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Breakthrough for North Korea’s missile test – re-entry to Earth’s atmsophere

North Korea missile passes re-entry test in breakthrough for nuclear programme, Telegraph,  Julian Ryall, in Tokyo 20 MAY 2017
The ballistic missile launched by North Korea on May 14 successfully re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, according to analysts, a significant breakthrough for Pyongyang’s missile programme.

Defence officials in South Korea and the US have confirmed that the launch of the liquid- fuel Hwasong-12 was a success.

North Korea claimed that the weapon reached an altitude of 2,111.5 km (1,312 miles) and travelled a distance of 489 miles before breaching Japan’s Air Defence Identification Zone and splashing down in the Sea of Japan……..

After numerous test launches, North Korean scientists have already mastered long-range guidance and control capabilities, while a series of underground tests have demonstrated that the regime of Kim Jong-un has acquired nuclear weapons.

 As a result of the latest North Korean test, US authorities have decided to extend the deployment of the USS Carl Vinson and its strike group in the Sea of Japan. The fleet – described as an “armada” by President Donald Trump – was due to depart from the region after the USS Ronald Reagan, another aircraft carrier, completed a refit at the US naval base at Yokosuka, Japan.

The USS Ronald Reagan put to sea on May 16 and the two strike groups are now scheduled to carry out manoeuvres with South Korean warships in the coming weeks…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/20/northkorea-missile-passes-re-entry-test-breakthrough-nuclear/

May 22, 2017 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea’s vast military capabilities, even without nuclear weapons

How much damage could North Korea unleash even without nuclear weapons?, ABC News By Michael Collett, 21 May 17, There’s been a lot of focus on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and specifically, its hopes of developing a missile that could deliver a nuclear strike on the United States.

But what can be lost in the discussion of the country’s recent missile tests is the vast military capabilities the country already has.

This morning, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said any military solution to the North Korea crisis would be “tragic on an unbelievable scale”.

This is why a diplomatic solution is widely seen as the only solution.

What do we know about North Korea’s military?

Nick Bisley, executive director of La Trobe Asia and editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of International Affairs, says the military is the second most important institution in North Korea behind the Kim dynasty.

“The whole economy and the purpose of the state is organised around ensuring that the military has vast capacity,” he said.

So despite North Korea having an estimated population of about 25 million — not much more than Australia — it has the second biggest military in Asia behind China……..

North Korea has vast artillery capabilities that are targeted on Seoul, which has a population of 10 million and is less than an hour’s drive from the DMZ……..

Ultimately, it’s all about regime security.

“Yes, there’s a paranoid streak in North Korean thinking, but it’s not unfounded. There is someone who’s out to get them,” Professor Bisley said…… http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-20/what-can-north-korea-already-do-without-nuclear-weapons/8543532

May 22, 2017 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Cold War nuclear weapons warped Earth’s magnetosphere – what will a nuclear war do?

BOMBSHELL FINDING  Cold War nuclear weapons warped Earth’s magnetosphere – revealing what the true fallout could be if World War 3 broke out

Chaos sparked by Cold War nuke tests is only just becoming apparent – and it’s a chilling prediction of what might be in store for our fragile planet, The Sun By Margi Murphy, 19th May 2017 

NASA have released chilling details about how Cold War nuke tests affected our planet.

Several nuclear tests were carried out by the US and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 60s. But it’s only now that scientists are realising what the true fallout was.

The military exercises replicated the same devastating effects that solar storms can have on our planet – including blackouts and communication failures.

Detonating explosives at heights of between 16 and 250 miles above our planet’s surface temporarily distorted the Earth’s magnetic field line. This directly impacted satellites by damaging onboard electronics and disrupting communications and navigation signals.

Utility companies in Hawaii were strained and several satellites near test sites stopped working.

For years, extra radiation – which is what caused the satellites and electronics to fail – lay trapped inside Earth’s magnetosphere, a region surrounding Earth that defends us from solar flares.

The nuke tests were behind some very strange sights in our skies, too.

One triggered an aurora similar to the Northern Lights to appear over the Equator instead of the poles.

The findings, published in Space Science Reviews, is a chilling prediction of what a nuclear conflict might have in store for humanity.

It’s well known how the immediate – and grisly – aftermath could wipe out entire nations. But as we’ve become increasingly reliant on technology – it’s apparent that nuclear war could be even more devastating to civilisation.

Aside from the radiation that would wipe out vast swathes of life on Earth, all power and satellite systems could be completely warped – sending us back to the Stone Age.

The findings come as tensions between the US, Russia, China and North Korea escalate………https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3600160/cold-war-nuclear-weapons-warped-earths-magnetosphere-revealing-what-the-true-fallout-could-be-if-world-war-3-launched/

May 20, 2017 Posted by | 2 WORLD, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea defiant on nuclear missile testing

North Korea links nuclear advances to ‘hostile’ U.S. policy, Globe and Mail, EDITH M. LEDERER AND MATTHEW PENNINGTON, The Associated Press, May 19, 2017 The U.S. defence chief warned Friday that a military solution to the standoff with North Korea would be “tragic on an unbelievable scale,” while the North vowed to rapidly strengthen its nuclear-strike capability as long as it faces a “hostile” U.S. policy.

North Korea tested a longer-range missile last weekend, which experts say was a significant advance for a weapons program that aims at having a nuclear-tipped missile that can strike America. The test triggered a new U.S.-backed push for a fresh round of U.N. sanctions against the North.

At the United Nations, North Korea’s deputy ambassador, Kim In Ryong, was defiant. He said North Korea would never abandon its “nuclear deterrence for self-defence and pre-emptive strike capability” even if the U.S. ratchets up sanctions and pressure “to the utmost.”

Speaking to reporters, Kim hailed the test launch and said that if the Trump administration wants peace on the divided Korean Peninsula, it should replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a peace accord and halt its anti-North Korea policy.

At the Pentagon, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the missile test showed North Korea isn’t heeding cautions from the international community. However, he stressed the need for a peaceful resolution by working through the U.N. with countries including China, the North’s traditional ally and benefactor.

“If this goes to a military solution it is going to be tragic on an unbelievable scale, and so our effort is to work with the U.N., work with China, work with Japan, work with South Korea to try to find a way out of this situation,” Mattis said at a news conference.

He said North Korea “probably learned a lot” from last weekend’s test. He said the missile went very high and came down, but he would not characterize it as demonstrating the controlled re-entry of a missile……..https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/north-korea-links-nuclear-advances-to-hostile-us-policy/article35059528/

May 20, 2017 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear bomb testing affected weather in space

Cold War Nuclear Explosions Freakishly Impacted Space Weather https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/05/cold-war-nuclear-explosions-freakishly-impacted-space-weather/  Rae Paoletta May 19, 2017,The overdrawn game of nuclear chicken between the USSR and the United States — now known as the Cold War — lasted about 45 years. While neither superpower ever deployed nukes on each others’ soil, high-altitude bomb testing caused a kerfuffle in Earth’s atmosphere. Though the conflict has (thankfully) long since ended, newly declassified information suggests it might have impacted space weather in ways we never anticipated.

According to a new paper published in Space Science Reviews, the high altitude nuclear testing conducted by both the USSR and United States created “artificial radiation belts” near Earth. Our planet is naturally surrounded by Van Allen radiation belts — zones of highly-charged particles. But the energy from nuclear explosions created hot, electrically charged regions within the atmosphere that induced geomagnetic disturbances, and even produced radiation belts of its own. As you can probably guess, the results were not so great — according to the study’s authors, this resulted in “major damages to several satellites” that orbited Earth at a fairly low altitude.
Radiation and high-energy particles from the Sun frequently interact with Earth’s geomagnetic field, in the phenomenon known as space weather. When enough of these high energy particles rain down on the magnetosphere, it can severely damage communications satellites and even electrical power grids on the ground. But the radiation from nuclear blasts in the ’60s is an extreme example of how humans can also screw with our geomagnetic field, which is salient to understand but also terrifying.

Seriously, who would have guessed that missions with names like Argus, Teak and Starfish would have this kind of an impact? The radiation released from Argus alone caused an flurry of geomagnetic storms over Sweden and Arizona, according to the new study.

“The tests were a human-generated and extreme example of some of the space weather effects frequently caused by the Sun,” study’s co-author Phil Erickson, an assistant director at MIT’s Haystack Observatory, told NASA. “If we understand what happened in the somewhat controlled and extreme event that was caused by one of these man-made events, we can more easily understand the natural variation in the near-space environment.”

By understanding how human-caused geomagnetic disturbances impact our atmosphere, space agencies hope to better understand how to protect astronauts in Low Earth Orbit from the impacts of space weather, too. Maybe studying artificial space weather can even shed light on how a future monster solar storm will impact our electric grids and technology.

Also, hopefully we can calm down with the nukes here on Earth’s surface.

May 20, 2017 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea is a nuclear state. We have to live with that

Stephen Rademaker: North Korea is a nuclear state. We have to live with that, and here’s how Stephen Rademaker, Washington Post | May 19, 2017 Last Sunday, North Korea successfully demonstrated for the first time that it could strike U.S. territory in the Pacific. After more than 25 years of wrestling with the North Korean nuclear threat, it’s time to recognize that North Korea is not merely seeking to gain bargaining leverage against us. Rather, it is determined to possess nuclear weapons, and we need to develop a realistic strategy for containing, defending against and deterring what will be a persistent and growing nuclear threat.

There’s every reason to continue pursuing sanctions and diplomacy, but we should not premise our policy on the expectation that such efforts are going to succeed in persuading North Korea to change course. We must also recognize that there is no acceptable military solution to the problem.

Even before the North produced its first nuclear weapon, the United States calculated that the potential cost for any military strike was too great for America and South Korea. Now that North Korea has nuclear weapons, as well as missiles that can reach Guam and beyond, this logic is even more compelling.

It is indeed true, as the Trump administration has concluded, that China has the wherewithal to compel North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons. But China is a great power that has had plenty of time to think through its policy. It is concerned, but clearly not panicked. More important, it perceives plenty of downsides to overreacting, including the potential collapse and absorption of its ally, North Korea, into America’s ally, South Korea.

So great is our dependence on China that, like hostages held by a kidnapper, all previous administrations developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome, coming to believe that China was doing everything it could to help solve the problem, when it manifestly could do more. After 25 years, we should not assume that more hectoring, promises or threats will persuade China to act in ways it believes contrary to its interests…….http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/stephen-rademaker-north-korea-is-a-nuclear-state-we-have-to-live-with-that-and-heres-how

May 20, 2017 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons ban treaty needs clear information on long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war

The ban treaty must address the scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war http://thebulletin.org/ban-treaty-must-address-scientifically-predicted-consequences-nuclear-war10779, STEVEN STARR. Steven Starr is the director of the University of Missouri–Columbia’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program. 19 MAY 2017
The preamble of the treaty to ban nuclear weapons now under consideration at the UN will be greatly strengthened if it includes a summary of the long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war, as described by a series of peer-reviewed studies done by prominent scientists working at major US and Swiss Universities, as well as at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. These studies are considered to be the most authoritative type of scientific research—subjected to criticism by the international scientific community before final publication in scholarly journals—and the findings of these studies remain unchallenged.

The research predicts that a nuclear war fought between emerging nuclear weapon states—with less than 1 percent of the explosive power contained in the global nuclear arsenals—can produce catastrophic long-term damage to global environment and weather. A war fought with 100 atomic bombs can result in the coldest average annual surface temperatures experienced in the last 1,000 years, and this prolonged cold (and drought) would last for several years before temperatures began to return to normal. Medical experts predict that this prolonged cold would lead to a global famine causing up to two billion people to starve to death. Climatologists also predict that such a war would cause major damage to the Earth’s protective stratospheric ozone layer, leading to a doubling of harmful UV-B radiation in the populated mid-latitudes.

The studies also forecast that a war fought with US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons would create post-war Ice Age weather conditions across the Northern Hemisphere in a matter of weeks. These catastrophic changes in weather would be the result of a global stratospheric smoke layer, produced by hundreds or thousands of nuclear firestorms, which would block up to 90 percent of sunlight over central North America and Eurasia.

The loss of warming sunlight would cause temperatures in these central regions to fall below freezing every day for one to two years. Because the stratospheric smoke layer could not be rained out, it would remain for a decade or longer, affecting both the northern and southern hemispheres. Growing seasons in the large agricultural zones would be eliminated for many years, dooming most humans and animals to starvation from nuclear famine.

Confusion: nuclear war or a nuclear weapon? To date, there has been an unfortunate avoidance (among both diplomats and nongovernmental organizations involved in the ban treaty) of any explicit discussion of the effects of nuclear war; instead the language of the general conversation has tended to focus on the effects of a nuclear weapon, in the singular. This is evidenced by the wording of the Humanitarian Pledge, which was issued on December 9, 2014 at the conclusion of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. Notice that the pledge states:

“Understanding that the immediate, mid- and long-term consequences of a nuclear weapon explosion are significantly graver than it was understood in the past and will not be constrained by national borders but have regional or even global effects, potentially threatening the survival of humanity.” (emphasis added)

This statement is technically incorrect, as a single nuclear weapon explosion cannot produce “global effects, potentially threatening the survival of humanity.” Only a nuclear war, fought with the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, is predicted to have the capacity to produce the catastrophic consequences capable of wiping out most peoples and nations. Likewise, scientists predict that a war fought with atomic bombs of the emerging nuclear weapon states can cause global weather changes that will likely lead to mass starvation. But a single nuclear detonation cannot produce such an effect.

The apparent confusion about the effects of a single nuclear weapon versus the effects of nuclear war were also reflected in the UN Resolution 70/47, titled “Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons.” It was passed in December 2015 and contains this language:

Welcoming the facts-based discussions on the effects of a nuclear weapon detonation that were held at the conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons convened respectively by Norway in March 2013, Mexico in February 2014 and Austria in December 2014…” (emphasis added)

It is imperative to avoid any similar confusion of cause and effect within the text of the ban treaty now being written. The scientifically predicted consequences of nuclear war must be clearly distinguished from those likely be to be caused by a single nuclear weapon detonation.

Science should be part of the ban treaty. The best way to avoid confusion over the effects of nuclear weaponry on the world environment would be to include authoritative scientific predictions—detailing the likely consequences of a range of nuclear conflicts—as supporting evidence in the preamble of the ban treaty. The existential threats explained by these peer-reviewed scientific studies provide the most powerful arguments imaginable against the existence of nuclear weapons and nuclear arsenals.

A series of studies were conducted at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers, the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research Earth System Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, and ETH Zurich, which used a state-of-the-art computer modeling to evaluate the environmental consequences of a range of possible nuclear conflicts. The five peer-reviewed studies listed below evaluated the consequences of a war fought with atomic bombs:

Another important peer-reviewed study describes the catastrophic long-term environmental consequences of a large-scale nuclear war fought with strategic nuclear weapons:

May 20, 2017 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Cyber war a more likely threat than nuclear war? North Korea has expertise in this

With the attention of the United States and its allies at present focused on North Korea’s nuclear activity, North Korea potentially has greater latitude to act aggressively in the cyber realm, especially against the private sector. 

North Korea, Iran, and the Challenges of Dealing With Cyber-Capable Nuclear States https://www.lawfareblog.com/north-korea-iran-and-challenges-dealing-cyber-capable-nuclear-states, By Luke McNamara, May 18, 2017 North Korea’s successful missile launch last Sunday has further sharpened the world’s focus on the country’s growing nuclear capabilities. But in remarks last month, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly commented that North Korea poses a more likely cyber threat than it does a nuclear concern.

While years of sanctions have isolated the Hermit Kingdom from much of the global financial system, North Korea may be seeking to fund the state’s coffers through a widespread cyber-crime campaign. It appears that its ability to do so may be enhanced, rather than hampered, by the increased attention that is paid to its accelerating nuclear program.

In early 2016, multiple South Korean security vendors who provide services to the country’s financial sector were targeted with malware in a campaign that also affected aerospace and defense. More notably last year, an intrusion at an Asian bank eventually revealed a manipulation of international systems and a loss of over $81 million dollars. Several months after that, similar activity was uncovered targeting the Financial Supervision Authority of Poland, where North Korea has an embassy that likely could have supplied cyber threat operators with Polish-language operational support. We now strongly suspect that this activity is linked to North Korean state-sponsored cyber espionage actors.

For close observers of North Korea’s capabilities, state-sponsored espionage actors carrying out financial theft should not come wholly as a surprise. To augment the little trade it is able to carry out under sanctions, North Korea has relied upon a government department, Office 39, to generate hard currency through everything from counterfeiting to weapons sales and other illicit activity, all for the financial benefit of the state and Kim regime. Given Office 39’s mission and North Korea’s need to fund (among other things) its nuclear weapons program, it is quite likely that this activity is as much for financial gain as it is for the destabilizing affect it has on the global financial system North Korea is mostly isolated from.

Even if these cyber-enabled thefts were opportunistic in the past, there may be reason to believe that more coordinated and intentional campaigns could surface in the near future. If the US successfully convinces China to apply pressure to North Korea—especially by reducing its economic relationship and following suit with India, which recently suspended most of their trade relationships—Pyongyang would be left with few options to compensate for lost income that it could ramp up as quickly as cybercrime.

Though large-scale heists might be North Korea’s preference, they could also leverage the increasingly professionalized and growing ransomware space to accomplish the same ends. Researchers have already noted potential North Korean ties to the recent WannaCry ransomware campaign that has affected hospitals and other organizations across Europe. While the financial gain netted from this activity—to date—seems to be minimal in relation to the affect it has been able to unleash, regardless of the responsible actors, it has likely served as an important proof of concept for future operations. A potentially riskier tactic they could employ from the cyber crime playbook would be the theft and public sale of data from international organizations, similar to the Shadow Brokers’ sale of reported NSA tools and Cuba’s traditional use of state-backed spies to sell purloined intelligence. While the motivations of the Shadow Brokers may be less aligned with financial gain, North Korea would be just as interested in this as the political impact of doxing a rival’s intrusion tools.

Beyond North Korea, this could also demonstrate a greater principle in how nuclear-armed and cyber-equipped states employ the latter capability in less-than-war situations, as Iran is currently doing. In late 2016 through early 2017, suspected Iranian wiper malware Shamoon returned in a campaign against Saudi Arabia, while a similar tool named Shapeshift (or StoneDrill) was discovered also targeting the petrochemical sector in the same country. By targeting a key US ally through show-of-force campaigns, Iran has signaled a willingness to employ destructive capabilities outside periods of heightened conflict. Without doubt, this will influence to some extent future negotiations over its weapons program. An Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon—while possessing destructive cyber capabilities—presents two security challenges to deal with and increases the country’s bargaining position in future negotiations. The upcoming elections in Iran this week may further serve as an inflection point that will better illuminate how these issues evolve.

In a domain of still-emerging norms, where responsible actors are seeking the most appropriate and proportional means of response, actors willing to employ cyber in novel and aggressive ways will likely continue to create space from which to negotiate and maneuver. A North Korea capable of delivering nuclear-armed ICBMs is certainly a nightmare scenario, but we should not lose sight of how Pyongyang may exploit those fears to its advantage in cyberspace. With the attention of the United States and its allies at present focused on North Korea’s nuclear activity, North Korea potentially has greater latitude to act aggressively in the cyber realm, especially against the private sector.

May 19, 2017 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | 2 Comments

India diverts ‘peaceful’ nuclear materials to weapons development

India Has Been Diverting Nuclear Materials to Make Weapons: Pakistan News .com May 18, 2017, Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday alleged that India has been diverting nuclear materials it had obtained for peaceful purposes under the NSG waiver to make weapons.

Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria told reporters that Pakistan has been underscoring for decades the risks of diversion by India of imported nuclear fuel, equipment and technology, received pursuant to civil nuclear cooperation agreements and the 2008 Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver.

“The concerns over diversion are neither new nor unfounded. India enjoys the rare distinction of diverting nuclear material, obtained on its peaceful use commitment, to its nuclear weapons programme,” he said.

“The past and potential misuse of nuclear materials by India entails not only serious issues of nuclear proliferation but also carry grave implications for strategic stability in South Asia and national security of Pakistan.”

He said media reports and papers substantiate an otherwise largely “ignored fact” that India’s nuclear weapons programme is the fastest growing in the world.

Talking about a paper recently released by Harvard Kennedy School, he said that this paper and other several reports corroborate growing concerns related to the use of nuclear material acquired by India from abroad in its existing and future unsafeguarded nuclear reactors, plants and facilities for development of nuclear weapons.

“The recent Belfer paper inter alia concludes that India has accumulated nuclear material for over 2600 nuclear weapons,” he said.

He said that NSG states have a responsibility to take into account these well-founded concerns while considering transfer of nuclear material to India and its NSG membership bid.

 He claimed that many international nuclear experts, think tanks and media reports in the past years have consistently raised concerns over the lack of transparency, absence of international safeguards, and the potential for diversion of unsafeguarded nuclear material for nuclear weapons in India…….http://www.news18.com/news/world/india-has-been-diverting-nuclear-materials-to-make-weapons-pakistan-1405687.html

May 19, 2017 Posted by | India, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Donald Trump in particular, should NOT have sole the authority to use nuclear weapons

No president — especially Trump — should have sole the authority to use nuclear weapons http://bangordailynews.com/2017/05/18/opinion/contributors/no-president-especially-trump-should-have-sole-the-authority-to-use-nuclear-weapons/ Diane Russell, May 18, 2017 When I was 8 years old, another rural Maine girl just two years older than me made international headlines when she had the audacity to write the Soviet premier and ask him if he was going to go to war against the United States. When her letter went around the world, Maine’s “fearless girl,” Samantha Smith, created space for world leaders to negotiate a de-escalation of the Cold War. The courage she showed resulted in three decades of nuclear arms control with what is now Russia, including treaties to reduce the number of nuclear weapons.

President Donald Trump’s erratic behavior, Twitter tirades and general instability has followed him off the campaign trail and into the White House, jeopardizing the relative progress we have made to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. Despite the U.S. intelligence community’s reports that Russia interfered in the election to swing it in Trump’s favor, tensions between these two nuclear-armed nations remain worryingly high. Moreover, Trump’s rhetoric and posturing toward North Korea are increasing the risk of nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula. A war with North Korea would be catastrophic.

With that in mind, Maine’s own Stephen King recently sent out a pointed tweet: “That this guy has his finger on the nuclear trigger is worse than any horror story I ever wrote.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Trump’s sole control of the United States nuclear arsenal is worse than any nightmare King could turn into a novel. But the real danger lies in the fact he can launch thousands of our nuclear weapons within the time it takes to order a cup of coffee — and there are no checks and balances in place stop him.

The framers of our Constitution purposefully gave the legislative branch of government the power to declare war because, as James Madison put it, the executive was not “ safely to be trusted with it.” American democracy is built on a system of checks and balances, ensuring that no one entity retains absolute power. But in a shocking disregard for this principle, ultimate authority over whether nuclear weapons are used rests solely with the president.

It takes approximately five minutes to launch a nuclear weapon. Once the president gives the order to launch, the Pentagon and everyone down the chain of command must comply with the commander-in-chief’s directive. Short of disobeying a direct order or an outright coup, no mechanism exists as a stopgap on this power.

This is, at its core, completely undemocratic. The decision to use nuclear weapons should be undertaken only with the utmost caution and not left up to any single individual, let alone one so erratic.

Growing alarm over this very real possibility isn’t isolated, and it isn’t occurring in a vacuum. Earlier this month, former nuclear commanders around the world launched a crisis group to serve as a “shadow security council” in order to advise world leaders in reducing the growing danger of a nuclear conflict. In January, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock, which signals how close humanity is to destruction, closer to midnight. And former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, who oversaw the U.S. nuclear arsenal for decades and played a supporting role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, continues expressing his alarm over the skyrocketing risks of a nuclear exchange.

Several members of Congress also have taken note of the great power that is vested in the executive branch when it comes to nuclear weapons. In February, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, and U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-California, introduced the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, which would prevent any president from launching nuclear weapon in a pre-emptive first strike without congressional authorization. The legislations is backed by at least 500,000 Americans who signed a petition calling on all members of Congress to co-sponsor it.

We have an opportunity to write a new page in the American history books for the courage of Maine leaders in reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. Let Stephen King write the horror stories. If U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King co-sponsor this common-sense legislation, they would be acting to uphold Samantha Smith’s legacy of preventing nuclear war.

Diane Russell served eight years in the Maine House of Representatives. She currently serves as the national security political director at Women’s Action for New Directions. Follow her on Twitter: @MissWrite.

May 19, 2017 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chang Hsien-yi, the Taiwanese scientist who tried to save his country from nuclear war

The man who helped prevent a nuclear crisis, By Cindy Sui, BBC News, Taipei, 18 May 2017  In 1988 Taiwan was racing to build its first nuclear bomb, but one military scientist put a stop to that when he defected to the United States and exposed those plans. This is the story of a man who insists he had to betray his country in order to save it.

To this day, critics consider Chang Hsien-yi a traitor – but he has no regrets. “If I can ever do it all over again, I will do it,” says the calmly defiant 73-year-old, speaking from his home in the US state of Idaho.

The former military colonel has been living there since 1988 when he fled to the US, a close ally of the island, and this is his first substantial interview about that time.

It might seem a perplexing turn of events given the close relationship the US has with Taiwan, but Washington had found out that Taiwan’s government had secretly ordered scientists to develop nuclear weapons.

Taiwan’s enemy, the Communist government of China, had been building up its nuclear arsenal since the 1960s, and the Taiwanese were terrified this would be unleashed on the island.

Taiwan separated from China after the Chinese Civil War in 1949. To this day China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has vowed to reunify with the island, by force if necessary.

The leadership of the island was also in an uncertain phase – its president, Chiang Ching-kuo, was dying, and the US thought that General Hau Pei-tsun, whom they saw as a hawkish figure, would become his successor.

They were worried about a nuclearisation of the Taiwan Strait and bent on stopping Taiwan’s nuclear ambition in its tracks and preventing a regional arms race.

So they secretly enlisted Mr Chang to halt Taiwan’s programme.  When Mr Chang was recruited by the CIA in the early 1980s, he was the deputy director at Taiwan’s Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, which was responsible for the nuclear weapons programme.  As one of Taiwan’s key nuclear scientists, he enjoyed a life of privilege and a lucrative salary.

But he says he began questioning whether the island should have nuclear weapons after the catastrophic Chernobyl accident in 1986 in the former Soviet Union. He was convinced by the Americans’ argument that stopping the programme would be “good for peace, and was for the benefit of mainland China and Taiwan”……..

Setting the record straight Mr Chang has remained silent for decades. But with his recent retirement he now wants to set the record straight with a memoir, titled Nuclear! Spy? CIA: Record of an Interview with Chang Hsien-yi.

The book, written with academic Chen Yi-shen and published in December, has reignited a debate about whether Mr Chang did the right thing for Taiwan……..

Mr Chang insists he feared then that ambitious Taiwanese politicians would use nuclear weapons to try to take back mainland China.

He claims Madame Chiang Kai Shek, the stepmother of dying President Chiang Ching-kuo, and a group of generals loyal to her had even gone so far as to set up a separate chain of command to expedite the development of nuclear weapons……

“You don’t have to be in Taiwan to love Taiwan; I love Taiwan,” says Mr Chang.

“I am Taiwanese, I am Chinese. I don’t want to see Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait killing each other.” http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39252502

May 19, 2017 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, Taiwan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A nuclear attack: how would you fare, even if you survived the blast?

Nuclear attack: ‘A third of the world would die’ https://www.byronnews.com.au/news/nuclear-attack-third-world-would-die/3178772/ Cody Cassidy, Paul Doherty | 17th May 2017, DURING the Cold War it was widely understood that both the United States and the USSR had the capability to destroy the world with nuclear weapons. What people didn’t know was how easily they actually could do it.

Today, thanks to sophisticated weather models built to analyse global warming, we know that even a relatively small nuclear skirmish would be extremely bad news.

Simulations of full-scale war between smaller nuclear-armed countries suggest that a hundred multimegaton bombs would be exchanged, and the simultaneous detonation of a hundred nuclear devices would be bad for you even if you were on the other side of the globe.

Your first problem? Radiation.

When the nukes went off they would irradiate the area and transmute innocuous atoms into dangerous ones. One of the worst of these nuclear bastard children is called strontium-90.

It’s light, so it doesn’t take many explosions for it to coat the globe and get deep into the food supply. Once ingested it’s so similar to calcium that your body absorbs it into your bones.

Children born after the open-air nuclear tests of the 1950s have fifty times the natural level of strontium-90 in their teeth. Fortunately, that’s still below the threshold for serious danger.

Unfortunately, unlike a test, a nuclear battle will blow past that threshold. Once strontium-90 is in your bones its radioactive decay breaks up the DNA of your cells, leading to bone cancers and leukaemia.

So if you survived the initial nuclear exchange, you would have bone cancer to look forward to, but that’s only if you could also survive the more serious smoke, ash, and soot problem.

The second issue, after the dust has cleared from the initial detonations, is that the dust wouldn’t clear.

After a hundred multimegaton bombs exploded in the air, not only would they directly distribute carbon into the upper atmosphere but they would start enormous forest and urban fires that would release massive amounts of smoke.

On top of that, the explosions would lift tons of fine dust – all of which would be heated by the sun to rise and collect in the stratosphere.

The smoke from your typical campfire stays below the clouds where it can be wicked away by rain. In the case of nuclear fallout, smoke and ash would be lifted above the clouds where it wouldn’t be wicked away by rain, so it would stay parked for years and block sunlight.

Even conservative environmental simulations show that a hundred nuclear detonations would block enough sunlight to drop the average global temperature by a few degrees.

A sudden global drop in temperature of even a couple of degrees would be devastating for the world’s food supply, because a single frost kills rice.

A serious disturbance in rice production would kill as many as 2 billion people around the globe.*

In a hundred-bomb nuclear war nearly a third of the world’s population would die from the explosions, starvation, or cancer, but our species would carry on.

In larger, multithousand exchanges of thermonuclear weapons, like the one that almost occurred in November 1983 between the United States and the USSR, however, we probably wouldn’t.

HOW CLOSE THE WORLD CAME TO ENDING

On November 7, 1983, the United States led NATO in a massive training exercise called Able Archer that mimicked a nuclear first strike against the USSR. Unfortunately for nearly everybody, the USSR believed the exercise was a cover for an actual first strike.

So in response the Soviets helicoptered missiles to their silos and mobilised their air force, actions that should have alarmed the U.S. military to respond in kind.

Luckily, Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots of the U.S. Air Force mistook Russia’s actions for a simple training exercise and took no action. That lack of response convinced the USSR to stand down.

Lt. Gen. Perroots made a “fortuitous, if ill-informed” decision, according to declassified analysis of the scare. It might be the most fortuitous mistake in human history.

If the alarm had been raised and the misunderstanding escalated into full-scale nuclear war, a few thousand multi-megaton bombs would have crisscrossed the globe and detonated over their targets.

Even if you didn’t live in a large city (basically every city with a population of more than 100,000 in the United States and the USSR was targeted) and therefore weren’t killed by the initial blasts, you couldn’t expect to live long.

Within two weeks of something like this happening, 180 million tons of smoke, soot, and dust would coat our globe like black paint, and there it would stay.

Light levels would be reduced to a few per cent of what they are today, so high noon would look like predawn. Midsummer highs in North America would be below zero.

The good news is there would be plenty of dead trees to burn for warmth. The bad news: You would starve. Crops would be wiped out, and those that weren’t would suffer from another problem: Bugs.

Cockroaches and their ilk are quite durable when it comes to radiation, but their predators are not. Without any birds to keep them in check, crop-eating pests would prosper.

Pests would decimate any crops that made it through the freeze.

But there is an upside (sort of). Cockroaches are actually more efficient than cows at turning grain into protein, and even in the new apocalyptic world there would be plenty for them to eat.

They’re also a healthy snack. Cockroaches are high in vitamin C, protein, and fat, so as long as you’re not a picky eater, you may survive a little longer than expected.

You would just need to eat a lot of cockroaches, around 144 per day, to survive. Gross.

This is an extract from And Then You’re Dead: A scientific exploration of the world’s most interesting ways to die by Cody Cassidy and Paul Doherty, published by Allen and Unwin and available now.

Paul Doherty is co-director and senior staff scientist at the San Francisco Exploratorium Museum. He received his PHD in solid state physics from MIT.   Cody Cassidy is a writer and editor.

May 17, 2017 Posted by | 2 WORLD, environment, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The devastating social and mental health legacies of atomic bomb testing

The worst effects of our nuclear programme are the ones that nobody talks about http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nuclear-war-threat-weapons-us-north-korea-russia-nuclear-testing-worst-thing-a7739131.html  Between 1946-1996, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests were conducted by the US, UK, Soviet Union, France and China. Most of these took place in locations selected on the basis of colonial history, and in lands belonging to indigenous peoples Beyza Unal , 16 May 17  A quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, interest in nuclear weapons has revived, not reduced. But still a taboo surrounds our nuclear legacy. For all the debate over the tensions between the United States and North Korea, a taboo still surrounds the lingering impacts of nuclear weapons testing and fears for their future use in conflict.

Our latest research looked not only at the implications of a potential future nuclear conflict, but also the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons testing for more than seven decades.

Between 1946-1996, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests were conducted by the US, UK, Soviet Union, France and China. Most of these took place in locations selected on the basis of colonial history, and in lands belonging to indigenous peoples. And the impacts were severe.

  • As well as devastating costs to their health and environment, many affected communities still live with the social, cultural and economic consequences of these tests. Subjected to forced displacement, they lost their land and connection to that land forever. Many were prevented from pursuing their traditional livelihoods. Not everyone was compensated, and those affected reported a lack of official accountability.Nuclear tests have adversely impacted mental health, by fostering climate of fear over radiological exposure in test locations, and through the creation culture of social stigma and discrimination.
  • One of the less tangible legacies of nuclear tests has been a sense of humiliation and alienation from society. This was seen following the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when hibakusha women – survivors of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki – faced marriage discrimination, but it echoed at testing sites. As a UNIDIR study noted, women from the Marshall islands suffered “humiliating” examinations by US military medical and scientific personnel as a result of the American nuclear weapons testing programme until 1958.
  • oday, the potential use of nuclear weapons, deliberate or accidental,  represents a great risk to humanity. Two decades on from its inception, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) – an agreement to ban all types of nuclear detonations, including atmospheric, underground, space and underwater tests – has still not entered into force. The international nuclear order is in peril: the US and Russia have increased investment in nuclear modernisation; North Korea has conducted five tests in the past decade and has the will to continue, regardless of sanctions or threats of action.Nuclear testing is part of weapons research and development: several steps ahead of a test is the decision to be ready, in principle, to use a nuclear weapon. There is an important connection between the widely-supported comprehensive ban on nuclear testing, and attempts to ban nuclear weapons altogether. A ban on testing has been pursued largely due to unacceptable effects on human life and the environment; precisely the same concerns drive current efforts to prohibit nuclear weapons.
  • Last week, the British and Australian governments announced healthcare aid for the indigenous communities who were exposed to radiation as a result of British nuclear tests 50 years ago. In a personal interview with us last year, Sue-Coleman Haseldine, a first-generation nuclear test survivor in Australia,  told us the only possible compensation to her community would be “a world free of nuclear weapons”.It’s time to start talking about the long-lasting effects of nuclear weapons. After all, unless we do, the nuclear taboo will only exist until a devastating detonation occurs somewhere in the world.

    Dr Beyza Unal is a research fellow in nuclear weapons policy at Chatham House

May 17, 2017 Posted by | 2 WORLD, psychology - mental health, social effects, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Call for Pentagon to disclose depleted uranium target

Jack Cohen-Joppa: McSally: Ask Pentagon to disclose depleted uranium target data. http://tucson.com/news/opinion/columnists/guest/jack-cohen-joppa-mcsally-ask-pentagon-to-disclose-depleted-uranium/article_9951f82c-0d54-5884-b54f-f5d467dcbfac.html 14 May 17,  Jack Cohen-Joppa

Last year, Rep. Martha McSally’s office helped a military journalist and I confirm that for the first time since 2003, A-10s had fired their armor-piercing depleted uranium (DU) ammunition while attacking an ISIS convoy in Syria in November, 2015.

In February, I wrote to ask her assistance in getting the Pentagon to share with appropriate Iraqi and international authorities all of the locations where this radioactive ammunition has been used.

 Twenty-six years ago during Operation Desert Storm, U.S. armed forces flying over Iraq fired nearly one million rounds of the special ammunition, totaling about 300 tons of refined depleted uranium. Another 125-plus tons of these radioactive bullets were fired during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The vast bulk of this ordnance came from the guns of the A-10 warplanes, while the remainder was fired from the Abrams tank, Bradley Fighting Vehicle and Marine AV-8B Harrier.

As a radioactive heavy metal, use of DU in industry is licensed from federally owned stockpiles. Public health officials recognize it as a chemical and radiological hazard. Industrial emissions are subject to regulation, and production facilities have been shut down due to off-site contamination. Protocols and procedures exist to protect the health and safety of those in industry and the military who manufacture and handle the uranium ammo until its use in combat.

Since 1991, the United States has been asked to provide international aid NGOs, United Nations agencies, and the government of Iraq with full information about where this ammunition was used. According to the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Environmental Program, this basic data is needed to help identify contaminated sites for remediation and the eventual removal of this toxic remnant of war.

 Today, more than two decades later, our government has refused to fully disclose this information. The failure to disclose has a continuing political cost as well, because it counters any claim that the United States cares for the future of the Iraqi, and now also the Syrian, people.

It is known that such targeting information is available to disclose because a subset of the data was shared with the Dutch government for locations where Dutch coalition troops may have encountered DU contamination. NATO also released targeting data for DU use in the Balkans in 1999. Another limited set of targeting data from 2003 was uncovered recently in George Washington University’s National Security Archive.

I asked Representative McSally to add her voice to those demanding the Pentagon provide international authorities with comprehensive information regarding where DU was used by the A-10s and other platforms since 1991.

But now, three months later, neither McSally nor her office have replied to my letter, let alone provided an answer about her views on the matter. As a veteran A-10 commander now sitting on the House Armed Services Committee, her support for releasing this information would be significant, benefiting the health and safety of U.S. military personnel, international aid workers and the affected civilian populations for generations to come. I encourage all of her  constituents to join me in asking her to support this request.

 Jack Cohen-Joppa, a Tucson resident since 1986, is co-coordinator of the Nuclear Resister. Contact Jack at jack@igc.org.

May 15, 2017 Posted by | depleted uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Close to Norway – Russia’s secret nuclear weapons build-up, and waste dumps

The satellite images, however, only reveal what is visible on the surface. Most of the actual warheads are underground.  

What now takes place in regard to submarine-launched ballistic missiles’ facilities hasn’t been seen at the naval bases on Kola since the large-scale infrastructure construction to support the Typhoon submarines at the Nerpichya base in Zapadnaya Lista happened in the 1980s.

Norway pays for nuclear safety While nuclear weapons are stored inside the mountain on the east side of the Litsa fjord, huge amounts of nuclear waste are stored just two kilometers away, across the fjord in the infamous Andreeva Bay. Thousands of cubic meters of solid radioactive waste and nearly 22,000 spent nuclear fuel elements from submarine reactors are stored here. Neighbouring Norway, along with other donor countries, have spent hundres of millions kroner (tens of millions euros), on nuclear safety projects aimed at upgrading the infrastructure in Andreeva Bay.


Satellite images show expansion of nuclear weapons sites on Kola, Barents Observer [excellent pictures]  By Thomas Nilsen, May 08, 2017 The reverse gear seems to hang up for continuing disarmament of nuclear weapons in the Arctic. Barents Observer has made a comprehensive review of satellite images from naval base-level storage facilities that confirms heavy construction works.

The New START Treaty says USA and Russia must limit the numbers of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 by February 5, 2018. Over the last two years, Russia has increased the number of deployed warheads and is now 215 over the max limit to be reached.

There are extensive construction work at two of the Northern Fleet’s facilities for storage of warheads and ballistic missiles for submarines (SLBM) on the coast of to the Barents Sea. The Barents Observer has studied satellite images of the Kola Peninsula open available via Google Earth, combined with open-source data on numbers of nuclear warheads in Russia. The results are frightening.

Expansion of the two base-level storages in Okolnaya Bay near Severomorsk and Yagelnaya Bay in Gadzhiyevo are clearly visible. At both locations, new reinforced bunkers, auxiliary buildings and infrastructure partly finished and partly still under construction can be seen.

The satellite images, however, only reveal what is visible on the surface. Most of the actual warheads are underground.

What now takes place in regard to submarine-launched ballistic missiles’ facilities hasn’t been seen at the naval bases on Kola since the large-scale infrastructure construction to support the Typhoon submarines at the Nerpichya base in Zapadnaya Lista happened in the 1980s.

There are four storages for nuclear weapons on Kola. From satellite images, these storages are not too difficult to find. All are surrounded by double or triple layer barrier of barbed wire fences with extraordinary security at the single entry-exit checkpoints. Also inside the outer fences, the different sections of the facilities are separated with similar security fence barriers. Comparing satellite images with photos posted on internet by naval officers or their family members makes it possible to get a pretty good impression of the current situation.

Several of the storage locations are visible on photos, although mainly in distance, available by searching Yandex, Russia’s own search engine.  Also, Wikimapia, an online editable map where people can mark and describe places, has been a good source to information when writing this article.

Zaozersk is the nuclear weapons storage nearest to Norway in a distance of 65 kilometers to the border in Grense Jakobselv. The Norwegian town of Kirkenes is 94 kilometers away. Distance to Finland is 120 kilometers. All four storage sites on Kola are within a radius of 190 kilometers from Norway and 180 kilometers from the Finnish border………..

Today, Kristian Åtland estimates that around 60 percent of Russia’s more than 700 sea-based strategic nuclear warheads are concentrated on the Kola Peninsula, whereas the remaining 40 percent is based with the Pacific Fleet at Kamchatka.

«The numerical increase in Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal, including the part of it that is based on submarines operating from the Kola Peninsula, is neither dramatic nor unexpected. The increase is to be understood in the context of Russia’s long-standing and still on-going defense modernization. The modernization of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces has been a key priority in the State Armaments Program for the period up to 2020 (“GPV-2020”), which was launched in 2010. In addition, the general deterioration of Russia’s relationship with the West, particularly since 2014, seems to have led to a renewed focus on the issue of nuclear deterrence, in Russia as well as in the United States,» Åtland elaborates.

Gorbachev called for nuclear-free zone

2017 marks the 30-years anniversary since Michael Gorbachev’s famous Murmansk-speech on October 1st 1987 where he called for a nuclear-free zone in Northern Europe. Since then, the numbers of nuclear warheads based on the Kola Peninsula saw a continuing decrease until 2015, five years after Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed the New START Treaty in Prague. In July 2015, Russia reportedly had less deployed strategic nuclear warheads than the United States, 1,582 versus 1,597, the Bureau of Arms Control with the U.S. Departement of State reported.

215 over New START Treaty limit

Latest exchange and verification numbers from the same bureau dated April 1, 2017 shows that Russia now has 1,765 versus the United State’s 1,411. In other words; Russia has 215 warheads more than the maximum set to be achieved nine months ahead. The questions is whether Moscow is likely to dismantle over 200 warheads in less than a year.

Katarzyna Zysk, Associate Professor with the Norwegian Defense University College, says to the Barents Observer that Russia has a vested interest in maintaining the New START agreement. «Russia has a vested interest in maintaining the New START given that it keeps the development of the US strategic nuclear capabilities under control, provides Russia transparency measures and valued insight into to the US nuclear forces, thus increasing predictability,» she says, but underscore that the numbers must down.

«In order to meet the New START Treaty limits when it enters into effect in February 2018, Russia will have to decrease the numbers. However, Russia has been moving toward meeting the obligations as the number of Russia’s deployed strategic warheads has been decreasing compared with 2016. The US is now below the treaty limit and is in fact increasing the number of strategic deployed warheads,» Zysk explains.

Åtland agrees and underscores that today’s numbers do not constitute a treaty violation.

«The fact that Russia is now above the maximum warhead limits of the new START Treaty, which entered into force in 2011, does not in itself constitute a treaty violation. The treaty does not mandate any particular schedule for reductions other than that the agreed-upon limits must be met by February 2018, which is in nine months from now. Reductions in the number of deployed warheads are fairly easy to achieve once the political will is there, either by phasing out old delivery platforms or by removing deployed warheads to central storage. Thus, the identified “peak” may be temporary,» Åtland says. He hopes both the United States and Russia will work towards an extension of the Treaty.

«Hopefully, Russia will stand by its commitments under the current START Treaty regime. In any event, it is important that Russia and the U.S. continue to exchange data about the status of their nuclear arsenals and that they provide for mutual inspections and other transparency measures outlined in the START Treaty and other documents. The parties should also work towards an extension or replacement of the Treaty when it expires in February 2021.»…………..

Norway pays for nuclear safety

While nuclear weapons are stored inside the mountain on the east side of the Litsa fjord, huge amounts of nuclear waste are stored just two kilometers away, across the fjord in the infamous Andreeva Bay. Thousands of cubic meters of solid radioactive waste and nearly 22,000 spent nuclear fuel elements from submarine reactors are stored here. Neighbouring Norway, along with other donor countries, have spent hundres of millions kroner (tens of millions euros), on nuclear safety projects aimed at upgrading the infrastructure in Andreeva Bay.

On June 27, Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Børge Brende, travels to Andreeva Bay to mark the first shipping of spent nuclear fuel out of the area, a job that is likely to continue for more than five years. Meanwhile, Russia continues to spend huge amounts of money on new nuclear weapons in the border areas. ………..

Bolshoye Ramozero – the most secret

The most secret of all secret nuclear weapons storages on the Kola Peninsula is located some 20 kilometers to the northeast of the mining town Olenegorsk, on a side road towards Lovozero. The location, diffcult to find referances to on the internet, has several names; Katalya is one, Bolshoye Ramozero is another (the nearby lake). Like other secret towns in the Soviet Union, also this one had a post-code name; Olenegorsk-2. The nickname is Tsar City, allegedly because of the priviliges the inhabitants had. The town is also simply known as Military Unit 62834 or Object 956.

While it is easy to find selfies and blogposts from most Russian military garrisons and bases, few can be found from this town. Not too strange; the town is under full supervison of the 12th Chief Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. This directorate is responsible for all of Russia’s nuclear weapons, including storages, technical maintenance and transportation.

The 12th Chief Directorate is probably the most secretive organization in the Russian Armed Forces, even more than the foreign military intelligence agency GRU and the strategic missile forces, according to Wikipedia.

Bolshoye Ramozero serves a national-level nuclear weapons facility, one of 12 such storages across Russia, according to a recent report written by Pavel Podvig and Javier Serrat. The report, focusing on non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe, is published by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

It is believed that all non-strategic nuclear warheads possible aimed for naval, air force and army weapons for the Kola area, and maybe even more, are stored at the central national level storage in Bolshaya Ramozero. According to the UNIDIR report, the 12th Chief Directorate is responsible for providing the nuclear warheads to the different military units “when deemed necessary.” If a threatening situation occurs, warheads can be transported by trucks from this site to the different military units on the Kola Peninsula which holds weapons systems that could be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, like naval cruise missiles or torpedoes, or cruise missiles carried by aircrafts.

The nearest airbase to the central storage on Kola is Olenogorsk where Tu-22 bombers are stationed.

Inside the underground storage bunkers in Bolshaya Ramozero are only the warheads stored.

Satellite images show that there are two storage areas just north of the town. The first area has three internal sites, of which only two seems to be actively used. The second area is located another kilometer further north. https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/content/satellite-images-show-expansion-nuclear-weapons-sites-kola

May 13, 2017 Posted by | politics international, Reference, wastes, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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