http://www.gulf-times.com/story/546881/Qatar-calls-for-nuclear-free-zone-in-Middle-East
May 04 2017 Qatar has expressed concern over the worsening international situation, and has called for establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
Speaking at the First Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in Vienna on Tuesday, Qatar’s ambassador and its permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Sheikh Ali bin Jassim al-Thani, called for placing all nuclear facilities in the region under comprehensive safeguards of the agency in compliance with the resolution of the 1995 NPT Review Conference and in accordance with the mechanisms agreed upon at the 2010 Review Conference.
Sheikh Ali bin Jassim said the situation was very grave with international and regional crises posing many challenges. He said the increased emphasis on nuclear weapons in the military and security doctrines of many countries, and the escalation of cyber wars are a major concern for the international community.
He noted Qatar’s support for the initiative to prepare a binding international instrument for a nuclear weapons-free world, which the United Nations General Assembly is considering at its current session, as well as its support for the international conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, the last of which was a conference held in Vienna in 2015, which aimed at developing a greater awareness of the catastrophic consequences of use of nuclear weapons.
The ambassador also supported the position taken by the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) member-states at the meeting.
Sheikh Ali bin Jassim highlighted the need to avoid a repeat of the failed 2015 Review Conference.
At every relevant international forum Qatar has warned of the long-term humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and stressed that the consolidation of peace, security and stability in the world requires nuclear disarmament and investing instead in social and economic development.
Despite that nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts have remain stalled.
Qatar has argued that the threats posed by nuclear weapons require more efforts to create favourable conditions towards a nuclear-free world in accordance with the objectives of the NPT.
It has pointed out that the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East represents one of the key factors that haunt the people of the region in the absence of real international efforts for the elimination of nuclear weapons and in light of the ongoing turmoil in the region and the potential risks that terrorist groups could acquire these weapons.
May 5, 2017
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Japan calls for stronger Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty amid North Korea threat, KYODO, JAPAN TIMES, 4 May 17 VIENNA – Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida called on the international community Tuesday to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime, citing the growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Taking part in the preparatory committee for the 2020 review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in Vienna, the first Japanese foreign minister to do so, Kishida also urged cooperation between nuclear states and non-nuclear states to prevent the spread of nuclear arms……..
The first session of the committee to prepare for the review conference in 2020 was held as countries remain at odds over a separate treaty on banning nuclear weapons.
Japan has said it aspires to a world free of nuclear weapons but will abstain from the U.N. negotiations in March for a treaty on a ban, alongside the five recognized nuclear weapons states — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
Regarding the U.N. talks for a treaty on a ban, Kishida told the committee it would further deepen the gap between nuclear states and non-nuclear states, calling for a gradual approach to reducing nuclear weapons, which would be “realistic.”
The government’s decision, seen as reflecting its reliance on the U.S. nuclear umbrella, triggered criticism from the survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who saw the first-ever U.N. talks on the treaty as a step toward achieving a world free of nuclear weapons…….http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/02/national/japan-calls-stronger-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty-amid-north-korea-threat/#.WQuYqEWGPGg
May 5, 2017
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Moscow doubts North Korea will ditch nuclear weapons as long as ‘threat looms’ http://tass.com/politics/944297 May 03 17, The Russian diplomat stressed the necessity of consolidated diplomatic efforts to settle the situation on the Korean Peninsula. MOSCOW . North Korea will never abandon the idea of having nuclear weapons as long as it feels threat to its security, a Russian foreign ministry official said on Tuesday.
“It is evident that Pyongyang will not abandon its nuclear weapons as long as it sees itself directly threatened,” Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the ministry’s non-proliferation and weapons control department, said at the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
“We are nonetheless convinced that existing tensions on the Korean Peninsula are caused not only by Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes, but also by an increased military activity in the North-East Asia of some regional and especially non-regional States,” he said.
The Russian diplomat stressed the necessity of consolidated diplomatic efforts to settle the situation on the Korean Peninsula. “No minute should be lost. Otherwise the confrontation logic may become overwhelmingly dominant,” he said. “Russia rejects the nuclear status of the DPRK. We do not accept nuclear tests conducted by Pyongyang and its defiance of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.”.
May 5, 2017
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Talk or risk reaching nuclear tipping point, Chinese diplomat warns US and North Korea
Kim Jong-un has stabilised his regime and it is unrealistic to expect it to collapse under the weight of sanctions, former deputy foreign minister says, 03 May, 2017, South China Morning Post, Laura Zhou, North Korea’s missile and nuclear technology might reach a tipping point if Washington and Pyongyang refuse to negotiate, a senior Chinese diplomat has warned.
In an analysis piece published on Sunday by US think tank the Brookings Institution, Fu Ying, chairwoman of the National People’s Congress’ Foreign Affairs Committee, said it was unrealistic to expect the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to succumb to pressure of sanctions or collapse.
“Sanctions may exert huge pressure, but the country can hold up and will not give up nuclear development because of them,” wrote Fu, who is also a former deputy foreign minister.
“It is not hard to see that this situation could make the issue drag on into a spiral of intensified sanctions and continued nuclear testing until [North] Korean nuclear and missile technologies reach a tipping point.”
She said that once that point was reached, the countries opposing Pyongyang’s possession of nuclear weapons would be “faced with the hard choice of taking extreme action with unknown consequences, or tolerating it”……..
She also repeated Beijing’s call for a “double suspension” – that Pyongyang suspend its nuclear and missile tests in exchange for a halt of large scale US-South Korean military exercises.
Fu said China did not have leverage over North Korea because Pyongyang’s security concerns in the face of US military threats had not been addressed.
Trump said on Monday that he would consider meeting Kim “under the right circumstances”.
Lu Chao, from the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, said Trump’s offer could be “positive” to the Korean crisis.
“As Fu Ying said, the key has never been owned by China,” Lu said. “The problem can only be solved by the two sides [the US and North Korea].
“I don’t think Kim would really want to wage a war with the US.” http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2092432/talk-or-risk-reaching-nuclear-tipping-point-chinese
May 3, 2017
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North Korea says US bomber flights signal pre-emptive nuclear strike, ABC News 3 May 17 North Korea is accusing the United States of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war after a pair of strategic US bombers flew over the area in a training drill with the South Korean air force.
Key points:
- Supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers flew over Korean peninsula
- North Korea says US is practising a nuclear strike
- Mr Trump has said he would consider meeting Kim Jong-un but also warned of a “major, major conflict”
The two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers were deployed amid rising tensions over North Korea’s dogged pursuit of its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of United Nations sanctions and pressure from the United States.
The flight of the two bombers on Monday came as US President Donald Trump said he was open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the appropriate circumstances, even though Pyongyang suggested it would continue with its nuclear tests……..
The North is technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, and regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-02/us-bomber-flights-push-peninsular-to-the-brink-of-war/8489952
May 3, 2017
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North Korea threatens to reduce USA ‘to ruins’ with preemptive nuclear strike http://metro.co.uk/2017/05/02/north-korea-threatens-to-reduce-usa-to-ruins-with-preemptive-nuclear-strike-6611855/Rob Waugh for Metro.co.uk Tuesday 2 May 2017
North Korea has issued a threat of a preemptive nuclear strike against America – ie that it might launch a nuclear attack first. The dictatorship made the claims in the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun, in an opinion piece headed, ‘Nuclear War Will Bring Nothing but Doom to U.S.’
The piece says, ‘Its vast territory is exposed to our preemptive nuclear strike.
‘If the U.S. shows any slight sign of provocation, just the inter-continental ballistic rockets displayed in the April military parade will fly into the U.S.
‘The reckless nuclear war provocation by the Trump administration will bring it nothing but the fall of the American empire.’ The piece says that the North Korean army is ‘waiting for the moment it will reduce the whole of the U.S. mainland to ruins with its absolute weaponry of justice.
Last week North Korea released a video showing nuclear missile attack on Washington DC.
The video, released by official state media, shows the White House in a gun-style crosshair – and a missile descending on the city and exploding in a giant fireball. Another sequence shows American warships being targeted by rockets – interspersed with videos of recent live-fire drills.
The video showed sequences from a live-fire exercise conducted this week, designed to show off the strength of Pyongyang’s million-strong army
May 3, 2017
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Russia has hidden nuclear bombs ready to detonate along US coastline, says former Kremlin spokesman
Expert says outlandish claims are ‘political warfare’, The Independent, Will Worley @willrworley , 3 May 17 A Russian military expert has claimed Moscow has been “seeding” nuclear bombs off the US coastline.
The Kremlin has dismissed the claim as “strange”, while an independent expert referred to it as an act of “political warfare”.
He added: “Oh, it seems I’ve said too much. I should hold my tongue. In short, we have something to provide an ‘asymmetrical’ (and cheaper) response to the Americans.”The interview was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
The Kremlin was quick to dismiss the remarks, calling them “strange”. “I would suggest that you not take newspaper reports like this seriously,” government spokesman spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
May 3, 2017
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Donald Trump on whether he could start war with North Korea: ‘I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see’ Answering a question about whether another nuclear test by North Korea would mean a military response by the US, Mr Trump appears to be undecided, The Independent, 1 May 17 Foster Klug, Kim Tong-Hyung Seoul President Donald Trump has said that he believes China’s president has been putting pressure on North Korea as it pursues its missile and nuclear weapons programmes – but when asked about whether another nuclear test would mean a military response from the US, Mr Trump said “I don’t know…we’ll see”.
In an interview with CBS programme Face the Nation Mr Trump said he won’t be happy if North Korea conducts a nuclear test and that he believes Chinese President Xi Jinping won’t be happy, either.
Asked if that means military action, Mr Trump responded: “I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see.”
………..Mr Trump has sent a nuclear-powered submarine and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to Korean waters and North Korea last week conducted large-scale, live-fire exercises on its eastern coast. The U.S. and South Korea also started installing a missile defence system that is supposed to be partially operational within days and their two navies are staging joint military drills.
Residents in the village of Seongj, where the missile defence system is being installed, scuffled with police on Sunday. About 300 protesters faced off against 800 police and succeeded in blocking two US Army oil trucks from entering the site, local media reported. A few residents were injured or fainted from the scuffle and were transported to a hospital.
The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence system (THAAD), remains a controversial topic in South Korea and presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in even has vowed to reconsider the deployment if he wins a presidential election in May. He has said that the security benefits of THAAD would be offset by worsened relations with China, which is the country’s biggest trading partner and is opposed to its deployment.
Mr Trump raised eyebrows in South Korea last week when he said would make Seoul pay $1 billion for the missile defence system. Seoul’s presidential Blue House said on Sunday that White House National Security Adviser HR McMaster confirmed that the U.S. will not be seeking money for the system. ……http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-north-korea-nuclear-latest-war-a7710521.html
May 1, 2017
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North Korea threatens to sink US nuclear submarine http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-threat-sink-us-nuclear-submarine-uss-michigan-south-korea-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-a7709946.html ‘It will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming an underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface’ Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93 30 Apr 17, North Korea , has threatened to sink a US nuclear submarine deployed in South Korean waters.
“The moment the USS Michigan tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming an underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface,” the North’s propaganda website Urminzokkiri said.
“The urgent fielding of the nuclear submarine in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, timed to coincide with the deployment of the super aircraft carrier strike group, is intended to further intensify military threats toward our republic.”
The guided missile submarine USS Michigan has been joined by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group in waters near the Korean peninsula.
The website added that “whether it’s a nuclear aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine, they will be turned into a mass of scrap metal in front of our invincible military power centred on the self-defence nuclear deterrence.”
The aircraft carrier group began exercises with the South Korean navy on Sunday after it completed drills with the Japanese navy.
The dispatch of the Carl Vinson was a “reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war,” the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a commentary.It comes after the hermit kingdom test-fired another ballistic missile in a clear message of defiance aimed at Washington and its allies.
However, US officials said the medium-range ballistic missile disintegrated mid-flight, minutes after launch, and fell into the Sea of Japan.
President Donald Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: “You’ll soon find out”, but did not elaborate on what the US response would be.The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the 15 April anniversary of its state founder’s birth.
May 1, 2017
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WAR OF THE WORLDS Declassified documents reveal America and Russia’s bizarre plans to obliterate the Moon with nuclear weapons https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3449440/declassified-documents-reveal-america-and-russias-bizarre-plans-to-obliterate-the-moon-with-nuclear-weapons/
At the time, military bosses believed that they could feasibly hit a target on the Moon within an accuracy of two miles, By George Harrison, 30th April 2017,
IN the height of the Cold War, Russia and America found themselves locked in a chilling race to nuke the Moon, declassified military documents reveal.
Following the end of the Second World War in 1945, the USSR and the USA spent decades trying to prove their military might to the world.
During this tense era, the two global superpowers found themselves locked in an arms race which saw them spend decades scrambling to develop the most powerful armaments.
As the arms race morphed into a space race, the two nations set their sights on the Moon, and made it their goal to extend their influence beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.
Now, declassified documents have revealed just how far the superpowers were prepared to go, as they hatched terrifying plans to obliterate part of our moon with a nuclear strike. Codenamed Project A119, a plan cooked up by the US Air Force in 1958 set out how America could prove their might once and for all.
Physicist Leonard Reiffel was put in charge of the project, which had the terrifying goal of detonating a nuclear warhead on the Moon. The team of military and physics experts planned to explode a warhead the same size as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on our planet’s natural satellite.
The detonation would light up the Moon’s surface, generating a sphere of dust which would blot out any hopes of Russia winning the arms race. At the time, the team believed that they could feasibly hit a target on the Moon within an accuracy of two miles.
However, by January 1959 US military bosses were convinced that the public backlash against such a senseless strike would be enormous, and the risks of a malfunction in the launch were too great.
After that realisation, America’s leaders turned their attention to putting people, rather than weapons, in space.Meanwhile, the Soviets were cooking up a scheme of their own as part of a project codenamed E-4.
This plan involved striking the Moon with a nuclear missile of their own, although this plot faced the same overwhelming risks and difficulties as the Americans’ secret plans. These chilling Cold War revelations come after we revealed the secret US plans which could have led to the total destruction of the USSR.
We also told how America had cooked up a desperate, last-ditch nuclear strategy in the wake of World War 2, and shared how the USSR planned to retaliate by destroying most of Europe.
May 1, 2017
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Trump hints that the US may be sabotaging North Korea’s nuclear program https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-us-cyber-sabotage-north-korea-missiles-2017-4?r=US&IR=T ALEX LOCKIE MAY 1, 2017, It happened again — a North Korean missile launch exploded in the air, over land, just a few minutes after launching on Friday.
While North Korea can still learn a lot from a failed missile test and use those lessons to advance their program, they have failed to demonstrate capability with missile types the US perfected in the 1970s — and cyber espionage may be to blame.
Asked about North Korea’s unsuccessful missile test by CBS’ John Dickerson on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, President Donald Trump refused to address whether or not the US had anything to do with the rogue nation’s missile failures.
“I’d rather not discuss it. But perhaps they’re just not very good missiles,” said Trump. Pressed further on possible US sabotage of North Korea’s missiles, Trump did not deny it. “I just don’t want to discuss it.”
In the past, US leaders have forcefully denied cyber attacks on other countries, but Trump only reiterated his preference for not telegraphing his intentions or plans in military ventures.
Indeed North Korea lacks the missile manufacturing infrastructure of a world power like Russia or the US, but a recent New York Times report uncovered a secret operation to derail North Korea’s nuclear-missile program that has been raging for three years.
Essentially, the report attributes North Korea’s high rate of failure with Russian-designed missiles to US meddling in the country’s missile software and networks.
But to those in the know, the campaign against North Korea came as no surprise. Dr. Ken Geers, a cybersecurity expert for Comodo with experience in the NSA, told Business Insider that cyberoperations like the one against North Korea were actually the norm.
While the fact that the US hacked another country’s missile program may be shocking to some, “within military intelligence spaces this is what they do,” Geers said. “If you think that war is possible with a given state, you’re going to be trying to prepare the battle space for conflict. In the internet age, that means hacking.”
North Korea’s internal networks are fiercely insulated and not connect to the larger internet, however, which poses a challenge for hackers in the US, but Geers said it’s “absolutely not the case” that computers need to connect to the internet to be hacked.
Furthermore, Geers said, because of the limited number of servers and access points to North Korea’s very restricted internet, “If it ever came to cyberwar between the US and North Korea, it would be an overwhelming victory for the West.”
“North Korea can do a Sony attack or attack the White House, but that’s cause that’s the nature of cyberspace,” Geers said. “But if war came, you’d see Cyber Command wipe out most other countries’ pretty quickly.”
May 1, 2017
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Today, as the UK works on reintroducing our Cold War nuclear warning system, examining military plans like Plan Totality can shed an alarming light on the realities of a global nuclear conflict.
Just as chilling is the 1949 follow up to Plan Totality – known as Operation Dropshot – which reveals how the US was really ready to obliterate the USSR with terrifying force.
And we also recently revealed details of the chilling plans drawn up by Soviet generals to survive an all-out war with NATO and conquer the remains of the European continent.
PLAN TOTALITY https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2619209/the-american-cold-war-strategy-which-could-have-plunged-the-world-into-a-nuclear-conflict/ The American Cold War strategy which could have plunged the world into a nuclear conflict
Plan Totality was the name given to a last-ditch nuclear strategy cooked up by American generals in the wake of the Second World War REVEALED By GEORGE HARRISON 15th January 2017,
A DECLASSIFIED military plan reveals that America was prepared to plunge the world into a nuclear conflict just as World War 2 had been brought to an end.
Plan Totality was the name given to a last-ditch nuclear strategy cooked up by American generals in the wake of the Second World War.
Despite the successes of Soviet and American cooperation in toppling Nazi Germany, the conclusion of the war put relations between the two superpowers on ice.
The former Allies fell out when America began to suspect that the then-Soviet Union was plotting to sweep into the charred remains of the European continent to conquer it themselves.
Fearing global domination by the USSR, America prepared for the worst and hatched a number of military plans and simulations designed to beat back a Russian invasion of Western Europe. Plan Totality was established by US General Dwight D. Eisenhower in the summer of 1945, following the Potsdam Conference – where the Allies decided how to carve up defeated Germany.
The chilling strategy involved plans to obliterate 20 Soviet cities with America’s newly-tested atomic arsenal.
Moscow, Leningrad and Stalinsk were all in the American firing line, with military planners claiming that all of the biggest Soviet cities could be wiped out in one surprise strike.
Between 20 and 30 atomic bombs were set to be dropped if it came to it – a move which could have resulted in Russia and America wiping each other off the map.
However, all was not as it seemed, and the supposedly secret plan ended up leaked to the world soon after it was drawn up. In fact, America didn’t have anywhere near 20 atomic bombs at the time, and only had 27 bombers capable of delivering the few devices available.
The real genius of Plan Totality was that it was a complete bluff, which was deliberately leaked with the intention of tricking the USSR into thinking that America’s military was more powerful than it really was. Plan Totality was just one component of then-President Truman’s “Giant Atomic Bluff”, a military strategy aimed at scaring America’s enemies into submission.
Unfortunately, the USSR saw through it, prompting the arms race which could have resulted in the death of billions.
Today, as the UK works on reintroducing our Cold War nuclear warning system, examining military plans like Plan Totality can shed an alarming light on the realities of a global nuclear conflict.
Just as chilling is the 1949 follow up to Plan Totality – known as Operation Dropshot – which reveals how the US was really ready to obliterate the USSR with terrifying force.
And we also recently revealed details of the chilling plans drawn up by Soviet generals to survive an all-out war with NATO and conquer the remains of the European continent.
May 1, 2017
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North Korea already is a nuclear power. Its first nuclear test was over a decade ago, and analysts say it probably has enough material for a dozen bombs today…… there are absolutely no good reasons to start another Korean War.
North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Are Not Reason Enough to Start a War, TIME, Charlie Campbell / Beijing Apr 28, 2017 More than 2 million people were killed in the 1950-3 Korean War, including almost 40,000 Americans. Some 7,000 U.S. soldiers are still listed as missing. Countless families were torn apart by the conflict, which is still officially ongoing, as it was only ended by armistice rather than a peace treaty. It remains one of modern history’s longest wars.
These facts are important to remember when a U.S. President says, “There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea,” as Donald Trump did in an exclusive Reuters interview published Thursday.
The regime of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is a perennial headache for the international community. In recent years, North Korea has shelled South Korean islands and sunk a Naval corvette, claiming dozens of lives, including civilians. To fund its weapons program, the regime produces narcotics, fake currency and uses cybercrime across the globe.
On Feb.13, it even unleashed VX nerve agent — a U.N.-certified Weapon of Mass Destruction — at Kuala Lumpur International Airport to assassinate of Kim Jong Nam, Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother. It has abducted possibly hundreds of foreign nationals. At home, its own citizens are subject to “crimes against humanity,” according to a 2014 U.N. report.
However, what’s spurred Trump’s saber-rattling is North Korea’s nuclear program. Pyongyang has tested five nuclear bombs to date, and appears poised for a sixth. It also frequently tests missiles that may one day be able to reach the continental U.S. “[We can] can tip new-type intercontinental ballistic rockets with more powerful nuclear warheads and keep any cesspool of evils in the earth, including the U.S. mainland, within our striking range,” Kim Jong Un said after watching a rocket test last year.
Trump says that if North Korea cannot be persuaded from dismantling its nuclear weapons then military action maybe unavoidable. On April 8, he ordered a U.S. navy strike group — an “armada,” he called it — to the Korean peninsula. The obvious problem is that Seoul — home to half of South Korea’s 50 million people, including 200,000 Americans — lies within range of North Korea’s artillery, and possibly even nuclear weapons.
Trump’s gamble is that Kim Jong Un would shy away from retaliating against a U.S. strike on his nuclear facilities, cognizant that American military superiority means any full-scale war would undoubtedly result in his regime’s complete destruction…….
Trump told Reuters that he operates under the assumption that Kim Jong Un is “rational.” But backed into a corner, is Trump willing to bet nuclear apocalypse on that?
But even if North Korea were not to retaliate, there’s no guarantee strikes would achieve their goal of permanently retarding the regime’s nuclear program. Plus there would be dire strategic consequences. Beijing would be livid. The U.S. would have started yet another 21st Century war, utterly alienating international public opinion, tearing up its hard-fought Asian security alliance and inviting Chinese hardliners to push it out of the region. According to an August 2016 study by Brown University, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan — in which the U.S. military has been involved — have directly cost 370,000 lives since 2001. (Not that we’ve stopped counting.)
However, the broader point is that North Korea, for all its many and egregious faults, is a state hell-bent on survival. It might have nuclear weapons, but the regime cannot use them without guaranteeing its own destruction……..
Unfortunately, there is little chance the regime will voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons. Kim Jong Un is very aware of the fates of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who were both toppled after abandoning their nuclear aspirations. He believes a nuclear bomb guarantees the security of his regime. And he might be right.
For lack of any better option, the U.S. and its allies should utilize the countless strategic advantages that won the Cold War, because the tussle with North Korea is still part of that ideological reckoning. ……
North Korea already is a nuclear power. Its first nuclear test was over a decade ago, and analysts say it probably has enough material for a dozen bombs today…… there are absolutely no good reasons to start another Korean War. http://time.com/4759066/north-korea-kim-jong-un-donald-trump-nuclear-weapons/
April 29, 2017
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Two to Tango With Nuclear Weapons The president shouldn’t have sole authority to trigger nuclear war., US News, By Peter D. Zimmerman April 26, 2017 Somewhere in the American southwest, not so very far from civilization, there is a fenced and guarded compound within another fenced and guarded compound in the distant reaches of a large military base……Beneath the fence is a vault where nuclear weapons wait ……
Under the prairies of Montana or the Dakotas underground bunkers are buried adjacent to a bomb-proof silo containing a Minuteman intercontinental missile…….
Somewhere under the ocean a missile submarine receives a message. The captain and his executive officer separately decode and authenticate it.
It always requires two people, two separate actions, to launch, steal, sabotage or tinker with an atomic warhead. This is the inviolable two person rule intended to prevent misuse of a nuclear weapon. ……
But the system deliberately breaks down at the single point where failure would be catastrophic. Only one person need act in order to launch all American nuclear weapons. The president. There is no two-person rule for ordering a strike. Nobody except the president needs to agree; nobody in the chain from president to launch officer has authority to question the order. If the president orders a launch, the system executes it. The service members involved may have their doubts, but years of military training have conditioned them that even this order must be obeyed………
The United States vowed that never again would a potential enemy be able to launch a surprise attack to which this country could not respond instantly and in kind.
This made sense during the height of the Cold War when the United States, terrified by the prospect of a nuclear Pearl Harbor, sought to ensure that a counter strike could not be thwarted by a clumsy decision-making process that would require more time than the country expected to have………
At least twice the Soviet Union and the United States have come very close to launching nuclear weapons based on the warnings provided by radar and satellite systems. A Soviet officer did not pass a notification of a rocket launch to the Kremlin at a time he knew that tensions between the powers were minimal. A good thing; it was not a nuclear missile but a small scientific rocket launched from a Norwegian island and carrying an innocent payload. The Soviets had been notified in advance of the launch, but somehow the message was lost.
Bad weather has sometimes fooled American defenses into thinking that a flight of geese was actually a nuclear missile, and only good judgment stopped the alert in its tracks. But human intervention is only legal going up the chain to the president. It’s ruled out if the president sends down a message ordering a launch, even if he or she is mistaken.
Nor is there any way at all to stop a drunk president, an angered and offended president, an insane one, or merely a bored and curious one from simply ordering the opening of the football and the launch of one or more nuclear weapons………
the president and the Congress must work together now, ignoring partisanship, to prevent an accidental, or even an intentional nuclear holocaust. It is time to extend the two person rule to the top of the pyramid, so that not even the president can start a nuclear war alone.
Peter D. Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist, was chief scientific adviser of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Bureau of Arms Control at the State Department. He also served as chief scientist of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is professor emeritus of science and security in the Department of War Studies at Kings College London and lives in Northern Virginia. https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-04-26/the-president-shouldnt-have-sole-authority-ove
April 29, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, weapons and war |
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