There isn’t a command headquarters, including STRATCOM,” the senior officer says, “where there aren’t people with coronavirus symptoms or in self-quarantine.”
For now, Kristensen says, “probably the healthiest people in America are those who are coming back from the longest submarine patrols,” which currently last as long as 78 days.
They’ve been underwater since almost the beginning of the year.
The lingering horror of the nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga, South Australia
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Maralinga is 54 kilometres north-west of Ooldea, in South Australia’s remote Great Victoria Desert. Between 1956 and 1963 the British detonated seven atomic bombs at the site; one was twice the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. There were also the so-called “minor trials” where officials deliberately set fire to or blew up plutonium with TNT — just to see what would happen. One location called “Kuli” is still off-limits today, because it’s been impossible to clean up. I went out to the old bomb sites with a group of Maralinga Tjarutja people, who refer to the land around ground zero as “Mamu Pulka”, Pitjantjatjara for “Big Evil”. “My dad passed away with leukaemia. We don’t know if it was from here, but a lot of the time he worked around here,” says Jeremy Lebois, chairperson of the Maralinga Tjarutja council. Thirty per cent of the British and Australian servicemen exposed to the blasts also died of cancer — though the McClelland royal commission of 1984 was unable to conclude that each case was specifically caused by the tests. It’s not until you stand at ground zero that you fully realise the hideous power of these bombs. Even after more than 60 years, the vegetation is cleared in a perfect circle with a one kilometre radius. “The ground underneath is still sterile, so when the plants get down a certain distance, they die,” explains Robin Matthews, who guided me around the site. The steel and concrete towers used to explode the bombs were instantly vaporised. The red desert sand was melted into green glass that still litters the site. Years ago it would have been dangerous to visit the area, but now the radiation is only three times normal — no more than what you get flying in a plane. The Line of FireAustralia was not the first choice for the British, but they were knocked back by both the US and Canada. Robert Menzies, Australia’s prime minister at the time, said yes to the tests without even taking the decision to cabinet first. David Lowe, chair of contemporary history at Deakin University, thinks Australia was hoping to become a nuclear power itself by sharing British technology, or at least to station British nuclear weapons on Australian soil. “In that period many leaders in the Western world genuinely thought there was a real risk of a third world war, which would be nuclear,” he says. The bombs were tested on the Montebello Islands, at Emu Field and at Maralinga. At Woomera in the South Australian desert, they tested the missiles that could carry them. The Blue Streak rocket was developed and test-fired right across the middle of Australia, from Woomera all the way to the Indian Ocean, just south of Broome. This is known as “The Line of Fire” The Line of Fire from Woomera to Broome is, funnily enough, the same distance from London to Moscow,” Mr Matthews says. Just as the Maralinga Tjarutja people were pushed off their land for the bomb tests, the Yulparitja people were removed from their country in the landing zone south of Broome. Not all the Blue Streak rockets reached the sea. Some crashed into the West Australian desert. The McClelland royal commission showed that the British were cavalier about the weather conditions during the bomb tests and that fallout was carried much further than the 100-mile radius agreed to, reaching Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide. “The cavalier attitude towards Australia’s Indigenous populations was appalling and you’d have to say to some extent that extended towards both British and Australian service people,” Professor Lowe says. There are also questions over whether people at the test sites were deliberately exposed to radiation. “You can’t help but wonder the extent to which there was a deliberate interest in the medical results of radioactive materials entering the body,” Professor Lowe says. “Some of this stuff is still restricted; you can’t get your hands on all materials concerning the testing and it’s quite likely both [British and Australian] governments will try very hard to ensure that never happens.” Project SunshineWe do know that there was a concerted effort to examine the bones of deceased infants to test for levels of Strontium 90 (Sr-90), an isotope that is one of the by-products of nuclear bombs. These tests were part of Project Sunshine, a series of studies initiated in the US in 1953 by the Atomic Energy Commission. They sought to measure how Sr-90 had dispersed around the world by measuring its concentration in the bones of the dead. Young bones were chosen because they were particularly susceptible to accumulating the Sr-90 isotope. Around 1,500 exhumations took place, in both Britain and Australia — often without the knowledge or permission of the parents of the dead. Again, it was hard to prove conclusively that spikes in the levels of Strontium 90 during the test period caused bone cancers around the world. The Maralinga tests occurred during a period that Professor Lowe describes as “atomic utopian thinking”. “Remember at that time Australians were uncovering pretty significant discoveries of uranium and they hoped that this would unleash a vast new capacity for development through the power of the atom,” he says. Some of the schemes were absurdly optimistic. Project Ploughshare grew out of a US program which proposed using atomic explosions for industrial purposes such as canal-building. In 1969 Australia and the US signed a joint feasibility study to create an instant port at Cape Keraudren in the Kimberley using nuclear explosions. The plan was dropped, but it was for economic not environmental or social reasons. The dream (or was it a nightmare?) of sharing nuclear weapons technology with the British was never realised. All Australia got out of the deal was help building the Lucas Heights reactor. The British did two ineffectual clean-ups of Maralinga in the 1960s. The proper clean-up between 1995 and 2000 cost more than $100 million, of which Australia paid $75 million. It has left an artificial mesa in the desert containing 400,000 cubic metres of plutonium contaminated soil. The Maralinga Tjarutja people received only $13 million in compensation for loss of their land, which was finally returned to them in 1984. As we were leaving the radiation zone, the Maralinga Tjarutja people spotted some kangaroos in the distance. Over the years some of the wildlife has started to return. Mr Lebois takes it as a good sign. “Hopefully, hopefully everything will come back,” he says. |
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“Peaceful” and military nuclear reactors always inextricably linked
Anne McMenamin Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia, 19 Mar 20, . I’m referring to the structural links between the commercial and military uses of nuclear reactors, and, to some extent, the way THEY see it – which doesn’t always line up with the technical realities. History shows that the 2 industries have been inextricably linked from the beginning.
“Great efforts have been and still are made to disguise the close connection between nuclear energy for war and for power stations. Two reasons are suggested for this: political convenience in avoiding additional informed protests against nuclear weapon production and industrial convenience in carrying on without public protest what has become a very profitable industry.”
Sir Kelvin Spencer CBE FCGI LLD (HON)
First issue of Medicine and War, in 1985
Similarly, a document from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in August, 1981, states:
“There is no technical demarcation between the military and civilian reactor and there never was one. What has persisted over the decades is just the misconception that such a linkage does not exist.”
“Some Political Issues Related to Future Special Nuclear Fuels Production,”
LA- 8969-MS, UC-16
In 2013, historian Dr David Palmer said,
“The issue is processing uranium for nuclear power that then can be used for defence. You have to understand this in terms of Adelaide; it’s a military, industrial and intelligence complex.”
Palmer was commenting on the notable push for nuclear energy and nuclear submarines coming from numerous academics and business people in Adelaide. He considered the real motive behind the nuclear push is security in energy supply for the military, and hence the need to solve the problem of waste disposal, which is currently discouraging investment in nuclear power. Major military/weapons corporations such as Raytheon, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, Lockheed Martin, Babcock and General Atomics are now a noticeable presence in the SA economy.
Links can be clearly seen, e.g. Heathgate, which owns the Beverley mine, is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Atomics, one of the world’s largest weapons manufacturer/servicer. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/
Military use: that is clearly the reason for developing Small Nuclear Reactors
If the testing goes well, a commercially developed, Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed reactor will be demonstrated on a “permanent domestic military installation.The department awarded contracts to BWX Technologies, Inc. of Virginia, for $13.5 million; Westinghouse Government Services of Washington, D.C. for $11.9 million; and X-energy, LLC of Maryland, for $14.3 million, to begin a two-year engineering design competition for a small nuclear microreactor designed to potentially be forward deployed with forces outside the continental United States.
The combined $39.7 million in contracts are from “Project Pele,” a project run through the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), located within the department’s research and engineering side. The prototype is looking at a 1-5 megawatt (MWe) power range. The Department of Energy has been supporting the project at its Idaho National Laboratory.
Pele “involves the development of a safe, mobile and advanced nuclear microreactor to support a variety of Department of Defense missions such as generating power for remote operating bases,” said Lt. Col. Robert Carver, a department spokesman. “After a two-year design-maturation period, one of the companies funded to begin design work may be selected to build and demonstrate a prototype.”…….
A second effort is being run through the office of the undersecretary of acquisition and sustainment. That effort, ordered in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, involves a pilot program aiming to demonstrate the efficacy of a small nuclear reactor, in the 2-10 MWe range, with initial testing at a Department of Energy site in roughly the 2023 timeframe.
If the testing goes well, a commercially developed, Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed reactor will be demonstrated on a “permanent domestic military installation by 2027,” according to DoD spokesman Lt. Col. Mike Andrews. “If the full demonstration proves to be a cost effective energy resilience alternative, NRC-licensed [reactors] will provide an additional option for generating power provided to DoD through power purchase agreements.”…….
According to Dr. Jonathan Cobb, a spokesman for the World Nuclear Association, small nuclear reactors come in three flavors. The first, small modular reactors, sit in the 20-300 MWe range and are approaching the point they will appear on market.
The second category sits from 10-100 megawatts, and have been used in transports such as icebreakers. According to Cobb, a pair of 32 MWe reactors, based on icebreaker technology, are being used aboard the Akademik Lomonosov, a Russian “floating power plant.”
The third category, covering what the Pentagon appears most interested in, is a category known as microreactors. The challenge, Cobb said, is that this group is the furthest behind technologically, with demonstrations of commercial systems targeted for “the second half of the 2020s,” putting them in the “ballpark” of what DoD is looking for with its A&S effort……
Edwin Lyman, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, has concerns about the availability of fuel to power a proliferation of small nuclear reactors. He noted, “there are no clear plans for manufacturing the quantity of high-assay low enriched uranium, much less the production of high-quality TRISO [TRi-structural ISOtropic particle] fuel, that would be able to meet timelines this decade.”……
Lord, for her part, would not rule out working with foreign allies on the nuclear program in some way, saying “We always talk with our partners and allies about collaboration. We have many umbrella vehicles, if you will, to do that, particularly with [National Technology and Industrial Base] countries — U.K., Canada, Australia. We have a little bit of an easy button there for working back and forth with technical information.”… https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2020/03/09/pentagon-to-award-mobile-nuclear-reactor-contracts-this-week/?fbclid=IwAR2MTkRUDqIkruQHY0RivblBzoSY6gubpl8gkWDUDhedVwZEGstJhHYLb6U#.XmawxEl-aJ0.facebook
New research on the global climate impacts of a small nuclear war
How a small nuclear war would transform the entire planet
Democrats may not support Trump’s new W93 nuclear weapons program
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Political Battle Brewing Over New Nuclear Program, National Defense
3/17/2020, By Jon Harper The Trump administration’s proposal to begin work on a new nuclear warhead program to modernize the nation’s aging stockpile is expected to be hotly contested.For fiscal year 2021, President Donald Trump requested $28.9 billion for the Pentagon’s nuclear enterprise. He requested an additional $15.6 billion for efforts by the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the stockpile, including $53 million for NNSA work on a new warhead, dubbed the W93.
The Pentagon’s budget blueprint includes $480 million for work on the weapon system over the future years defense program, with $32 million slated for 2021. The W93 is intended for the Navy’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles, according to senior defense officials. There are currently two families of warheads for the sea-based leg of the triad: the W76 and the W88. “Both of these systems are growing old, and so now we must start thinking about a warhead that will replace one of those two when it’s time for those systems to retire,” a senior defense official told reporters during a background briefing. “These things take a long time. There’s a seven-stage process by which we start to develop a warhead.”…….. The Department of Energy has estimated that the program will cost about $10.9 billion in 2019 dollars. Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the $10.9 billion estimate is “low-balling it.” A new fuze is also needed, he noted in an email. “New fuzes are expensive.” Other components could increase the price tag. “The W88 uses the Mk5 [reentry body] but the W93 will likely use a new Mk7, which will add to the cost projection,” Kristensen said. “A W93 using Mk7 obviously will be more expensive than the standard life-extension programs.”….. Nuclear modernization programs, especially those related to warheads, have put Republicans and Democrats at loggerheads in the past. “This will be, I predict, the probably most contentious issue in this year’s defense authorization bill about modernizing the stockpile,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said during recent remarks at the Brookings Institution. “There is a temptation to say, ‘Oh, it’s worked pretty well so far. Why do we need to mess with it and spend all this money?’” Thornberry said the nuclear arsenal needs to be modernized. However, Democrats may not go along with the W93 plans. “Congressional leadership has yet to receive the military requirement or justification for another new nuclear warhead,” a spokesperson for HASC Democrats said in an email. “As recently as July 2019, the Department of Energy projected it would begin work on this warhead in 2023. Work on this new warhead will add billions of dollars to an already strained nuclear modernization plan.”…… https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/3/17/political-battle-brewing-over-new-nuclear-program |
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Nuclear-powered submarines – fraught with legal and political problems
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The Complex Policy Questions Raised by Nuclear Energy’s Role in the Future of Warfare, Just Security by Alex Gilbert, Morgan Bazilian and Julia Nesheiwat, March 16, 2020 The United States military, as well as other militaries around the world, are racing to develop high-energy weapons—lasers, high-powered microwaves, and electromagnetic rail guns—in order to compete with near-peer competitors on the next generation of military technologies. But the electricity to power these systems will need to derive from somewhere, and so military planners are eyeing a new generation of energy-dense nuclear reactors, despite potential policy and legal challenges to doing so…….. The Army is considering mobile nuclear power plants, in part to drive high-energy weapons, an idea one retired three-star hailed as a potential logistics revolution. And should the U.S. build space-based lasers for missile defense, nuclear energy may be the only way to provide the needed megawatts. All this raises key policy concerns in relation to international law, rules of engagement, and the laws of warfare. Basing, or even deploying, nuclear reactors in the territorial waters or land of an overseas ally requires the permission of the host government, which may be averse to expanding nuclear power as in the case of major bases like Yokosuka, Japan. Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, provides another challenging case as the ongoing territorial dispute between the United Kingdom and Mauritius threatens the U.S. base there, and a nuclear plant would only complicate the existing dispute. The U.S. Navy already faces constraints on where their nuclear-powered ships can visit. Floating nuclear power plants, like those developed by Russia and China, face similar concerns if they transit foreign waters or, in the case of the South China Sea, are stationed in disputed territories. Similarly, mobile reactors, like those considered by the U.S. Army, would likely be transported by air, requiring permission of all overflight countries. Beyond basing, a critical question is whether the U.S. military would own and operate these new reactors, as the Navy currently does, or whether they would pursue commercial alternatives, as the Army is considering. The U.S. Army report on mobile reactors noted that, with either government or commercial ownership, there are concerns about international rules and licensing that present potential barriers to deployment. In some cases, potential host countries do not even have nuclear regulatory agencies. Further, commercial ownership raises liability concerns, both in the case of a military incident or an accident. International nuclear liability treaties are not well harmonized between the U.S. and most of its allies, especially when it comes to the unique concerns of transportable reactors. Using nuclear power for high-energy weapons also creates targeting dilemmas for the U.S. and foreign militaries. High-energy weapons and their support infrastructure, including reactors, may be initial targets in a conflict. The social, environmental, and reputational impacts of damaging a nuclear reactor, particularly on a country’s home territory, or with effects on a third country, could lead to conflict escalation and international condemnation……. Nuclear-powered laser satellites could aggravate concerns about nuclear arms controls as such systems could be used for anti-ballistic missile or anti-satellite applications. While the Outer Space Treaty prohibits weapons of mass destruction in orbit, it does not prohibit other types of weaponry. During the Cold War, Soviet military space reactors raised calls for bans on space nuclear power, particularly after one accidentally crashed in Canada. Recent calls for space arms control have been unsuccessful. As with terrestrial nuclear-powered lasers, the unique role of laser satellites would make them early targets in any major power conflict, leading to risks of collateral damage from radioactive and dangerous space debris, as occurred after the accidental 2009 collision involving a decommissioned Soviet nuclear satellite.. The article below is not about Australia, but it is about small nuclear reactors. Everybody knows, (just quietly) that Australia won’t be getting small nuclear reactors for providing electricity. The real aim is for nuclear-powered submarines. So this article, about the legal and political problems of nuclear reactors for Defence is applicable to Australia, too
The Complex Policy Questions Raised by Nuclear Energy’s Role in the Future of Warfare, Just Security by Alex Gilbert, Morgan Bazilian and Julia Nesheiwat, March 16, 2020 The United States military, as well as other militaries around the world, are racing to develop high-energy weapons—lasers, high-powered microwaves, and electromagnetic rail guns—in order to compete with near-peer competitors on the next generation of military technologies. But the electricity to power these systems will need to derive from somewhere, and so military planners are eyeing a new generation of energy-dense nuclear reactors, despite potential policy and legal challenges to doing so…….. The Army is considering mobile nuclear power plants, in part to drive high-energy weapons, an idea one retired three-star hailed as a potential logistics revolution. And should the U.S. build space-based lasers for missile defense, nuclear energy may be the only way to provide the needed megawatts.
All this raises key policy concerns in relation to international law, rules of engagement, and the laws of warfare.
Basing, or even deploying, nuclear reactors in the territorial waters or land of an overseas ally requires the permission of the host government, which may be averse to expanding nuclear power as in the case of major bases like Yokosuka, Japan. Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, provides another challenging case as the ongoing territorial dispute between the United Kingdom and Mauritius threatens the U.S. base there, and a nuclear plant would only complicate the existing dispute.
The U.S. Navy already faces constraints on where their nuclear-powered ships can visit. Floating nuclear power plants, like those developed by Russia and China, face similar concerns if they transit foreign waters or, in the case of the South China Sea, are stationed in disputed territories. Similarly, mobile reactors, like those considered by the U.S. Army, would likely be transported by air, requiring permission of all overflight countries.
Beyond basing, a critical question is whether the U.S. military would own and operate these new reactors, as the Navy currently does, or whether they would pursue commercial alternatives, as the Army is considering. The U.S. Army report on mobile reactors noted that, with either government or commercial ownership, there are concerns about international rules and licensing that present potential barriers to deployment. In some cases, potential host countries do not even have nuclear regulatory agencies. Further, commercial ownership raises liability concerns, both in the case of a military incident or an accident. International nuclear liability treaties are not well harmonized between the U.S. and most of its allies, especially when it comes to the unique concerns of transportable reactors.
Using nuclear power for high-energy weapons also creates targeting dilemmas for the U.S. and foreign militaries. High-energy weapons and their support infrastructure, including reactors, may be initial targets in a conflict. The social, environmental, and reputational impacts of damaging a nuclear reactor, particularly on a country’s home territory, or with effects on a third country, could lead to conflict escalation and international condemnation…….
Nuclear-powered laser satellites could aggravate concerns about nuclear arms controls as such systems could be used for anti-ballistic missile or anti-satellite applications. While the Outer Space Treaty prohibits weapons of mass destruction in orbit, it does not prohibit other types of weaponry. During the Cold War, Soviet military space reactors raised calls for bans on space nuclear power, particularly after one accidentally crashed in Canada. Recent calls for space arms control have been unsuccessful. As with terrestrial nuclear-powered lasers, the unique role of laser satellites would make them early targets in any major power conflict, leading to risks of collateral damage from radioactive and dangerous space debris, as occurred after the accidental 2009 collision involving a decommissioned Soviet nuclear satellite…. …… https://www.justsecurity.org/69056/the-complex-policy-questions-raised-by-nuclear-energys-role-in-the-future-of-warfare/
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World food supplies would be severely disrupted by even a “limited” nuclear war
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY A WAR BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN USING LESS THAN 1 PERCENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS WORLDWIDE COULD LEAD TO THE WORST GLOBAL FOOD LOSSES IN MODERN HISTORY, ACCORDING TO A RUTGERS CO-AUTHORED STUDY THAT IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND.
Sudden global cooling from a limited nuclear war along with less precipitation and sunlight “could disrupt food production and trade worldwide for about a decade – more than the impact from anthropogenic climate change by late (21st) century,” the study says.
While the impacts of global warming on agricultural productivity have been studied extensively, the implications of sudden cooling for global crop growth are little understood, notes the study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our results add to the reasons that nuclear weapons must be eliminated because if they exist, they can be used with tragic consequences for the world,” said co-author Alan Robock, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “As horrible as the direct effects of nuclear weapons would be, more people could die outside the target areas due to famine.”
Robock co-authored a recent study in the journal Science Advances estimating that more than 100 million people could die immediately if India and Pakistan wage a nuclear war, followed by global mass starvation. The study focused on a war scenario that could occur between the neighboring nations in 2025, when they could have a combined 400 to 500 nuclear weapons.
For the new study, scientists used a scenario of 5 million tons of black smoke (soot) from massive fires injected into the upper atmosphere that could result from using only 100 nuclear weapons. That would cool the Earth by 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and lead to 8 percent lower precipitation and less sunlight for at least five years.
Scientists included those climate changes in computer simulations by six different crop models for four major crops that account for 90 percent of global cereal production in terms of calories. The scientists found that corn calorie production would fall by 13 percent, wheat by 11 percent, rice by 3 percent and soybeans by 17 percent over five years. Total first-year losses of 12 percent would be four times larger than any food shortage in history, such as those caused by historic droughts and volcanic eruptions.
Analyses of food trade networks show that domestic reserves and global trade can largely buffer the loss of food production in the first year. But multiyear losses would reduce domestic food availability, especially in food-insecure countries.
By year five, corn and wheat availability would decrease by 13 percent globally and by more than 20 percent in 71 countries with a total of 1.3 billion people. Corn production in the United States and Canada – representing more than 40 percent of global production – would drop by 17.5 percent.
Robock said the scenario with 5 million tons of smoke was developed more than a decade ago. Scientists now think that 16 million tons of smoke could arise from a nuclear war between India and Pakistan since they now have more and bigger weapons and their potential targets are larger. This means the impacts could be three-fold larger.
Next steps include analyzing the impacts of more scenarios, including those generating more smoke. Scientists also want to study the economic impacts in greater detail, including food hoarding by countries and refusals to trade it. They will also look into other impacts of nuclear war, using more models and studying more crops, extreme cold snaps and greater fluctuations in ultraviolet light.
In southern Nevada, some form of advanced B61-12 testing is underway
F-15E Strike Eagle Spotted Flying With An Inert B61-12 Nuclear Bomb Out Of Nellis AFB https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32585/f-15e-strike-eagle-spotted-flying-with-an-inert-b61-12-nuclear-bomb-out-of-nellis-afb
The precision-guided upgrade of the B61 tactical nuclear bomb has had a troubled and very expensive past. BY TYLER ROGOWAYMARCH 14, 2020, Exercise Red Flag is underway with the U.S. and some of its tightest allies fighting a mock air war over the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR)
In southern Nevada. Either in conjunction with the exercise or independent of it, there is a lot of testing currently going on over the same area. Case in point, this test F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to Eglin Air Force Base carrying an inert version of America’s newest variant of its long-running B61 series of nuclear bombs, the precision-guided B61-12.
The jet was snapped by aviation photographer Kris Trajano on Tuesday, March 10th, 2020. The F-15E was followed by a pair of F-16s that were landing just before the first Red Flag launch of the day. It isn’t uncommon for various test, training, and tactics development missions to be executed in the space between the two daily Red Flag mass launches and recoveries. Still, it is interesting to see the B61-12 hanging on an F-15E coming into Nellis. Much of the test and evaluation work for the USAF’s nuclear weapons delivery systems occurs on the Tonopah Test Range in the northern reaches of the NTTR. Nearby Tonopah Test Range Airport also supports those activities under certain circumstances.
It isn’t clear why the F-15E is carrying the weapon into Nellis. It appears to be a full-up guided round, but an inert one that lacks a nuclear warhead for testing purposes. The aircraft could be set to run another drop test on the Tonopah Test Range, or it’s possible, but less likely, that deployment of the weapon could be folded into an upcoming Red Flag mission. America’s NATO allies Germany, Italy, and Spain are the only foreign players taking part in this Red Flag, so an operational test of the weapon that will be the lynchpin of the Alliance’s nuclear deterrent in Europe would make some sense, especially this late in its development. It’s not unheard of for B61 deployment tactics development and training to occur out of Nellis, either.
As for the B61-12 program, which is seen as an essential upgrade to the Air Force’s only tactical nuclear gravity bomb, it has been mired in cost overruns and other issues. All said, the bombs will be worth over twice their weight in gold, literally, once they are operational. The F-15E, along with the F-16 and B-2, are the Air Force’s delivery systems for this weapon.
The Air Force’s F-35As will acquire this capability in the future, as well. The 412th Test Wing at Edwards noted that it “advanced strategic capabilities [for the F-35] like Dual-Capable Aircraft” in a round-up of its accomplishments during 2019. “Dual-capable” in this context refers to the ability to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. In 2017, Military.com had reported that the B61-12 might be integrated into the F-35A as early as 2020, but when The War Zone reached out to the 412th Test Wing for an update earlier this year, the unit’s public affairs office said it could not “provide a response at this time due to operational security reasons.”
The updated B61-12’s ability to make precision strikes greatly increases its versatility, regardless of the plane carrying it, and the ways in which it could be employed during an actual nuclear strike. You can read all about the weapon and its developmental state here and here. Once the B61-12 is fully operational, it will be forward-deployed, including to Europe, where some of America’s NATO partners could be tasked with delivering a portion of the weapons during an all-out conflict.
The unit’s public affairs office said it could not “provide a response at this time due to operational security reasons.”
Clearly, some form of advanced B61-12 testing is underway out of Nellis. Hopefully, this will involve ironing out some of the weapon’s kinks so that it can be made operational. Regardless, it’s always interesting seeing a tactical fighter carrying a weapon type that is intended to be far more destructive than anything else in the jet’s air-to-ground arsenal.
It’s fascinating just how much destructive power can be packed inside the B61’s svelte, 700-pound frame. The B61-12 has a so-called “dial-a-yield” warhead with various settings, the highest of which is a 50 kiloton yield. This is a little over twice the power of the Fat Man bomb, a substantially larger weapon overall, which the United States dropped on Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
Pentagon’s latest scam for tax-payers’ money; dangerous, costly portable nuclear reactors
Pentagon hands out contracts for PORTABLE nuclear reactors… yet 
another gold vein for cash-savvy military? https://www.rt.com/news/482942-us-military-nuclear-microreactor/ 13 Mar, 2020 There’s no shortage of hefty defense deals awarded by the US Department of Defense, but the $40 million contract for micro-reactors definitely stands out, as it hides safety risks and raises doubts over its economic efficiency.
The nuclear device that the DoD strategists want must have the capability to be safely and rapidly transported by road, rail, sea or air (sic!) as well as swiftly set up and shut down. The project split between three companies — BWX Technologies, Westinghouse Government Services and X-energy — calls for a “safe, mobile and advanced nuclear micro-reactor.”
The safety part sounds particularly soothing, but how would it look on the ground? What if those miniature reactors, when moved by land, become targets of high-profile terrorist attacks? And will it prove to be a real alternative (which means cheaper price, of course) to conventional energy sources?
‘The more reactors — the greater the danger’
“Any nuclear reactor attracts terrorists,” Andrey Ozharovsky, nuclear scientist, program expert at the Russian Social Ecological Union, told RT. “It doesn’t matter if it’s located at a nuclear power plant [or inside a portable device]… if you remember, the terrorists planned directing one of the planes at a nuclear plant during 9/11.”
The logic here is simple, he pointed out: “the more reactors are out there — the greater the danger.” If the US builds hundreds, or even dozens of such devices, it’ll be really hard for them to properly defend them all.
Another vital safety issue is the reliability of the nuclear micro-reactors. Interestingly enough, the US military had already experimented with them back in the 1950s and 1960s — and it ended in a tragedy.
Several portable reactors were built and setup in Greenland and Panama, but one of them blew up in 1961, killing three operators. The Army Nuclear Power Program was shut down shortly after that.
“There were eight US micro-reactors and one of them exploded. That’s how safe they are,” Ozharovsky said, adding that the Pentagon’s idea of bringing them back will “likely create more risks instead of solving any problems.”
‘Micro-reactors yet to prove their economic efficiency’
But even if the portable reactors will be shielded from the perils of the battlefield and operate without failure, what’s the Pentagon’s rationale behind bringing the radioactive fuel to their military bases? For decades, the army had been successfully running on gasoline, diesel and fuel oil; when going off-grid, it would switch to generators and high-power accumulators.
“The main problem has nothing related to safety,” Anton Khlopkov, director of Energy and Security Center and member of Russian Security Council’s Scientific Council argued.
Micro-reactors must prove their viability from the economic point of view, since such plants always have alternatives.
It is yet to be proven that micro-reactors won’t be “many times more” expensive than other conventional sources of energy. Electricity produced by such devices should be at least comparable in cost to the one produced by diesel generators, he said.
‘Some kind of a soap bubble’
If micro-reactors are such a questionable solution, why is the Pentagon pushing for their development? The answer isn’t lying on the surface, but it isn’t buried too deep.
“They work against the trends,” Ozharovsky suggested. And those trends are that the world is giving up on the use of civilian nuclear energy due to being too expensive.
Washington may be trying to “support the US the nuclear industry that’s dying out with the use of the military budget; sponsor their research and development — which is an expensive thing.”
Ozharovsky didn’t rule out the possibility that the whole thing “is some kind of a soap bubble.” The research will be made, some prototypes may even be put together, but no actual mini-reactors will be ordered by the Pentagon, he said.
The DoD’s was never shy to spend the US taxpayer dollars: its F-35 program was worth a whopping $1.4 trillion in procurement and operating costs over its lifetime, while Pentagon also acquired such items of prime necessity as… $640 toilet seats and $7,600 coffee makers. The micro-reactors may well become another entry in this wasteful list.
Steps to nowhere on nuclear disarmament – USA’s “Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament” (CEND)
The Virus of Nuclear Proliferation https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/12/virus-nuclear-proliferation, March 12, 2020, by In Depths News
Rather than addressing the promising path forward provided by the new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to finally ban the bomb, the U.S. launched a new initiative, by Alice Slater
Ironically, it is not nearly so well-reported, that the 50-year old NPT is threatening the world with an even worse illness then the new terrifying coronavirus.
The NPT’s critical requirement that the nuclear armed states, which signed the treaty in 1970, must make “good faith efforts” for nuclear disarmament is virtually moribund as nations are developing new nuclear weapons, some characterized as more “usable” and destroying treaties that contributed to a more stable environment.
These include the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which the U.S. negotiated with USSR and walked out of in 2002, and its repeated rejections of offers from Russia and China to negotiate a treaty to keep weapons out of space, and from Russia to ban cyberwar, all of which would contribute to “strategic stability” which would enable the fulfillment of the NPT’s nuclear disarmament promise.
Further, this year the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Force agreement it made with Russia in 1987, left the nuclear deal it had negotiated with Iran as well, and just announced it would not meet with Russia to discuss a renewal of the Strategic Arms Control Treaty (START), due to expire this year, which limits nuclear warheads and missiles.
It also created a whole new branch of its military, the Department of Space, which was formerly housed in the U.S. Airforce. And in an obvious breach of “good faith” [i] ,this February the US staged a “limited” nuclear battle against Russia in a war game!
It cannot be denied that the NPT contributes to even more burgeoning nuclear proliferation by extending its misbegotten “inalienable right” to “peaceful” nuclear power, currently promoting this lethal technology to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Belarus, Bangladesh and Turkey which are all constructing their first nuclear power plants — expanding the keys to the bomb factory in more and more countries, while almost all of the current nuclear weapons states have new nuclear weapons under development.
The U.S., for example, is planning to spend over a trillion dollars over the next 10 years and is working with the UK to replace Britain’s Trident nuclear warheads.
Rather than addressing the promising path forward provided by the new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to finally ban the bomb, the U.S. launched a new initiative, Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament (CEND), to develop yet another set of possible new steps to comply with its 50 year old “good faith” promises for nuclear disarmament.
At a recent meeting in Stockholm with fifteen of its allies, new measures were announced for nuclear disarmament now being described as “stepping stones”, having graduated from various commitments over the years for “steps” and “an unequivocal commitment” to those steps, since the NPT was extended in 1970, indefinitely and unconditionally.
These new “stepping stones” bring to mind M.G. Escher’s stunning drawing of a series of steps to nowhere with people endlessly trudging up a staircase, never to reach their destination!
Nuclear modernisation, cyber operations, raise a dilemma for nuclear deterrence
As the character Dr. Strangelove makes clear in the eponymous classic movie, nobody is frightened of capabilities that are kept secret.
Nuclear capabilities must be revealed to be useful for deterrence. Nuclear deterrence works because nuclear weapons states can deliberately reveal their nuclear capabilities and thus signal the potential consequences for crossing red lines. By contrast, offensive cyber operations against sensitive targets cannot be revealed if they are to be useful at all.
Digital Strangelove: The Cyber Dangers of Nuclear Weapons, https://www.lawfareblog.com/digital-strangelove-cyber-dangers-nuclear-weapons By Jon Lindsay Thursday, March 12, 2020, : This post article is part of a series exploring the findings and recommendations of the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission.
The crucial strategic conundrum, therefore, is how to manage the interaction of two domains with dangerously opposed strategic characteristics. If opponents do not agree on the balance of power in a crisis bargaining situation, for whatever reason, bargaining is more likely to fail. Offensive cyber operations targeting NC3 create just such an information asymmetry. Cyber capabilities that are needed only in the event that deterrence fails can thus make it more likely that deterrence will fail in the first place. Precisely because cyber conflict takes place below the threshold of armed conflict, the dangerous combination of offensive cyber operations and NC3 can, in effect, lower the nuclear threshold.
Translating defensive capacity into deterrence requires taking the additional, and politically difficult, step of advertising NC3 redundancy and resilience to potential adversaries, even in a cyber-degraded environment. Perhaps the most important thing to be done is to sensitize operators, nuclear policy makers and allied counterparts throughout the NC3 enterprise to the risks of cyber-nuclear interaction. Human interpretation and intervention will be the key to mitigating many of these scenarios as they emerge. It is thus important for governments to develop and exercise concepts and methods for noticing and evaluating the likelihood of different types of cyber-nuclear risks as they emerge in various scenarios.
Hypocrisy: new commitments to Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) include push for nuclear power
While reaffirming their “commitment to the NPT in all its aspects”, the five Foreign Ministers say: “The NPT has provided the essential foundation for international efforts to stem the looming threat – then and now – that nuclear weapons would proliferate across the globe. In so doing, it has served the interests of all its Parties.”
The five Foreign Ministers are: Wang Yi, State Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of China; Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, France; Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia; Dominic Raab, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of Britain and Northern Ireland; Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State of the U.S.
The Foreign Ministers adds: “We also celebrate the astonishingly diverse benefits of the peaceful uses of the atom, whether for electricity, medicine, agriculture, or industry. We reiterate our strong support for broadening access to the benefits of nuclear energy and its applications for peaceful purpose. This boon to humanity thrives because the NPT, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime built around the Treaty, has helped provide confidence that nuclear programs are and will remain entirely peaceful.” ……https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/3376-five-nuclear-weapon-states-pledge-commitment-to-npt
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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