The idea of a “Nuclear Second Strike”: NOT morally justifiable , NOT ‘acceptable.’
 The Dubious Moral Justification for a Nuclear Second Strike https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/08/dubious-moral-justification-nuclear-second-strike
The aim of presenting the case for the continued possession of these terrifying weapons that hold the potential to destroy all life on earth this way seems to be to convince citizens that nuclear weapons are morally justifiable and thus somehow ‘acceptable.’ Firstly, consider that, given the short reaction time needed to retaliate to a first strike, leaders would have to bypass normal administrative and civic oversight processes, the very mechanisms designed to curb politicians’ excesses and keep their more base instincts in check, to launch a second strike. As such, a second strike can only be launched in anger or, more aptly, rage. Arguably, they would be more volatile in this state than even when contemplating the launch of a nuclear first strike; where some calculus, however sinister, is required on the part of those whose finger is on their country’s nuclear button. Secondly, consider the argument that reserving the right to launch a second strike is necessary to maintain the peace as it acts as a deterrent. For the threat of a nuclear second strike to serve as a credible deterrent, it has to be disproportionate. The threatened response will have to be massive to the point of being genocidal whether subject to a barrage of one, two or more missile attacks in an initial strike. By its very nature, this implies that there is limited strategic or tactical value (in military terms) in the use of nuclear weapons during a second strike. Their main (sole?) value lies in the capacity to sow terror in the hearts and minds of the nation’s enemies by invoking the spectre of annihilation. Leaders’ proclamations of their willingness to launch a second strike thus amounts to a taunt; a goading of their adversaries along the lines of, “Go ahead, try me if you dare and see how terrible the consequences will be.” The message that one’s nation will be satisfied with nothing less than an attack which results in the total destruction of their enemies signals that restoring any semblance of ‘normalcy’ or détente between adversaries will not be possible after a nuclear exchange. In so doing, it forecloses the possibility of reconciliation or the restoration of relations between survivors in warring nations and ensures their eternal enmity. This thought is cause for despair considering that the scattered survivors left in the broken nations that were involved in a nuclear confrontation would have to rely on each other more than ever given the catastrophic global consequences of even a minor nuclear exchange between nuclear powers. Lastly, lest we forget, for all the efforts which politicians put into drawing a distinction between a nuclear first and second strike, nuclear weapons are still nuclear weapons and retain the characteristics of nuclear weapons whether used in a first or second strike. A crucial characteristic of nuclear weapons is that they are indiscriminate and do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It follows that the louder one declares one’s willingness to carry out disproportionate and less-targeted strikes that are of limited strategic or tactical military value, the fewer qualms one has about the taking of civilian lives. Based on the reasons outlined above, a nuclear second strike can only be described as an act of vengeance. Thus, when leaders proudly put forward the position that their nation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons only as a second strike, they effectively proclaim that they represent a vengeful and wrathful people. Is this the societal value that citizens of nuclear-armed countries would like leaders to embrace in their behalf? Is this the sort of sentiment that the rank-and-file citizen in a nuclear-armed country would like to echo across the ages to their grandchildren and grandchildren’s children? If not, and if leaders’ disavowal of launching a nuclear first strike is as sincere as they would have us believe, for what reason should any nation continue to possess nuclear weapons? If the reason seems unclear, then it may be worthwhile for the average citizen of goodwill in a nuclear-armed country to resolve this new year to urge their leaders to renew their commitments to arms control and ultimately, the elimination of these genocidal weapons. And should the approval of one’s descendants or the appeal to advance our shared universal values not be sufficient to persuade them to resolve to do so, bear in mind that the continued existence of a nation’s nuclear arsenal means that its citizens must continue to entrust their protection and wellbeing to leaders who, as part of their job requirement, must be both quick to anger and harbour homicidal tendencies. One leaves it to the reader to decide if this is the sort of leader the individual citizen or their compatriots deserve at a time when democracy and hard-won freedoms seem to be on the retreat domestically the world over and assassination and targeted killing appear to have become an integral tool of foreign policy. Gerard Boyce is an Economist and Senior Lecturer in the School of Built Environment and Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard College) in Durban, South Africa. He writes in his personal capacity and can be reached at gdboyce@yahoo.com.
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New Zealand veterans await nuclear radiation genetic testing study
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New Zealand veterans await nuclear radiation genetic testing study, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/406922/new-zealand-veterans-await-nuclear-radiation-genetic-testing-study 8 Jan 2029Veterans deployed to the Mururoa Atoll will wait another two months to find out whether their children and grandchildren may be genetically impacted by nuclear radiation.
A Mururoa Nuclear Veterans Group teamed up with Otago University last year to produce a study about whether the families of veterans deployed to Mururoa Atoll in 1973, may have been affected by their parents’ exposure to radiation. University of Otago researcher David McBride is leading the study and said “the public need to know” what veterans had been facing and he hoped this study could help them in their quest for more support for their families. About 145 people participated in the study which took six weeks. It is now being peer reviewed for the New Zealand Medical Journal. “When and if our study is peer reviewed favourably then published, I’m hoping that’s not going to take too long,” he said. He said he suspected the veterans group would have to wait until March or April at the latest. “One of the most out-of-the-ordinary things you can have is exposure to nuclear radiation,” he said. “It certainly was a traumatising experience and they are right inthe fact that they may have passed defect onto their children and grandchildren.” |
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Complex and tortured history of Iran and nuclear weapons debate
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IRAN DOES NOT HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS, BUT HERE’S WHY ITS PROGRAM IS AT THE HEART OF THE CRISIS https://www.newsweek.com/why-iran-does-not-have-nuclear-weapons-1480355BY TOM O’CONNOR ON 1/3/20 Iran is not believed to possess nuclear weapons and officially has never sought them—although its top foes the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia are among those who argue that the Islamic Republic has always secretly wanted such a weapon of mass destruction. This dispute has been at the heart of a worsening Middle East crisis that flared up with the Pentagon’s killing of a top Iranian military leader. The assassination of Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani along with top Iraqi militia figures Thursday in Baghdad came amid a series of deadly, tit-for-tat escalations that has worsened since President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018. The accord granted Tehran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for severely restricting its nuclear activities. The agreement has since begun to unravel, with European powers struggling to normalize trade ties under threat of U.S. sanctions and Iran reducing its own commitments in response. While Soleimani’s death may be the most dramatic salvo in the U.S. and Iran’s feud in some time, it was not at all the first blood shed throughout the two nations’ complex, tortured history. Officially, nuclear weapons have been banned by Iran because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has deemed them to be forbidden under Islam; since 2003, the U.S. accused of Iran of seeking to develop them. That same year, Khamenei issued a fatwa—an Islamic legal opinion—allegedly dating back to beliefs he expressed for nearly a decade, opposing the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction. While Iran’s nuclear activities continued, officials consistently argued—and have to this day—that the work was purely for energy purposes. The idea of weapons of mass destruction being un-Islamic has repeatedly surfaced in the Islamic Republic over the years, with Khamenei saying as recently as June that “religious verdicts prohibit building nuclear weapons.” Iran also publicly opposes chemical and biological weapons, owing to Iraq’s use of mustard gas and nerve agents during their 1980s war in which Washington backed Baghdad and at times bombed both Iranian troops and civilians. Officially, nuclear weapons have been banned by Iran because Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has deemed them to be forbidden under Islam; since 2003, the U.S. accused of Iran of seeking to develop them. That same year, Khamenei issued a fatwa—an Islamic legal opinion—allegedly dating back to beliefs he expressed for nearly a decade, opposing the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction. While Iran’s nuclear activities continued, officials consistently argued—and have to this day—that the work was purely for energy purposes. The idea of weapons of mass destruction being un-Islamic has repeatedly surfaced in the Islamic Republic over the years, with Khamenei saying as recently as June that “religious verdicts prohibit building nuclear weapons.” Iran also publicly opposes chemical and biological weapons, owing to Iraq’s use of mustard gas and nerve agents during their 1980s war in which Washington backed Baghdad and at times bombed both Iranian troops and civilians. As international restrictions against Tehran tightened in 2010, a computer virus known as Stuxnet was uncovered that crippled Iran’s centrifuges. Also that year, a series of targeted attacks began that killed four Iranian nuclear scientists and wounded another. Iran blamed both Israel—which itself is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons—and the U.S. for the operations. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in either, but has been widely attributed both with the U.S. assisting in the latter. The finalization of the Iran nuclear deal—officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—in 2015 was largely hailed as a diplomatic landmark by the international community. Though opposed by hardliners in both Washington and Tehran, the agreement officially held Iran’s nuclear program under the scrutiny of International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring and opened up the country’s economy. Trump, who came to office in early 2017, felt it did no go far enough, however, in curbing what he believed to be Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, as well as its support for militant groups abroad and its ongoing missile development. He has since applied a “maximum pressure” strategy in hopes of reining in the Islamic Republic, though the security situation across the Middle East has deteriorated significantly. For one year, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran abided by the deal, even without any U.S. or full European commitment. On the first anniversary of the U.S. exit from the nuclear deal last May—and just days after the White House announced the deployment of additional troops to the Persian Gulf region—Iran, however, officially began stepping away and has continued to do so. Fellow signatories China, the European Union, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom all continue to support the accord. But all parties have raised their doubts as to its success should tensions continue to worsen. |
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Prime Minister Netanyahu almost blew the secret of Israel’s nuclear arsenal
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In momentary slip, Netanyahu breaks Israel’s nuclear ambiguity Hailing gas pipeline deal, PM trips up in calling Jewish state a ‘nuclear power,’ but quickly clarifies, Times of Israel, By TOI STAFF, 5 Jan 2020 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called Israel a “nuclear power” before correcting himself mid-word to say “energy power.” The premier’s comment came during the weekly cabinet meeting as he briefed ministers about the deal signed Thursday between Israel, Greece and Cyprus on Thursday for a huge pipeline project to ship gas from the eastern Mediterranean to Europe. Israel has never acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons, instead maintaining a policy of “strategic ambiguity.” Foreign reports have put the size of Israel’s nuclear arsenal in the dozens to hundreds of weapons…….. https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-momentary-slip-netanyahu-breaks-israels-nuclear-ambiguity |
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Depleted uranium causing cancer epidemic in Serbia
The number of cancer patients will dramatically increase 20 years after NATO aggression, because that is when uranium has strongest effect, said oncologist Vladimir Cikaric. Now we have 35000 people that suffer from cancer, and in three years that number could climb to 70.000
According to him, there are 35.000 people suffering from cancer, and after 2019 that number could double to 70.000 because the effect of the depleted uranium from Kosovo and from Pcinjski area is spreading over the entire country.
– Serbia is number one in the mortality rate from tumors in Europe, and we have almost three times higher mortality than carcinoma in comparison to the world. The reason is that the dust from the depleted uranium in Pcinski area and Kosovo spread across the entire country. We all breathed it. Because of that we now have drastic increase of leukemia and lymphoma, but also all other types of carcinoma. However, the worst is yet to come. Depleted uranium has the strongest effect after 20 years and it turns healthy cells into cancer cells. That means that from 2019 the number of people who will get sick with cancer will increase, according to some assessments, there will be 70.000 people, which is twice the number we have now. Real health disaster is in front of us, which we can not prevent – warns Cikaric.
Russia, in fear of a USA first strike may now revive its “dead hand” nuclear weapon
‘s Nuclear “Dead Hand”
Russia won’t succumb to pressure near its territory. National Interest, by Michael Peck 30 Dec 19,
Key point: Russia is acting out of fear that a U.S. first-strike that would decapitate the Russian leadership before it could give the order to retaliate.
But the system, known as “Perimeter” or “Dead Hand,” may be back and deadlier than ever.
This comes after the Trump administration announced that the United States is withdrawing from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated the once-massive American and Russian stockpiles of short- and medium-range missiles.
Donald Trump alleges that Russia has violated the treaty by developing and deploying new, prohibited cruise missiles.This has left Moscow furious and fearful that America will once again, as it did during the Cold War, deploy nuclear missiles in Europe. Because of geographic fate, Russia needs ICBMs launched from Russian soil, or launched from submarines, to strike the continental United States. But shorter-range U.S. missiles based in, say, Germany or Poland could reach the Russian heartland.
Viktor Yesin, who commanded Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces in the 1990s, spoke of Perimeter/Dead Hand during an interview last month in the Russian newspaper Zvezda [Google English translation here]. Yesin said that if the United States starts deploying intermediate-range missiles in Europe, Russia will consider adopting a doctrine of a preemptive nuclear strike. But he also added this:
Yesin: “The Perimeter system is functioning, it has even been improved. But when it works, we will have little left – we can only launch those missiles that will survive after the first attack of the aggressor.” …….
What is unmistakable is that Perimeter is a fear-based solution. Fear of a U.S. first-strike that would decapitate the Russian leadership before it could give the order to retaliate. Fear that a Russian leader might lose his nerve and not give the order.
And if Russia is now discussing Perimeter publicly, that’s reason for the rest of us to worry.https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/america-driving-return-russias-nuclear-dead-hand-109206
War planners ignore the fire effects of nuclear bombing
City on fire, Nuclear Darkness, by Lynne Eden, 30 Dec 19, By ignoring the fire damage that would result from a nuclear attack and taking into account blast damage alone, U.S. war planners were able to demand a far larger nuclear arsenal than necessary.
For more than 50 years, the U.S. Government has seriously underestimated damage from nuclear attacks. The earliest schemes to predict damage from atomic bombs, devised in 1947 and 1948, focused only on blast damage and ignored damage from fire, which can be far more devastating than blast effects.
The failure to include damage from fire in nuclear war plans continues today. Because fire damage has been ignored for the past half-century, high-level U.S. decision makers have been poorly informed, if informed at all, about the extent of damage that nuclear weapons would actually cause. As a result, any U.S. decision to use nuclear weapons almost certainly would be predicated on insufficient and misleading information. If nuclear weapons were used, the physical, social, and political effects could be far more destructive than anticipated.
How can this systematic failure to assess fire damage have persisted for more than half a century? The most common response is that fire damage from nuclear weapons is inherently less predictable than blast damage. This is untrue. Nuclear fire damage is just as predictable as blast damage.
One bomb, one city
To visualize the destructiveness of a nuclear bomb, imagine a powerful strategic nuclear weapon detonated above the Pentagon, a short distance from the center of Washington, D.C.1 Imagine it is a “near-surface” burst-about 1,500 feet above the ground-which is how a military planner might choose to wreak blast damage on a massive structure like the Pentagon. Let us say that it is an ordinary, clear day with visibility at 10 miles, and that the weapon’s explosive power is 300 kilotons-the approximate yield of most modern strategic nuclear weapons. This would be far more destructive than the 15-kilotonbomb detonated at Hiroshima or the 21-kiloton bomb detonated at Nagasaki.2
Washington, D.C., has long been a favorite hypothetical target.3 But a single bomb detonated over a capital city is probably not a realistic planning assumption.
When a former commander in chief of the U.S. Strategic Command read my scenario, he wanted to know why I put only one bomb on Washington. “We must have targeted Moscow with 400 weapons,” he said. He explained the military logic of planning a nuclear attack on Washington: “You’d put one on the White House, one on the Capitol, several on the Pentagon, several on National Airport, one on the CIA, I can think of 50 to a hundred targets right off. . . . I would be comfortable saying that there would be several dozens of weapons aimed at D.C.” Moreover, he said that even today, with fewer weapons, what makes sense would be a decapitating strike against those who command military forces. Today, he said, Washington is in no less danger than during the Cold War.
The discussion that follows greatly understates the damage that would occur in a concerted nuclear attack, and not only because I describe the effects of a single weapon. I describe what would happen to humans in the area, but I do not concentrate on injury, the tragedy of lives lost, or the unspeakable loss to the nation of its capital city. These are important. But I am concerned with how organizations estimate and underestimate nuclear weapons damage; thus, I focus largely, as do they, on the physical environment and on physical damage to structures.
With this in mind, let us look at some of the consequences of a nuclear weapon detonation, from the first fraction of a second to the utter destruction from blast and fire that would happen within several hours. This will allow us to understand the magnitude of the damage from both effects, but particularly from fire, which is neither widely understood nor accounted for in damage prediction in U.S. nuclear war plans.
Unimaginable lethality
The detonation of a 300-kiloton nuclear bomb would release an extraordinary amount of energy in an instant-about 300 trillion calories within about a millionth of a second. More than 95 percent of the energy initially released would be in the form of intense light. This light would be absorbed by the air around the weapon, superheating the air to very high temperatures and creating a ball of intense heat-a fireball.
Because this fireball would be so hot, it would expand rapidly. Almost all of the air that originally occupied the volume within and around the fireball would be compressed into a thin shell of superheated, glowing, high-pressure gas. This shell of gas would compress the surrounding air, forming a steeply fronted, luminous shockwave of enormous extent and power-the blast wave.
By the time the fireball approached its maximum size, it would be more than a mile in diameter. It would very briefly produce temperatures at its center of more than 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius)-about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun.
This enormous release of light and heat would create an environment of almost unimaginable lethality. Vast amounts of thermal energy would ignite extensive fires over urban and suburban areas. In addition, the blast wave and high-speed winds would crush many structures and tear them apart. The blast wave would also boost the incidence and rate of fire-spread by exposing ignitable surfaces, releasing flammable materials, and dispersing burning materials.
Within minutes of a detonation, fire would be everywhere. Numerous fires and firebrands-burning materials that set more fires-would coalesce into a mass fire. (Scientists prefer this term to “firestorm,” but I will use them interchangeably here.) This fire would engulf tens of square miles and begin to heat enormous volumes of air that would rise, while cool air from the fire’s periphery would be pulled in. Within tens of minutes after the detonation, the pumping action from rising hot air would generate superheated ground winds of hurricane force, further intensifying the fire.4
Virtually no one in an area of about 40-65 square miles would survive.
A little farther away…….
Within minutes of a detonation, fire would be everywhere. Numerous fires and firebrands-burning materials that set more fires-would coalesce into a mass fire. (Scientists prefer this term to “firestorm,” but I will use them interchangeably here.) This fire would engulf tens of square miles and begin to heat enormous volumes of air that would rise, while cool air from the fire’s periphery would be pulled in. Within tens of minutes after the detonation, the pumping action from rising hot air would generate superheated ground winds of hurricane force, further intensifying the fire.4
Virtually no one in an area of about 40-65 square miles would survive.
A little farther away……
Three miles from ground zero……..
A hurricane of fire…..
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….The first indicator of a mass fire would be strangely shifting ground winds of growing intensity near ground zero. (Such winds are entirely different from and unrelated to the earlier blast-wave winds that exert “drag pressure” on structures.) These fire-winds are a physical consequence of the rise of heated air over large areas of ground surface, much like a gigantic bonfire.
The inrushing winds would drive the flames from combusting buildings horizontally toward the ground, filling city streets with hot flames and firebrands, breaking in doors and windows, and causing the fire to jump hundreds of feet to swallow anything that was not yet violently combusting. These extraordinary winds would transform the targeted area into a huge hurricane of fire. Within tens of minutes, everything within approximately 3.5 to 4.6 miles of the Pentagon would be engulfed in a mass fire. The fire would extinguish all life and destroy almost everything else. Firestorm physicsThis description of the physics of mass fire is based on the work of a few scientists who have examined in detail the damaging effects of nuclear weapons, including nuclear engineer Theodore A. Postol and physicist Harold Brode. Postol is one of the country’s leading non-government funded technical experts on nuclear weapons, missiles, and arms control. Brode’s five-decade career has been devoted to the study of nuclear weapons effects. That mass fires have occurred, and that something like the firestorm described here could occur, is not in dispute. What is not widely accepted is that nuclear weapons detonated in urban or suburban areas would be virtually certain to set mass fires, and that the resulting damage is as predictable as blast damage. The much more widely held view is that the probability and range of mass fire depends on many unpredictable environmental variables, including rain, snow, humidity, temperature, time of year, visibility, and wind conditions. But the work of Postol, Brode, and Brode’s collaborators shows that mass fire creates its own environment. Except in extreme cases, environmental factors do not affect the likelihood of mass fire. Weather can affect the fire’s range, but this can be reasonably well predicted. For nuclear weapons of approximately 100 kilotons or more, the range of destruction from mass fire will generally be substantially greater than from blast. The extraordinarily high air temperatures and wind speeds characteristic of a mass fire are the inevitable physical consequence of many simultaneous ignitions occurring over a vast area. The vacuum created by buoyantly rising air follows from the basic physics of combustion and fluid flow (hydro- or fluid dynamics). As the area of the fire increases, so does the volume of rising air over the fire zone, causing even more air to be sucked in from the periphery of the fire at increasingly higher speeds. Only a few mass fires have occurred in human history: those created by British and U.S. conventional incendiary weapons and by U.S. atomic bombs in World War II. These include fires that destroyed Hamburg, Dresden, Kassel, Darmstadt, and Stuttgart in Germany, and Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki in Japan. History’s first mass fire began on the night of July 27, 1943, in Hamburg-created by allied incendiary raids. Within 20 minutes, two thirds of the buildings within an area of 4.5 square miles were on fire. It took fewer than six hours for the fire to completely burn an area of more than five square miles. Damage analysts called it the “Dead City.” Wind speeds were of hurricane force; air temperatures were 400-500 degrees Fahrenheit. Between 60,000 and 100,000 people were killed in the attack.6 A mass fire from a modern nuclear bomb could be expected to destroy a considerably larger urban or suburban area, in a similarly short time. The unique features of the mass fire fundamentally distinguish it from the more slowly propagating line fire. …….. Fire environments created by mass fires are fundamentally more violent and destructive than smaller-scale fires, and they are far less affected by external weather conditions. They are not substantially altered by seasonal and daily weather conditions. ….. Average air temperatures in the burning areas after the attack would be well above the boiling point of water; winds generated by the fire would be hurricane force; and the fire would burn everywhere at this intensity for three to six hours. Even after the fire burned out, street pavement would be so hot that even tracked vehicles could not pass over it for days, and buried, unburned material from collapsed buildings could burst into flames if exposed to air even weeks after the fire. Those who sought shelter in basements of strongly constructed buildings could be poisoned by carbon monoxide seeping in, or killed by the ovenlike conditions. Those who tried to escape through the streets would be incinerated by the hurricane-force winds laden with firebrands and flames. Even those able to find shelter in the lower-level sub-basements of massive buildings would likely die of eventual heat prostration, poisoning from fire-generated gases, or lack of water. The firestorm would eliminate all life in the fire zone. All publication data from “Whole World on Fire” by Lynn Eden at Google Books http://www.nucleardarkness.org/web/cityonfire/ |
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Britain’s nuclear weapons convoys a disaster waiting to happen
DOZENS of safety failures during nuclear weapons convoys are a “disaster waiting to happen,” campaigners charged as they demanded the Ministry of Defence (MoD) answer for the risks it is exposing the public to.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and political campaigners have hit out at the MoD after concerning reports show 40 lapses in safety while nuclear and radioactive materials were being transported across the country over the past five years.
A Freedom of Information request has revealed the 40 operational and engineering issues on convoys carrying bombs and hazardous materials.
These incidents included issues identified with brakes on convoy vehicles, included burning smells during transportation.
On other occasions convoy vehicles were forced to stop, and road lanes closed, after suffering flat tyres.
Among other engineering faults listed were warnings of overheating in convoy vehicles.
Multiple “operational” issues also disrupted transportation of dangerous materials.
Reported in these were rolling road blocks needed to manoeuvre the convoy through busy, congested routes across the UK, causing delays in the journey.
CND general secretary Kate Hudson said: “Nuclear bombs carried on our roads are a disaster waiting to happen.
“This report shows that ‘poor maintenance’ is a factor in these safety lapses.
“The MoD must be brought to book for this disgraceful failure — and our new government must end this cargo of death through our communities.”
Britain’s nuclear weapons are still based in Scotland and those north of the border have said it is time to rid ourselves of the apocalyptic threats.
Scottish Green MSP Mark Ruskell led a debate on the topic last year.
He said: “Like many I’d like to see an end to the housing of nuclear weapons in Scotland, but while they are still here it’s not unreasonable to expect the highest standards of safety to apply to their movement.
“People will be shocked at the thought of nuclear convoys travelling on public roads.
“In Stirling the convoys even park up overnight behind a chain-link fence across the road from a Nando’s and a Vue Cinema. This is an absurd situation that must come to an end.”…… https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/britain-nuclear-weapons-convoys-are-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-peace-campaigners-warn
Not nuclear bombs, but the cutting of undersea cables, could be the decisive war weapon
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Forget Nuclear Weapons, Cutting Undersea Cables Could Decisively End A War, Our modern economy could collapse. National Interest
by Steve Weintz 30 Dec 19,
Key point: Our world’s reliance on the internet has only grown with time.
When a July 2015 undersea tremor triggered a rockslide between the islands of Saipan and Tinian in the Northern Marianas Islands, it cut the only fiber-optic cable connecting the archipelago to the global network. Air traffic control grounded flights, automated teller machines shut down, web and phone connections broke.
All the feared impacts of a cyber attack became real for the islanders. A Taiwan-based cable repair ship eventually restored the link, but that was a single break from one natural occurrence. How much more disruption could a deep-sea-faring nation cause its rivals through malicious intent?
Though often mentioned in passing, the fact that the overwhelming bulk of Internet activity travels along submarine cables fails to register with the public. High-flying satellites orbiting the crowded skies, continent-spanning microwave towers and million miles of old 20th Century copper phone wire all carry but a fraction of the Earth’s Internet traffic compared with deep-sea fiber-optic cables.
All that buzz occurs in the dark cold parts of inner space and a few very quiet places on land. If you want to tap into that buzz, those quiet places where the sea cables make landfall—from the onshore facilities out to deep-water offshore—are your prized targets. The U.S. has developed exquisite abilities to access underwater things.
One of America’s greatest techno-spy capers of the Cold War involved tapping Soviet Navy communications via a submarine cable in the 1970s and 1980s. Before IVY BELLS ended with its unmasking by Soviet spy Ronald Pelton, its clandestine aquanauts, spy sub and nuclear-powered “bug” made espionage history. |
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Documents reveal UK’s plans for rolling out nuclear weapons
World War 3: UK’s plan for ‘rapid deployment of nuclear weapons’ in 24 hours exposed https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1219002/world-war-3-uk-nuclear-weapon-deployment-24-hours-soviet-union-cold-war-spt, by CALLUM HOARE, Mon, Dec 30, 2019 |
THE UK planned to roll out its nuclear arsenal in as little as 24 hours in what would have been a “frenetic” response to the Soviet Union’s escalation of war in the Eighties, documents seen by Express.co.uk reveal.
The 1983 papers came at a time of intense tensions, as the Cold War reached boiling point, threatening to topple into World War 3. The US and the Soviet Union were jostling for world supremacy and, as the threat of nuclear war increased, allies on both sides prepared for how they would respond, including the UK. Ministry of Defence documents expose a top secret mission for “rapid deployment of nuclear weapons” in the event things spiralled out of control.
One document seen by Express.co.uk reads: “The Secretary of State asked for further advice on the arrangements which would be needed for the rapid deployment of Tactical Nuclear Warheads (TNW) in a crisis on the assumption that all naval nuclear weapons were stored in the UK in peacetime.
“A plan – Operation Perfidious – is already in existence to allow for the rapid deployment of TNW from the stock-pile at RAF Honington in Suffolk, either directly by helicopter to the ship, or to service airfields in the UK by helicopter or C130 Hercules aircraft for onward transmission to ships.
“Theoretically, transfer from Honington to sea could take as little as 24 hours, but this assumes that the ships are close to the Norfolk coast and that all the assets from the movement are available.
The documents go on to discuss the need to act quickly, and the risks the Soviet Union posed.
They add: “Nuclear stockpiles are known to be prime targets for Soviet Special Forces.
“Additionally, each time a nuclear weapon is moved there is a safety risk, a security risk, and, if the timing of the move can be predicted, a risk of civil, industrial or even military intervention.
“The risks are small if the move is preplanned and conducted in isolation of all other activities.
The risks would be higher if hurried embarkation of a large number of TNW were attempted amidst all the other preparations for war under the eagle eyes of the media and anti-war faction.
“Nuclear stockpiles could be created around the country, but the cost in preparing storage facilities and the manpower necessary to service and guard such areas would be disproportionately high.”
Thankfully, they were never needed.
While tension did reach unthinkable levels, both the US and the Soviet Union were aware of each other’s nuclear capabilities.
As a result, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction was accepted between the two.
This was the belief that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.
It is based on the theory of deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy’s use of those same weapons.
Nuclear weapons could have been sited in Norther Ireland
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Times 30th Dec 2019, A senior figure in the intelligence services told the Irish government that
nuclear weapons could have been sited at underground facilities inside a mountain in Northern Ireland, newly declassified files have revealed. Documents released into the National Archives showed that a Colonel L Buckley, then director of intelligence, was asked to brief Peter Barry, then foreign minister, in November 1983 on the possibility of nuclear missiles being kept on the island of Ireland. |
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The engaging of youth in the movement to end nuclear weapons
Youth to The Front for Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, J Nastranis, InDepth News, 24 Dec 19, NEW YORK (IDN) – UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his Agenda for Disarmament on May 24, 2018 underlined the need to establish a platform for youth engagement. This would include “a cadre of youth from around the world,” who will work assiduously to promote disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control in their communities.Engaging with youth groups and community organizations in support of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals with synergistic linkages to youth, disarmament and non-proliferation education and conflict prevention is the second pillar of the platform for youth engagement.
The third pillar are disarmament and non-proliferation training modules hosted on the online dashboard of the Vienna bureau of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) targeting young diplomats and other youth leaders for knowledge enhancement and capacity-building.
On September 24, 2018 the Secretary-General launched Youth 2030: The United Nations Youth Strategy accentuating that young people are “agents of change” and that the young generation is “the ultimate force for change” and proposing actions to promote youth engagement.
The Secretary-General tasked his Envoy on Youth, in conjunction with the UN system and youth themselves, to lead development of a UN Youth Strategy. Its aim: scale up global, regional and national actions to meet young people’s needs, realize their rights and tap their possibilities as agents of change.
On December 12, 2019 the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus a resolution on Youth, disarmament and non-proliferation. The resolution was introduced by the Republic of Korea and co-sponsored by 42 additional governments including a mix of nuclear-armed, nuclear allied and non-nuclear countries.
The resolution calls on governments, UN agencies and civil society to educate, engage and empower youth in the fields of disarmament and non-proliferation. As such, it aims to provide impetus for non-governmental organisations to develop youth-focused and youth-led programs in cooperation with the United Nations and with support of governments.
The platform for youth engagement and diverse programmes launched by the Secretary-General have been reflected the deep concern of the young people about existential threats posed not only by global warming but also nuclear weapons which are the most inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. They violate international law, cause severe environmental damage, undermine national and global security, and divert vast public resources away from meeting human needs. …….. https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/3209-youth-to-the-front-for-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons
America Almost Stockpiled Nuclear Weapons In Iceland
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Secrets Revealed: America Almost Stockpiled Nuclear Weapons In Iceland
Why didn’t it happen? National Interest, by Michael Peck, 29 DEc 19, Key point: We still don’t officially know which nations had U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil.
If Miss Manners were a diplomat, she would tell us how rude it is to place nuclear bombs in the territory of our allies without being invited to.
But it turns out that in the 1950s, the United States considered deploying nuclear weapons in Iceland without telling the Icelanders, according to declassified documents published by the watchdog organization National Security Archive. “At the end of the 1950s the U.S. Navy ordered the construction of a facility for storing nuclear depth bombs, an Advanced Underseas Weapons (AUW) Shop at the outskirts of Keflavik airport,” the National Security Archive wrote. “The AUW facility was built by local Icelandic workers who thought its purpose was to store torpedoes.”…….. the problem is that Iceland didn’t want nukes on its soil, which would have made the little nation a big target in Soviet eyes. In fact, Iceland’s decision to join NATO in 1949 sparked riots in the normally placid country. In 1951 and in 1960, Icelandic officials asked whether the United States had deployed nuclear weapons at its bases in Iceland. The United States never did—or at least as has so far been revealed—store these weapons on Iceland, and told Icelandic officials so. However, National Security Archive researchers believe that in a still-classified letter, the State Department in 1960 told Tyler Thompson, U.S. ambassador to Iceland, that “the U.S. government was free to deploy nuclear weapons in Iceland without securing the agreement of Reykjavik.”
The evidence is in Thompson’s reply to the State Department, in which the name of the nation was redacted by the declassification censors, but whichalmost certainly refers to Iceland. If U.S. policy was never to store nuclear weapons on Canadian soil without Canadian permission, then why should Iceland be treated differently? Thompson asks. “The possibility of [Iceland’s] withdrawal from Nato in protest should not be overlooked,” he added……. we still don’t officially know which nations had U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil. “The U.S. government has not acknowledged the names of a number of other countries which directly participated in the NATO nuclear weapons stockpile program during the Cold War (and later): Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey (only West Germany and the United Kingdom have been officially disclosed),” according to the National Security Archive. Guaranteed that the Russians know, but we don’t. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/secrets-revealed-america-almost-stockpiled-nuclear-weapons-iceland-109321 |
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Dangers of weapons race, terrorism, disaster, as United Arab Emirates proceeds with nuclear power plan
The UAE has been constructing four nuclear reactors at its upcoming Barakah power plant, the Arab World’s first nuclear power station. The plant is expected to go online in 2020.
Dr. Paul Dorfman of the Nuclear Consulting Group said the UAE may be hoping to use the program to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal. He also warned that Abu Dhabi’s nuclear plants could be a prime target for terrorists
“The motivation for building this may lie hidden in plain sight,” Dorfman said. “They are seriously considering nuclear proliferation.”
The scientist said one threat to safety was regional turmoil that could see enemies launch attacks against the plants, when it was unclear the UAE had sufficient defense capabilities to properly defense against them.
He also cited vulnerability to extreme temperatures and unforeseen effects of climate change.
The Barakah plant is located near the country’s coast, and rising sea levels and storms could potentially hit such locations and destabilize the facilities, he said. He also noted that water in the Persian Gulf is on average higher than elsewhere in the world, and could be less effective as reactor coolant.
Dorfman is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London’s Energy Institute and has advised the British government.
The nuclear plant west of Abu Dhabi is being built by a consortium led by the Korea Electric Power Corporation…..
America’s choice – stop the nuclear weapons obsession, or take the road to extinction
extinction https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/helen-caldicott-our-nuclear-arms-obsession-is-a-countdown-to-extinction,13408, By Helen Caldicott | 14 December 2019 America could lead the way in reallocating its arms budget towards fixing the planet’s problems, writes Dr Helen Caldicott.I WRITE THIS PIECE as a physician expertly trained to make accurate diagnoses to either cure the patient or to alleviate their symptoms.
I, therefore, approach the viability of life on Earth from a similar and honest perspective. Hence, for some, this may be an extremely provocative article but as the planet is in the intensive care unit, we have no time to waste and the startling truth must be accepted.
As TS Elliott wrote so long ago, ‘This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper’.
Will we gradually burn and shrivel the wondrous creation of evolution by emitting the ancient carbon stored over billions of years to drive our cars and to power our industries, or will we end it suddenly with our monstrous weapons within which have captured the energy powering the sun?
Here’s the stark diagnosis from a U.S. perspective.
The Department of Defence has nothing to do with defence, because it is, in effect, the Department of War. Over one trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money is stolen annually to create and build the most hideous weapons of death and destruction, even to launch killing machines from space.
And since 9/11, six trillion dollars have been allotted to the slaughter of over half a million people, almost all of whom were civilians — men, women and children.
Brilliant people, mostly men, are employed by the massive military-industrial corporations – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE, United Technologies, to name a few – deploying their brainpower to devise better and more hideous ways of killing.
From an unbiased perspective, the only true terrorists today are Russia and the United States of America, both of which have several thousand hydrogen bombs larger by orders of magnitude than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched with a press of a button in the U.S. by the President.
This so-called nuclear “exchange” would take little over one hour to complete. As in Japan, people would be seared to bundles of smoking char as their internal organs boiled away and, over time, the global environment would be plunged into another ice age called “nuclear winter”, annihilating almost all living organisms over time, including ourselves.
But the stark truth is that the United States of America has no enemies. Russia, once a sworn communist power is now a major capitalist country and the so-called “war on terror” is just an excuse to keep this massive killing enterprise alive and well.
Donald Trump is right when he says we need to make friends with the Russians because it’s the Russian bombs that could and might annihilate America. Indeed, we need to foster friendship with all nations throughout the planet and reinvest the billions and trillions of dollars spent on war, killing and death to saving the ecosphere by powering the world with renewable energy including solar, wind and geothermal and planting trillions of trees.
Such a move would also free up billions of dollars to be reallocated to life such as free medical care for all U.S. citizens, free education for all, to house the homeless, to hospitalise the mentally sick, to register all citizens to vote and to invest in the abolition of nuclear weapons.
The United States of America urgently needs to rise to its full moral and spiritual height and lead the world to sanity and survival. I know this is possible because, in the 1980s, millions of wonderful people rose up nationally and internationally to end the nuclear arms race and to end the Cold War.
This, then, is the sound template upon which we must act. You can follow Dr Caldicott on Twitter @DrHCaldicott. Click here for Dr Caldicott’s complete curriculum vitae.
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