Could Donald Trump help unleash nuclear catastrophe with a single tweet?, Canberra Times, Greg Sargent , 27 Dec 16, Donald Trump’s alarming tweet about his desire to “greatly strengthen and expand” the “nuclear capability” of the US unleashed a frenzy of media efforts to try to divine his actual policy intentions. It forced some of his advisers into tortured claims that Trump didn’t say what he actually said, even as others simultaneously insisted that Trump did meaningfully put other countries on notice that if he deems them to be challenging our supremacy, they will face an arms race.
But perhaps the most worrisome thing about Trump’s nuclear tweet is not the intention to break with decades of international disarmament efforts that it may have signalled, though that’s frightening enough on its own. Rather, it’s that he saw fit to tweet about nuclear weapons at all.
As we prepare for President Trump to take near-unchecked control of our nuclear machinery, his nuclear tweet is best seen as a window into his temperament. Trump still does not appreciate that every word he utters carries tremendous weight and could have dramatic, untold, far-reaching, unpredictable consequences – something that is especially true in the nuclear arena. Or, perhaps worse, Trump may be entirely indifferent to this fact.
Arms control experts I spoke with suggested that Trump’s willingness to tweet about nuclear weapons raises the possibility of Trump doing the same as president – and more to the point, the possibility of him doing so amid some species of international crisis or escalation………
As we prepare for President Trump to take near-unchecked control of our nuclear machinery, his nuclear tweet is best seen as a window into his temperament. Trump still does not appreciate that every word he utters carries tremendous weight and could have dramatic, untold, far-reaching, unpredictable consequences – something that is especially true in the nuclear arena. Or, perhaps worse, Trump may be entirely indifferent to this fact.
Arms control experts I spoke with suggested that Trump’s willingness to tweet about nuclear weapons raises the possibility of Trump doing the same as president – and more to the point, the possibility of him doing so amid some species of international crisis or escalation……
Bernie Sanders urges Congress to stop Donald Trump launching nuclear arms raceDemocrat speaks out after President-elect appears to reverse decade’s-old policy of disarmament, The Independent, Charlotte England@charlottenglandSaturday 24 December 2016Bernie Sanders has urged Congress to stop Donald Trump launching a Cold War-style nuclear arms race.
“It’s a miracle a nuclear weapon hasn’t been used in war since 1945,” the VermontSenator said in a post on Twitter. “Congress can’t allow the Tweeter in Chief to start a nuclear arms race.”
Earlier on Friday, the US President-elect was asked to clarify the meaning behind an ambiguous tweet in an interview with MSNBC. “Let it be an arms race,” he is reported to have told co-host Mika Brzezinski,in a telephone call……..
Laicie Heeley, a nuclear expert at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan anti-nuclear proliferation think-tank in Washington, told AFP news agency it was “reckless” for Mr Trump to tweet on the topic without offering details.
“To make such a loaded statement without context or follow-up is irresponsible at best,” she said.
“We could be talking about a return to the Cold War here, when the threat of a nuclear catastrophe was very real,“ she said. ”Russian rhetoric is already moving in that direction. It wouldn’t take a lot to bring us back there.”
Minutes after Mr Trump’s follow up remarks were reported on MSNBC, his secretary Sean Spicer said in several television interviews that there would be no arms race because the President-elect would make sure that other countries trying to step up their nuclear capabilities, such as Russia and China, would decide not to participate.
No other force epitomizes the absolute destructive power humanity has unlocked in the way nuclear weapons have. And the weapons rapidly became more powerful in the decades after that first test.
The device tested in 1945 had a 20 kiloton yield, meaning it had the explosive force of 20,000 tons of TNT. Within 20 years, the US and USSR tested nuclear weapons larger than 10 megatons, or 10 million tons of TNT. For scale, these weapons were at least 500 times as strong as the first atomic bomb.
To put the size of history’s largest nuclear blasts to scale, we have used Alex Wellerstein’s Nukemap, a tool for visualizing the terrifying real-world impact of a nuclear explosion.
11 (tie). Soviet Tests #158 and #168
On August 25 and September 19, 1962, less than a month apart, the USSR conducted nuclear tests #158 and #168. Both tests were held over the Novaya Zemlya region of Russia, an archipelago to the north of Russia near the Arctic Ocean.
No film or photographs of the tests have been released, but both tests included the use of 10-megaton atomic bombs. These blasts would have incinerated everything within 1.77 square miles of their epicenters while causing third-degree burns up to an area of 1,090 square miles.
10. Ivy Mike
On November 1, 1952, the US tested Ivy Mike over the Marshall Islands. Ivy Mike was the world’s first hydrogen bomb and had a yield of 10.4 megatons, making it 700 times as strong as the first atomic bomb.
Ivy Mike’s detonation was so powerful that it vaporized the Elugelab Island where it was detonated, leaving in its place a 164-foot-deep crater. The explosion’s mushroom cloud traveled 30 miles into the atmosphere.
9. Castle Romeo
Romeo was the second US nuclear detonation of the Castle Series of tests, which were conducted in 1954. All of the detonations took place over Bikini Atoll. Castle Romeo was the third-most powerful test of the series and had a yield of 11 megatons.
Romeo was the first device to be tested on a barge over open water instead of on a reef, as the US was quickly running out of islands upon which it could test nuclear weapons.
The blast would have incinerated everything within 1.91 square miles.
8. Soviet Test #123
On October 23, 1961, the Soviets conductednuclear test #123 over Novaya Zemlya. Test #123 used a 12.5 megaton nuclear bomb. A bomb of this size would incinerate everything within 2.11 square miles while causing third-degree burns in an area of 1,309 square miles.
No footage or photographs of this nuclear test have been released.
7. Castle Yankee
Castle Yankee, the second-strongest of the Castle series tests, was conducted on May 4, 1954. The bomb was 13.5 megatons. Four days later, its fallout reached Mexico City, about 7,100 miles away.
6. Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo, detonated on February 28, 1954, was the first of the Castle series of tests and the largest US nuclear blast of all time.
Bravo was anticipated as a 6-megaton explosion. Instead, the bomb produced a 15-megaton fission blast. Its mushroom cloud reached 114,000 feet into the air.
The US military’s miscalculation of the test’s size resulted in the irradiation of approximately 665 inhabitants of the Marshall Islands and the radiation poisoning death of a Japanese fisherman who was 80 miles away from the detonation site.
3 (tie). Soviet Tests #173, #174, and #147
From August 5 to September 27, 1962, the USSR conducted a series of nuclear tests over Novaya Zemlya. Tests #173, #174, and #147 all stand out as being the fifth-, fourth-, and third-strongest nuclear blasts in history.
All three produced blasts of about 20 megatons, or about 1,000 times as strong as the Trinity bomb. A bomb of this strength would incinerate everything within 3 square miles.
No footage or photographs of these nuclear tests have been released.
2. Soviet Test #219
On December 24, 1962, the USSR conductedTest #219 over Novaya Zemlya. The bomb had a yield of 24.2 megatons. A bomb of this strength would incinerate everything within 3.58 square miles while causing third-degree burns in an area up to 2,250 square miles.
There are no released photos or video of this explosion.
1. The Tsar Bomba
On October 30, 1961, the USSR detonated the largest nuclear weapon ever tested and created the biggest man-made explosion in history. The blast, 3,000 times as strong as the bomb used on Hiroshima, broke windows 560 miles away, according to Slate.
The flash of light from the blast was visibleup to 620 miles away.
The Tsar Bomba, as the test was ultimately known, had a yield between 50 and 58 megatons, twice the size of the second-largest nuclear blast.
A bomb of this size would create a fireball 6.4 square miles large and would be able to give humans third-degree burns within 4,080 square miles of the bomb’s epicenter.
The first atomic bomb
The first atomic blast was a fraction the size of the Tsar Bomba, but it was still an explosion of almost unimaginable size.
According to the NukeMap, a weapon with a 20-kiloton yield produces a fireball with a radius of 260 meters, making its total width the size of 5 football fields. It would spew deadly radiation over an area 7 miles in width, and would produce third-degree burns in an area over 12 miles in width.
If dropped over lower Manhattan, a bomb of that size would kill over 150,000 people and produce fallout stretching all the way to central Connecticut, according to the NukeMap.
The first atomic bomb was tiny by nuclear weapons standards. But its destructiveness is sill nea lry impossible to grasp.
‘Unrecoverable’: revealed N-documents show Iran can not make nuclear weapons , The Age, Vienna, 24 Dec 16 : In an unusual move, Iran and six world powers have released previously restricted documents about their nuclear deal to enforce their view that Tehran is not in a position to try to make nuclear weapons.
Some of the documents are dated January 6, 2016, shortly before the pact was implemented. But they were not made public until Friday, when they were posted on the public website of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The IAEA is monitoring the nuclear deal, which Iran reached with Germany and the five permanent UN Security Council members – the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain.
The agreement stipulates that Iran can possess only low-enriched uranium, which is not suitable for weapons, and it is limited to possessing no more than 300 kilograms at any time. That is far less than would be needed to make a nuclear weapon even if it were further enriched to weapons-grade levels used for the core of nuclear warheads.
When the nuclear deal was agreed on, Iran had more than 100 kilograms of liquid or solid waste containing low-enriched uranium as part of its enrichment activities. Some of the material remains and the documents posted on Friday declare the low-enriched uranium it contains as “unrecoverable” and thereby not part of the 300-kilogram limit.
A letter on behalf of the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, authorising publication of the documents was also posted on the IAEA website.
Trump Welcomes Nuclear Arms Race: “We Will Outmatch Them at Every Pass”, Slate 23 Dec 16 By Daniel Politi President-elect Donald Trump is doubling down on a statement that alarmed non-proliferation experts around the globe, essentially saying he’s cool with a nuclear arms race. “Let it be an arms race,” Trump told MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski when she asked him to clarify comments about expanding the country’s nuclear weapons capabilities. In the off-air conversation with the co-host of Morning Joe, the president-elect expressed confidence that the United States would come out on top anyway so there’s nothing to fear. “We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all,” Trump reportedly said.
Trump’s statement came a day after the president-elect shocked the world by writing on Twitter that the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”…….
Donald Trump Says U.S. Should ‘Greatly’ Expand Nuclear Arsenal
The New York Times agrees there seems to be little doubt that at least based off on Trump’s statements, the president-elect seems willing to “restart the costly and dangerous Cold War-era nuclear weapons competition between the United States and the old Soviet Union.”……
The Russian leader said that his country’s military is stronger than any potential aggressor, even if he recognized the United States has a larger military. “Of course the U.S. has more missiles, submarines and aircraft carriers, but what we say is that we are stronger than any aggressor, and this is the case,” he said, adding that Russia has weapons that can penetrate U.S. defense systems.http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/12/23/trump_welcomes_nuclear_arms_race_confident_we_will_outmatch_them_at_every.html
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin agree: Let’s revive the nuclear arms race, WP By Philip BumpDecember 22Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech Thursday in which he praised his country’s military operations on behalf of the government of Syria and made a case for how Russia could be stronger moving forward.
“We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces,” …… You can’t have a new nuclear arms race, of course, without someone to run against. Enter President-elect Donald Trump……..
The trend since the late 1980s has been in the opposite direction, winding down the stockpiles of weapons held by the United States and Russia…….
As always, it’s fraught to take one Trump tweet as a descriptor of where his presidency might be headed. (He has, for example, also tweeted that he never argued for other countries to get nuclear weapons, which is false.) It’s also not clear that “strengthen and expand” means more actual nuclear warheads. (The United States will spend an estimated $1 trillionover 30 years to modernize its weapons stockpile, in part because aging nuclear warheads require significant maintenance.) But Trump’s tweet stands in stark contrast to what President Obama said in May, at the site of the first atomic detonation in world history. In Hiroshima, Japan, Obama called for “a world without nuclear weapons.”…….
Nuclear arms expert: There’s a huge contradiction in Trump’s thinking on nuclear arms, Business Insider ALEX LOCKIE DEC 24, 2016 On Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
But as Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, told Business Insider, there’s a huge contradiction in Trump’s recent thinking on defence projects.
“Trump may be open to expanding the number of nuclear weapons in the arsenal, building new weapons, increasing the role of nuclear weapons in US policy,” Reif told Business Insider in an interview, despite the fact that the US’s nuclear arms are already “second to none.”
However, the US’s current path towards modernising US nuclear weapons will already cost a whopping $1 trillion dollars. Though it’s not yet clear whether Trump means actually building more or different types of nuclear weapons, he also recently seemed to shun another potentially trillion-dollar US defence project that’s already well underway.
“One of the interesting contradictions here is that his tweet suggests that he is going to move full steam ahead with the current nuclear modernisation plan, but we’ve also heard him express concerns about the F-35 program, saying maybe we need to stop it,” said Reif.
But, as Reif points out, the F-35 is part of the US’s overall nuclear modernisation program.
“Later versions of the F-35 will be nuclear capable and replace other fighters and bombers,’ said Reif.
Donald Trump: US must greatly expand nuclear weapons Donald Trump has called for the US to “greatly strengthen and expand” its nuclear arsenal. BBC News 22 Dec 16 The president-elect, who takes office next month, said the US must take such action “until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes”.
He spoke hours after President Vladimir Putin said Russia needs to bolster its military nuclear potential.
The US has 7,100 nuclear weapons and Russia has 7,300, according to the US nonpartisan Arms Control Association. Mr Trump’s announcement, which came via Twitter, was published in a string of several tweets on Thursday morning.
Mr Trump also wrote to criticise a resolution being considered at the UN and to reiterate his vow to “drain the swamp” – a reference to corruption in Washington DC.
His tweet came only hours after President Putin met with his military advisers to recap Russian military activities in 2016………
This is a radical departure from President Obama’s current policy.
Mr Trump has offered no further details on his plans but he has hinted in the past that he favoured an expansion of the nuclear programme.
He was asked in interviews whether he would use weapons of mass destruction against an enemy and he said that it would be an absolute last stance, but he added that he would want to be unpredictable.
In contrast, President Obama has talked of the US commitment to seek peace and security without nuclear weapons.
He has sought to reduce the nation’s arsenal of nearly 5,000 warheads in favour of more special operations forces and precise tactical strikes……. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38410027
Trump Goes Nuclear, But This Time Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon Rise http://www.investors.com/news/trump-tweets-about-nukes-after-blasting-pentagon-spending/GILLIAN RICH President-elect Donald Trump tweeted about the importance of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to recapitalize, potentially giving defense giants like Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC), Raytheon (RTN) and Boeing (BA) some hope that he won’t cost-shame them on that piece of the Pentagon budget America’s nuclear triad of air-, land- and sea-based delivery systems is nearing the end of its life span and needs to be replaced. But that won’t come cheaply.
Over the summer, the Air Force released its requests for proposals for intercontinental ballistic missiles to replace Boeing’s aging Minuteman system. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent’s estimated cost is $62 billion over 30 years, but a report from the Pentagon’s office of independent cost assessment said the Air Force’s estimate is too low by “billions of dollars,” sources told Bloomberg.
The Air Force is also seeking Long-Range Standoff nuclear cruise missiles to replace Boeing AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missiles. That program’s cost has been estimated at $20 billion-$30 billion.
Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop and Lockheed are expected to bid on the two contracts, and initial contracts could be awarded next year.
Last year, Northrop was awarded a contract to build the B-21 bomber that replaces the Cold War-era Boeing B-52s. The Air Force has put the development-phase cost for the B-21 at $23.5 billion, but analysts have estimated the total acquisition cost at up to $80 billion. The Navy’s program to replace its Ohio-class submarines, which can launch nuclear missiles, will cost the service $100 billion.
Shares of defense contractors reversed higher after early, narrow losses. Lockheed shares edged up 0.1% on the stock market today, Northrop added 0.3%, and Raytheon rose 0.5%. Boeing gained 0.1%. General Dynamics (GD) and Huntington Ingalls (HII), which build submarines, were up 0.3% and 2.1%, respectively.
Congress scrapped this one word from the law, opening the door to a space arms race, L.A. Times, David Willman, 22 Dec 16, By removing a single word from legislation governing the military, Congress has laid the groundwork for both a major shift in U.S. nuclear defense doctrine and a costly effort to field space-based weaponry.
Experts say the changes, approved by overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate, could aggravate tensions with Russia and China and prompt a renewed nuclear arms race. The bill awaits action by President Obama. The White House has not said what he will do.
For decades, America’s defense against nuclear attack has rested on twin pillars: The nation’s homeland missile defense system is designed to thwart a small-scale, or “limited,” attack by the likes of North Korea or Iran. As for the threat of a large-scale strike by China or Russia, the prospect of massive U.S. retaliation is supposed to deter both from ever launching missiles.
Central to this strategy was a one-word qualifier – “limited” — used to define the mission of the homeland defense system. The language was carefully crafted to avoid reigniting an arms race among the superpowers.
Now, with virtually no public debate, bipartisan majorities in Congress have removed the word “limited” from the nation’s missile defense policy. They did so in giving final approval over the last month to the year-end defense bill, the National Defense Authorization Act.
A related provision of the law calls for the Pentagon to start “research, development, test and evaluation” of space-based systems for missile defense.
A space-based defense program would hinge on annual congressional appropriations and decisions by the incoming Trump administration.
Yet both proponents and opponents say the policy changes have momentous implications.
“These amendments were historic in nature — given the paradigm shift forward that they represent,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), who introduced and shepherded the amendments in the House.
Leading defense scientists said the idea that a space-based system could provide security against nuclear attack is a fantasy.
“It defies the laws of physics and is not based on science of any kind,” said L. David Montague, a retired president of missile systems for Lockheed Corp. and co-chair of a National Academy of Sciences panel that studied missile defense technologies at the request of Congress.
“Even if we darken the sky with hundreds or thousands of satellites and interceptors, there’s no way to ensure against a dedicated attack,” Montague said in an interview. “So it’s an opportunity to waste a prodigious amount of money.”
He called the provisions passed by Congress “insanity, pure and simple.”
The National Academy study, released in 2012, concluded that even a bare-bones space-based missile defense system would cost about $200 billion to put in place, and hundreds of billions to operate in subsequent years.
Franks, asked whether the country could afford it, replied: “What is national security worth? It’s priceless.”
Philip E. Coyle III, a former assistant secretary of Defense who headed the Pentagon office responsible for testing and evaluating weapon systems, described the notion of a space-based nuclear shield as “a sham.”
“To do this would cost just gazillions and gazillions,” Coyle said. “The technology isn’t at hand — nor is the money. It’s unfortunate from my point of view that the Congress doesn’t see that.”
He added: “Both Russia and China will use it as an excuse to do something that they want to do.”
The word “limited” has guided U.S. policy since the National Missile Defense Act of 1999. The qualifier reflects, in part, the reality that intercepting and destroying incoming warheads is supremely difficult, and that it would be impractical to field enough interceptors to counter a large-scale attack. Any such system, by its very nature, would be limited.
The first of his amendments — to eliminate “limited” from U.S. policy — was approved in April by the House Armed Services Committee with no debate and without a recorded roll-call vote.
At a committee hearing May 17, a senior Democrat on the panel, Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, offered mild protest.
“I think it was a mistake to mandate a poorly thought out, unaffordable and unrealistic missile defense policy, including plans for a space-based missile deterrent,” Cooper said.
But neither Cooper nor any other House Democrat sought to overturn the provisions, and he was among those who voted to pass the overall bill the next day……..
In June, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) sought to restore “limited,” saying that the change in U.S. policy would create “the impetus for a new arms race” with Russia and China. Markey offered an amendment on the Senate floor but could not muster enough support to bring it to vote.
The same month, the Obama administration criticized the changes in the Senate bill, saying it “strongly objects” to removing “limited” and to placing anti-missile weaponry in space. The statement stopped short of threatening a veto.
The policy changes were greeted with opposition from another quarter as well. At a congressional hearing in April, Franks pressed Vice Adm. James D. Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency, for his stance on expanding U.S. capability into space.
There is increasing worldwide support for a Depleted Uranium ban….There is a growing consensus among civil society groups, scientists and
some military organisations that the health risks from DU have been seriously underestimated.
Latest documents advocating the ban of depleted uranium. By Jerry Mazza, Online Journal, 23 July 2010, US Armed Forces Radiobiology Institute Between 2000 and 2003, Dr Alexandra Miller of AFFRI was at the forefront of US Government sponsored research into DU�s chemical toxicity and radioactivity. Through a series of peer-reviewed papers, Dr Miller and her colleagues demonstrated for the first time that internalised DU oxides could result in �a significant enhancement of urinary mutagenicity,� that they can transform human cells into cells capable of producing cancerous tumours,
……and that DU was capable of inducing DNA damage in the absence of significant radioactive decay, i.e. through its chemical toxicity alone. In one study, 76% of mice implanted with DU pellets developed leukaemia. International response
Later that year the UN General Assembly passed a resolution highlighting serious health concerns over DU and in May 2008, 94% of MEPs in the European Parliament strengthened four previous calls for a moratorium by calling for a DU ban treaty in a wide-ranging resolution. In December 2008 141 states in the UN General Assembly ordered the World Health Organisation, International Atomic Energy Agency and United Nations Environment Programme to update their positions on the long-term health and environmental threat that uranium weapons pose.
The solution
With more than 100 member organisations worldwide, ICBUW represents the best opportunity yet to achieve a global ban on the use of uranium in all conventional weapon systems. Even though the use of weapons containing uranium should already be illegal under International Humanitarian, Human Rights and Environmental Laws, an explicit treaty, as has been seen with chemical and biological weapons, landmines and cluster bombs, has proved the best solution for confirming their illegality. Such a treaty would not only outlaw the use of uranium weapons, but would include the prohibition of their production, the destruction of stockpiles, the decontamination of battlefields and rules on compensation for victims.
ICBUW has prepared a draft treaty, which contains a general and comprehensive prohibition of the development, production, transport, storage, possession, transfer and use of uranium ammunition.
There is a growing consensus among civil society groups, scientists and
some military organisations that the health risks from DU have been seriously underestimated. Establishment scientific bodies have been slow to react to the wealth of new research into DU and policy makers have been content to ignore the claims of researchers and activists. Deliberate obfuscation by the mining, nuclear and arms industries has further hampered efforts to recognise the problem and achieve a ban. The past failure of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional �Weapons to deal with landmines and cluster bombs suggests that an independent treaty process is the best route to limiting the further use and proliferation of uranium weapons.
As enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, the methods and means of warfare are not unlimited. We must not allow the short term military advantage claimed for uranium weapons to override our responsibility for the long-term welfare of people and planet.
BBC employees were offered the chance to survive a nuclear holocaust by broadcasting from an underground bunker, but they could not tell their wives, newly released files reveal.
The broadcaster secretly drew up plans during the Cold War for how it would run a Wartime Broadcasting System in the event of a major disaster.
Early versions of the plan – known as the ‘War Book’ – say that staff were “assigned” or “designated” to go underground, but later editions suggest they were “invited”. Chosen workers were informed not to tell their wives or bring them to the bunker, the files released by the BBC reveal.
“My clearest memory is of a discussion about whether people with spouses could bring them along,” Bob Doran, an experienced editor in Radio News in the 1980s, who attended a civil service seminar in Yorkshire said. The answer was no.
BBC bosses planned to set up 11 protected bunkers – known as ‘Regional Seats of Government’ – spread across the UK, each with a studio and five staff from nearby local radio stations.
A bunker at the Engineering Training Department at Wood Norton in Worcestershire would be a headquarters staffed by 90 BBC staff including engineers, announcers, 12 news editors and sub-editors.
The output would be controlled by the government, but the BBC made a collection of cassette tapes of old radio comedies to entertain the public.
Shows chosen to amuse listeners during Armageddon included the Goon Show, Just a Minute and Round the Horne.
China ‘sends message to Trump’ by flying nuclear-capable bomber over South China Sea for the first time since The Donald’s controversial phone call with Taiwan’s leader
Chinese H-6 bomber was escorted by fighter jets over disputed South China Sea
Pentagon officials say move was meant to send a message to Donald Trump
Satellites also detect Chinese surface-to-air missiles being placed on an island
Maneuvers come against backdrop of tensions stoked by call with Taiwan leader
China flew a long-range bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons over the South China Sea in recent days, according to US officials.
The move appears to be Beijing’s way of flexing its military muscles in a worrying show of force that officials in Washington say is a message to President-elect Donald Trump, Fox News reported on Friday.
For the first time since Trump upended decades of diplomatic protocol and spoke on the phone with the leader of Taiwan, China flew aircraft over an area that includes disputed islands which it claims as its own.
The flight route corresponded to the so-called ‘Nine-Dash line,’ the demarcation boundary used by China to mark a number of islands that are also claimed by neighboring countries, including Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei……….
The US suspects that China is expanding its military reach into the South China Sea.
The latest military maneuvers are all the more disconcerting since they come against the backdrop of increasing tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Trump said on Thursday the United States needed to improve its relationship with China, which he criticized for its economic policies and failure to rein in North Korea. ……..
Trump criticized China repeatedly during his presidential campaign and drew a diplomatic protest from Beijing last week after speaking by phone with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, which China considers a wayward province.
What’s standing between Donald Trump and nuclear war?The main barriers to using nuclear weapons are psychological, not legal, The Verge by Rachel Becker Dec 11, 2016 When President-elect Donald Trump officially becomes the president of the United States in January, he will take complete control of America’s nuclear arsenal. Should he decide to start a nuclear war, there are no legal safeguards to stop him. Instead, a much less tangible web of norms, taboos, and fears has reined in US presidents since World War II. But as North Koreaescalates its nuclear weapons tests and the president-elect of the United States openly contemplates using nukes, experts worry that this fragile web could start to tear.
Tale of Two Cities (1946) – Hiroshima & Nagasaki Japan after The Atomic Bombs of World War II
During his campaign, Trump called nuclear proliferation the “biggest problem” in the world. But he also said that Japan and South Koreamight want to get nukes of their own. He wouldn’t take nuking ISIS, or even Europe, off the table. But he’s also characterized himself as “highly, highly, highly, highly unlikely” to ever use nuclear weapons. This calculated ambiguity isn’t unusual for America’s presidents. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush left nuclear first strikes on the table, too.
But for a US president to talk so openly and frequently about using nuclear force is a clear break with history, says Frank Sauer, an international security researcher at the Bundeswehr University Munich and author of the book Atomic Anxiety: Deterrence, Taboo and the Non-Use of U.S. Nuclear Weapons. And it could be potently destabilizing in a world where nations’ nuclear doctrines are shaped more by posture than by policy.
Despite a few close calls, nuclear warheads haven’t been used in armed conflict for more than 70 years. But there’s controversy over the reason why. Robert McNamara, the US secretary of defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis, put it down to pure luck.
But Nina Tannenwald, director of international relations at Brown University, argues that a taboo gradually emerged from the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This taboo created the shared expectation that using nuclear weapons again would be deeply, morally wrong. International relations professor and author of The Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons,T.V. Paul disagrees, arguing that it’s not a taboo but a tradition that’s driven by social and political pressures. And underlying both of these explanations is humankind’s deep-seated fear of going extinct, Sauer says.
While mutually assured destruction — the notion that any country launching nukes would likely also be destroyed by nukes — gets the most ink in terms of deterrence, these cultural and psychological deterrents play powerful roles.
Let’s be very clear: the president alone controls the nukes. There aren’t more checks and balances because our nuclear chain of command was built to speedily deliver mutually assured destruction. In fact, the only real check on the president’s nuclear authority is the election, writes nuclear history professor Alex Wellerstein in a recent blog post. “[D]on’t elect people you don’t trust with the unilateral authority to use nuclear weapons.”
That’s because if the US is attacked, time is precious: early warning teams only have three minutes to determine whether warnings of a missile attack are real. If it looks legitimate enough to take to the president, the president then has less than 12 minutes to open the nuclear briefcase (or “football”), review his tactical options, and authorize a nuclear strike. Or at least, 12 minutes is how long the White House has if a submarine deployed in the Western Atlantic were to fire on DC; if Russia were to launch a nuke from within its borders, there’s maybe 18 additional minutes to react. If the president hesitates, a nuke could hit the White House before the US has a chance to launch a counterstrike.
Still, many experts agree that mutually assured destruction can’t fully explain why no one is using their nukes. After all, the US didn’t use nuclear weapons against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, even though Iraq didn’t have any nuclear weapons to retaliate with.
Other nations do a better job at checking their leaders’ nuclear strength. China and India both pledged to not use nuclear weapons in a first strike. (India changed their policy in 2003 to let them retaliate with nukes against a chemical or biological weapons attack.) Russia walked back their own no-first-use policy in the 1990s, and the US doesn’t have one.
MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION CAN’T FULLY EXPLAIN WHY NO ONE IS USING THEIR NUKES
That’s where the nuclear taboo comes in. It lumps nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons into a category of weapons of mass destruction that are unusable precisely because they’re so powerful and hard to control, says Tannenwald, author of TheNuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945.
The taboo stems from the wreckage of the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan during World War II. We still don’t know how many people were killed by the first blasts, probably between 150,000 and 250,000 in total. The death toll continued to rise over the next five years to nearly 350,000 people, with many dying of cancers from the radioactive fallout.
During his recent visit to Japan, President Obama called Hiroshima “the start of our own moral awakening.” That moral awakening has kept nations like the US from using nukes even as they stockpiled them, Tannenwald argues. The taboo casts nuclear weapons as untouchable, stigmatized tools that only a barbarian would use — shaping public opinion as well as world leaders’ personal conviction. After the bombing of Nagasaki, President Harry Truman reportedly called off any more nuclear attacks, saying, “The thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible.”………
Kashmir, climate change, and nuclear war, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Zia Mian , 7 Dec 16 “……..The climate-water conflict. Along with the risks of war triggered by an escalation along the Line of Control in Kashmir or by attacks on Indian cities by Islamist militants backed by Pakistan, a new source of conflict between Pakistan and India has emerged, also centered on Kashmir. It is a struggle over access to and control over the water in the rivers that start as snow and glacial meltwater in the Himalayas and pass through Kashmir on their way to Pakistan as the Indus River Basin, ending in the Arabian Sea.
The Indus River and its tributaries are central to Pakistan’s water supply, food supply, and electricity production, and India relies on some of the same water. Under the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, Pakistan has control over the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab Rivers, and India manages the Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi rivers until they cross into Pakistan and all merge into the Indus River. The treaty was established in part because of conflicts over water between the two countries following independence in 1947, including an Indian decision in 1948 to block some of the water flowing into Pakistan during the first India-Pakistan war over Kashmir.
As water demand in both countries has grown to meet the needs of rapidly growing populations and increased agriculture and industrial use, large hydroelectric dams have been constructed, and renewed disputes are testing the Indus Waters Treaty. A 2011 United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee report assessed that “water may prove to be a source of instability in South Asia [as] new demands for the use of the river flows from irrigation and hydroelectric power are fueling tensions between India and Pakistan. A breakdown in the [Indus Water] treaty’s utility in resolving water conflicts could have serious ramifications for regional stability.” The report concluded grimly that “the United States cannot expect this region to continue to avoid ‘water wars’ in perpetuity.”………
Pakistan’s government, nationalist and militant organizations, and right-wing media frequently now present India’s construction of dams in Kashmir as a pressing national security threat and one that may call for extreme responses. An editorial in one leading urdu-language Pakistani newspaper in 2011 declared “Pakistan should convey to India that a war is possible on the issue of water and this time war will be a nuclear one.” ………http://thebulletin.org/kashmir-climate-change-and-nuclear-war10261
7pm Central Time (8pm ET, 6pm MT, 5pm PT) UTC – 5 From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
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