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Biggest Nuclear Weapons Stockpile in the World- Puget Sound

Puget Sound

text-relevantPuget Sound Is Home to the Biggest Nuclear Stockpile in the World, Truth Out, , 01 August 2016 By Martha Baskin, Crosscut The ad pierces your consciousness and catches you by surprise. Plastered on the side of Seattle’s King County Metro it hurls you momentarily back in time, to a time when nuclear weapons were an imminent threat to our survival. Or did the era never end?

The ad — sponsored by activists from the Poulsbo-based Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action — reads: “20 miles west of Seattle is the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the US.”

Behind this text is a map, depicting the proximity of Seattle to Naval Base Kitsap, located on the eastern shore of Hood Canal, one of the four main basins in Washington state’s Puget Sound. The base is home port for eight of the US Navy’s 14 Trident ballistic missile submarines as well as an underground nuclear weapons storage complex. Together, they’re believed to store more than 1,300 nuclear warheads, according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.

This is arguably the biggest single concentration of nuclear warheads not only in the US, but in the world.

King County Metro was initially hesitant to run the ad, until Kristensen confirmed its accuracy. The combined explosive power contained in the base is equivalent to more than 14,000 Hiroshima bombs, he says.

But the most surprising thing to him about the underground nuclear weapons storage complex — known as the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific (SWF-PAC), and completed in 2012 — is the extent to which a $294 million bunker has largely escaped public debate, except for a few industry-related articles.

The small non-profit behind the ad shares a land border with the naval base. It launched when Robert Aldridge, an engineer for Lockheed Martin in California — the arms manufacturer has a facility at the base but only to ensure that Trident ballistic D5 missiles are ready for deployment on the subs — quit his job directing their development when he saw they could be used in a preemptive first strike against the Soviet Union.

According to Glen Milner, an active member of the Center, Aldridge then contacted two peace activists in the area — Catholic theologian Jim Douglas and his wife Shelley — and the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action was formed……..

The US Navy has presented a plan to spend over a trillion dollars during the next 30 years upgrading and maintaining the entire triad of US based nuclear weapons, according to Martin Fleck of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group that advocates for nuclear disarmament. This includes over $100 billion to replace the base’s nuclear submarines.

The plan was approved by Obama in 2010.

“We and our allies,” says Fleck, “are arguing for sanity with nuclear weapons given that we have enough already to end the world several times over. Why on earth would we invest another trillion dollars in them at this late date?”……http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37052-puget-sound-is-home-to-the-biggest-nuclear-stockpile-in-the-world

August 3, 2016 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The increasing danger as USA revs up its nuclear arsenal

apocalypseWall Street, the Military-Industrial Complex, corporations and the politicians are willing to lead the world into an Armageddon-type scenario. Washington is confident that they can defeat its adversaries with their military power but the U.S. has never faced countries like Russia, China or Iran. Russia has more advanced military technologies including its air and missile defense systems known as the S-500 which can counter any US-NATO missile or fighter jet at a moment’s notice. Irrational decisions made by Washington’s establishment means two things, first, they must be really politically and historically ignorant on Russia’s stance when it comes to its sovereignty and they must really despise humanity, but one thing is certain; they want the U.S. to remain as the world’s standing superpower.
The American Empire is Playing a Dangerous Game with its Nuclear Weapons Arsenal The Day After Nuclear Armageddon: Armchair Warriors, Chicken Hawks and the Colonization of Mars? By Timothy Alexander Guzman Global Research, August 01, 2016
 
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it. – John Lennon

The American Empire is playing a dangerous game with its nuclear weapons arsenal. The US-NATO and Israel alliance has declared directly and indirectly that Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are a threat to world peace and security.

Let’s be clear on who is the real threat to world peace and it is not the countries I just mentioned, it is Washington’s geopolitical ambitions to bring its enemies under their sphere of control. Washington’s geopolitical moves are antagonizing its enemies which can ignite a catastrophic world war that can go to nuclear at a moment’s notice. The threat of a nuclear war is at almost the same level of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, but if you listen to the main-stream media (MSM) you may never know what is really going on concerning world events.

The first woman and U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has threatened Iran with nuclear strikes while Israel maintains its own nuclear weapons arsenal which is also a threat to its neighbors in the Middle East, especially Iran.

Washington is placing NATO troops and Missile Defense Systems close to Russia’s borders and giving the U.S. Navy the green light to a possible confrontation with China’s naval fleet in the South China Sea. Washington’s bellicose actions are indeed provocative. Continue reading →

August 3, 2016 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

71 years ago in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

flag-japanA look at first ever use of nuclear weapons in wartime http://tinyurl.com/zjmex46 Jul 31, 2016 text-relevant On August 6, 1945, the US dropped the first ever nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.

Three days later, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. President Harry Truman called for Japan’s surrender, warning them to “expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”Here are a few facts about the first ever use of nuclear weapons in wartime:   The uranium gun-type atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was called Little Boy and Nagasaki was nuked by a plutonium implosion-type bomb called Fat Man.  In order to make Little Boy, the US used 141 pounds of uranium, basically all of the processed uranium that was then in existence. The US dropped about 49 practice bombs nicknamed “pumpkin bombs” that killed 400 and injured 1,200, before nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

oleander is the official flower of the city of Hiroshima because it was the first thing to bloom after the bombings.Japan has burned the Flame of Peace in Hiroshima, since 1964, in honour of the victims; it will be extinguished only when all nuclear weapons are removed from the world and the earth is free from nuclear threat.

skulls Hiroshima 1945

August 1, 2016 Posted by | history, Japan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

NATO’s nuclear warheads store sealed off by Turkish troops

text-relevantReports Turkish troops have sealed off Incirlik US/NATO nuclear air base,news.com.au AUGUST 1, 2016 TURKISH citizens and police have ‘surrounded’ the Incirlik air base it operates with the United States — and where a large stockpile of NATO nuclear weapons is held — ahead of a visit by a senior US official tomorrow.

warheads nuclear

Reports out of Turkey suggest all entrances to the air base have been blocked by heavy vehicles and police sent to secure its perimeter.

The unusual nigh-time move sparked rumours of a second coup attempt on Turkish social media, with concerned citizens rushing to the air base to join the blockade.

The move comes less than a week after a top US Army general was accused by Turkish media of ‘leading’ the uprising against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier this month.

But Turkish Minister for European Affairs has since reportedly sought to reassure local media, stating the mission was just a “safety inspection”…….

The air base has been a central facility in US and NATO efforts against Islamic State. It also houses a stockpile of nuclear weapons as part of NATO’s deterrence force…….http://www.news.com.au/world/reports-turkish-troops-have-sealed-off-incirlik-usnato-nuclear-air-base/news-story/4d7bb16e4e86842218b5b0d7d70f582b

August 1, 2016 Posted by | Turkey, weapons and war | Leave a comment

British support for use of nuclear weapons

atomic-bomb-lflag-UKMost Britons support the use of nuclear weapons A total of 59 percent of text-relevantpeople surveyed said they would launch a nuclear strike if they were prime minister. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Most-Britons-Support-Use-of-Nuclear-Weapons-20160730-0012.html

A majority of Britons support their new prime minister’s proposal to deploy nuclear weapons, a recent poll by YouGov revealed on Saturday.

In a debate at the Parliament, new Prime Minister Theresa May said she would be ready to launch a nuclear strike that would result in the deaths of 100,000 people and urged lawmakers to back a renewal of Britain’s submarine-based Trident nuclear weapons system.

A total of 59 percent of people surveyed said they would do the same if they were in the prime minister’s shoes, while 66 percent say they support May in her assertion, with only 15 percent rejecting such a position.

Meanwhile, another survey found 44 percent of British people want to see Trident replaced. Three years ago YouGov made a similar survey, finding that 35 supported the nuclear program and 26 wanted to replace it, while another 25 percent said that Britain should give up nuclear weapons altogether.

Trident was created in 1980 under then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s rule with the purpose to “deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, which cannot be done by other means.”

May became prime minister on July 13 following the resignation of David Cameron after Britons voted in a June 23 referendum to leave the EU, weakening the 28-nation bloc and creating huge economic uncertainty.

May is well known for her hawkish, pro-war positions. When she was leader of the Conservative Party she voted for the U.S.-U.K. invasion of Iraq in 2003. She has also supported other interventions, like the 2011 military intervention in Libya.

August 1, 2016 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Britain’s history of supplying nuclear weapons technology to North Korea

What Theresa May forgot: North Korea used British technology to build its nuclear bombs.Ecologist, David Lowry 26th July 2016 

When Theresa May proclaims in Parliament that we need the £200 billion Trident nuclear missile system to see off the North Korean nuclear threat, writes David Lowry, just bear this in mind. It is a threat that the UK, global nuclear proliferator in chief, created in the first place, providing both the reactor technology and vital centrifuge materials to make North Korea’s nuclear dream come true.

In the debate on Trident nuclear WMD renewal in Parliament last week, the new UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, in a peculiarly ill-informed speech – demonstrating her political career that has virtually no experience in security or defence affairs – made, inter alia, the following unsupported assertions:
  • ” … today the threats from countries such as Russia and North Korea remain very real.”
  • “North Korea has stated a clear intent to develop and deploy a nuclear weapon, and it continues to work towards that goal, in flagrant violation of a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions.”
  • “North Korea is the only country in the world to have tested nuclear weapons this century, carrying out its fourth test this year, as well as a space launch that used ballistic missile technology. It also claims to be attempting to develop a submarine-launch capability and to have withdrawn from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.”
  • “Based on the advice I have received, we believe that North Korea could already have enough fissile material to produce more than a dozen nuclear weapons. It also has a long-range ballistic missile, which it claims can reach America, and which is potentially intended for nuclear delivery.”

It reminded me of the similarly ill-informed former Prime Minister Tony Blair, in his speeches to MPs trying to win them over with dodgy ‘advice’ from British intelligence, to go to war by invading Iraq in 2003.

MPs have short memories, despite the Chicot Report on the Iraq invasion disaster not yet two weeks old, and 472 motley MP fools backed May and Trident replacement. As with the Iraq invasion, MPs will in future have to admit their regrets at being fooled. And again, they ignord the thousands of demonstrators outside, calling for Trident to be abandoned.

Britain’s nuclear proliferation ‘secret’

But May was right in one way. North Korea has developed nuclear weapons. But what she did not say was they did it with copied British bomb-making technology.

There is significant evidence that the British Magnox nuclear plant design – which was primarily built as a military plutonium production factory – provided the blueprint for the North Korean military plutonium programme based in Yongbyon. Here is what Douglas (now Lord) Hogg, then a Conservative minister, admitted in a written parliamentary reply in 1994 to Labour MP Llew Smith:

“We do not know whether North Korea has drawn on plans of British reactors in the production of its own reactors. North Korea possesses a graphite moderated reactor which, while much smaller, has generic similarities to the reactors operated by British Nuclear Fuels plc. However, design information of these British reactors is not classified and has appeared in technical journals.”

The uranium enrichment programmes of both North Korea and Iran also have a UK connection. The blueprints of this type of plant were stolen by Pakistani scientist, A Q Khan, from the URENCO enrichment plant in The Netherlands in the early 1970s.
(see David Albright, Peddling Peril, 2010 pp 15-28, Free Press, New York)

This plant was – and remains – one-third owned by the UK government. The Pakistan government subsequently sold the technology to Iran, who later exchanged it for North Korean Nodong missiles……….

Lessons of history

This sorry tale has several important lessons for us today. First – and this must never be forgotten – the UK’s early ‘atoms for peace’ nuclear power programme was specifically designed and intended to produce plutonium for nuclear bombs. And it was not just nuclear waste from Calder Hall that went for plutonium extraction at Windscale, but from other sites that were meant to be purely civilian such as Hinkley Point.

The UK is therefore guilty of ‘breaking the rules’ that are meant to separate civil and military nuclear activities, and its complaints of other states doing the same all carry the unmistakeable whiff of ripest humbug.

Second, for all its public position of seeking to restrain nuclear proliferation, the UK is actually one of the world’s most egregious nuclear proliferators: providing arch-nuclear enemy North Korea with both the Magnox technology it has used to produce plutonium for atom bombs; and the high strength aluminium it has used for its uranium centrifuges.

So when Theresa May stands up in Parliament and proclaims that we need the Trident nuclear missile system to see off the North Korean nuclear threat, remember: it is a threat that the UK created in the first place, providing both the nuclear reactor technology and the centrifuge materials to make it happen.

And when the UK cites the nuclear threat from North Korea as a reason to spend an estimated £200 billion on the next generation of Trident, we can be sure that North Korea and other countries aspiring to their own nuclear weapons are applying precisely the same logic to the British nuclear threat.

And that considering the UK’s history of aggressive regime-changing interventions in Iraq and Libya, the hundreds of (up to 225) nuclear warheads in its possession, and its ability to target them accurately anywhere in the world, North Korea’s fears are probably a great deal better founded than Mrs May’s. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2987935/what_theresa_may_forgot_north_korea_used_british_technology_to_build_its_nuclear_bombs.html

August 1, 2016 Posted by | North Korea, Reference, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on nuclear weapons

atomic-bomb-lUSA election 2016How Close Are We to Nuclear War? By William Boardman Global Research, July 28, 2016 And what might we expect from the next American President?

“……….Republican Donald Trump seems to have published no formal policy on nuclear weapons or foreign policy. In interviews, Trump has indicated a dislike of nuclear proliferation, but has also said it’s probably “going to happen anyway,” and maybe the U.S. “may very well be better off” if countries like Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea had their own nuclear weapons. He implied a willingness to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic State, or even in Europe under undefined circumstances: “I’m not going to take it off the table.” He also told the New York Times on July 20 that if Russia, for no particular reason, attacked one of the Baltic states, he’d want to make sure that they “have fulfilled their obligations to us” before coming to their defense. He did not address the U.S. treaty obligations under NATO. He has called for re-negotiating treaties that he says are too expensive for the U.S. But, in an odd and perhaps inadvertent way, his answer on the Baltic states speaks indirectly to the 20-year madness of putting Russia’s neighboring countries into the hostile NATO alliance. Trump has also spoken of pulling back forward deployments of American forces around the world, including elements of nuclear deterrence.

Democrat Hillary Clinton has called Trump’s positions “truly scary.” Clinton has indicated her willingness to use nuclear weapons – “massive retaliation” – against Iran in defense of Israel. She has expressed but limited support and limited opposition to the Obama administration plan to spend $1 trillion upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In an ad falsely claiming she was responsible for “securing a massive reduction in nuclear weapons,” Clinton has over-stated the impact of the new START treaty, which has been minimal in reducing nuclear weapons. As Secretary of State, Clinton appointed an utterly unqualified political donor to the International Security Advisory Board dealing with nuclear weapons. Clinton, like Trump, seems to have published no formal foreign policy on nuclear weapons of foreign policy. She has opposed the idea of Japan having its own nuclear arsenal, while at the same time falsely saying Trump “encouraged” the idea.

Where is the candidate who speaks truthfully of reality?………..

Those who don’t speak up are complicit in silence

In 1996, Secretary of Defense William J. Perry was the only member of President Clinton’s cabinet who got it right, including the President himself. Perry was the only cabinet member who opposed enlarging NATO with former Soviet bloc countries. Perry was the only cabinet member then, and perhaps since, to object to the American policy of steady, stealthy, soft aggression against Russia (including the Ukraine coup) that would lead inevitably to direct confrontation between the world’s largest nuclear weapons states. Perry has called for radical change in the U.S. nuclear force structure consistent with actual deterrence, actual defense, not aggressive war. He would reduce the nuclear triad (about which Trump apparently knew nothing last October), keeping only the sea-based missiles in nuclear submarines and eliminating nuclear bombers and nuclear missiles. This would save millions of dollars and reduce the risk of accidental nuclear war. But it is heresy among the believers in faith-based nuclear policy.

And yet, in an election year, “no one is discussing the major issues that trouble Perry,” as Jerry Brown wrote: “And why does most all of official Washington disagree with him and live in nuclear denial?” In January 2016, while promoting his book, Perry wrote:

What I am really advocating is not so much a particular force structure, but a serious national discussion on this issue, the outcome of which has hugely important security and financial consequences — for the U.S. and for the world. Considering the huge costs entailed, and, even more importantly, the transcendental security issues at stake, we must not simply drift into a decision….

And yet the country drifts on, blissfully unaware, and it’s a mystery why a man as accomplished and respected as Perry has not done more to wake the country out of its sleepwalking incomprehension. But it may be a tragedy that we have neither a President nor a would-be President who would or could confront our potentially fatal collective denial.

William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-close-are-we-to-nuclear-war/5538453

July 29, 2016 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

How many nuclear detonations would create a global wasteland?

apocalypseHow Close Are We to Nuclear War? By William Boardman Global Research, July 28, 2016 “I believe that the risk of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than it was during the Cold War – and yet our public is blissfully unaware of the new nuclear dangers they face.” – William J. Perry, U.S. Defense Secretary (1994-1997), January 2016

Former Bill Clinton cabinet member Perry perceives a danger that none of this year’s presidential wannabes have paid much if any attention to. The most recent candidate to make nuclear arms a central issue was Congressman Dennis Kucinich in 2008. President Obama has played both sides of the nuclear dilemma: rounding up and securing nuclear materials around the world, but also modernizing and miniaturizing American nuclear weapons to make them more “usable.” These days, no one in leadership – or aspiring to leadership – seems committed to actually making the world any safer from nuclear catastrophe. With rare exceptions like Kucinich, this unquestioned reliance on nuclear weapons is mainstream American military group-think, endlessly echoed in mainstream media, and that’s the way it’s been for decades

In November 2015, William J. Perry published “My Journey at the Nuclear Brink” with Stanford University Press, a short book (234 pages) with a global warning that goes unheeded and almost unmentioned in out denial-drenched culture. A quick Google search turns up no reviews of the book – none – in mainstream media. Pro forma book trade reviews by outfits like Kirkus or Publishers Weekly or Amazon make Perry’s book sound pretty bland and boring, but then so does the publisher’s own blurb. It’s as if these people are saying: yes, we know there’s a pack of wolves in the woods, and that’s not necessarily such a good thing, but we don’t want to be accused of crying wolf, and besides we’ve got our own wolves at home, and they’re trim and well fed, and they haven’t attacked anybody since 1945, so why is anyone worried?

That’s Perry’s point, of course, that nobody’s worried – worse: “our people are blissfully unaware.” He doesn’t go on to argue that our people are deliberately kept unaware by a government and media pyramid that manages public consciousness for its own ends. Listen, Perry was free to publish his book, people are free not to read it, what more can one ask? That’s the nature of repressive tolerance.

“A Stark Nuclear Warning”

California governor Jerry Brown reviewed Perry’s book in the New York Review of Books for July 14, 2016, under the headline: “A Stark Nuclear Warning.” William J. Perry spent an adult lifetime working in the world of nuclear weapons. Perry has long expressed his concern that the detonation of just one nuclear weapon could produce a “nuclear catastrophe … that could destroy our way of life.” Perry has been a manager of nuclear weapons “deterrence,” which he now considers “old thinking.” The fact that deterrence hasn’t failed for more than 70 years is not evidence that the policy is successful. In Perry’s view, nuclear weapons do not provide security for anyone, and the more nuclear weapons there are in more and more and more hands, the more they endanger us all.

In his review, Brown tried to break through the complacent collective quiet in response to the bipartisan American nuclear risk-taking that Perry objects to:

… as a defense insider and keeper of nuclear secrets, he is clearly calling American leaders to account for what he believes are very bad decisions, such as the precipitous expansion of NATO, right up to the Russian border, and President George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, originally signed by President Nixon.

Twenty years of American stealth aggression against Russia, particularly in Ukraine and Georgia, is only the most obvious flashpoint, though perhaps not the most dangerous one……..

How many nuclear detonations would create a global wasteland?………http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-close-are-we-to-nuclear-war/5538453

July 29, 2016 Posted by | 2 WORLD, media, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Interactive tool shows you what would happen if a nuclear bomb hit London

see-this.wayWhat would happen if a nuclear bomb hit London? Use this interactive tool to discover your fate, Mirror, UK 28 July 16    What would happen if a nuclear bomb hit Britain?

The effects would be devastating but this tool shows just how widespread they would be.

It’s a highly unlikely scenario, of course.

However, 60 years ago, crisis planners were desperately worried about the threat of a nuclear attack and identified key cities and towns in the UK which were a likely target to be wiped out with one nuclear bomb.

Here’s what the effects could be today if a nuclear bomb detonated in London.

We’ve used the Nukemap website and looked at three different bombs, all of which have been either used or tested.

It’s a highly unlikely scenario, of course. However, 60 years ago, crisis planners were desperately worried about the threat of a nuclear attack and identified key cities and towns in the UK which were a likely target to be wiped out with one nuclear bomb.

Here’s what the effects could be today if a nuclear bomb detonated in London. We’ve used the Nukemap website and looked at three different bombs, all of which have been either used or tested.

1. Ivy Mike – the first H-bomb (10.4 megatons)

Estimated fatalities: 2,336,920

Estimated injuries: 2,614,180

Fireball radius (orange): The entire city centre including monuments such as Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace would be consumed by a nuclear fireball 3.2km wide – stretching up to Camden Town and down to Brixton. The fatality rate is 100%.

Radiation radius (green): Slightly wider than the fireball radius. Without medical treatment, expect between 50% and 90% mortality from acute effects alone. Dying takes between several hours and several weeks

Air blast radius (red – 20psi): The most intense air blast would have a radius of 4.75km and demolish heavily built concrete buildings in Chalk Farm, London Bridge, Chelsea and Kensington among other areas. The fatality rate is still 100% or very close.

Air blast radius (grey – 5psi): A lesser air blast radius would still cause the collapse of all residential buildings within a 10km radius. That means houses would collapse all the way out in East Finchley, Stratford, Poplar and Streatham. Injuries are universal and fatalities widespread.

Thermal radiation radius (lighter orange): The thermal radiation radius is 29.1km. This would mean third degree burns “throughout the layers of the skin”, which could cause severe scarring, disablement and even amputation. This radius covers Watford, Hayes, Epsom, Croydon, Twickenham, Dartford and Epping.

2. The Tsar Bomba – the largest USSR  bomb tested (50 megatons)……

3. ‘Fat Man’ – the Nagasaki bomb (20 kilotons)……..http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/what-would-happen-nuclear-bomb-8514152

 

July 29, 2016 Posted by | Resources -audiovicual, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA’s aggressive military policies in Europe increase risk of nuclear annihilation

US must stop playing with nuclear hellfire, Ecologist ,Conn Hallinan 26th July 2016 

Thanks to an increasingly aggressive US foreign policy pursued over decades, NATO nuclear missiles and armed forces are poised on Russia’s border, writes Conn Hallinan – forcing it to abandon its ‘no first use of nuclear weapons’ pledge in view of the massively asymmetrical threat it faces. The world must step back from the brink of nuclear annihilation……….

bombed city

Playing with hellfire

What has made today’s world more dangerous, however, is not just advances in the destructive power of nuclear weapons, but a series of actions by the last three US administrations.

  • First was the decision by President Bill Clinton to abrogate a 1990 agreement with the Soviet Union not to push NATO further east after the reunification of Germany or to recruit former members of the defunct Warsaw Pact.
    NATO has also reneged on a 1997 pledge not to install “permanent” and “significant”military forces in former Warsaw Pact countries. This month NATO decided to deploy four battalions on, or near, the Russian border, arguing that since the units will be rotated they are not ‘permanent’ and are not large enough to be ‘significant’. It is a linguistic slight of hand that does not amuse Moscow.
  • Second was the 1999 US-NATO intervention in the Yugoslav civil war and the forcible dismemberment of Serbia. It is somewhat ironic that Russia is currently accused of using force to “redraw borders in Europe” by annexing the Crimea, which is exactly what NATO did to create Kosovo. The US subsequently built Camp Bond Steel, Washington’s largest base in the Balkans.
  • Third was President George W, Bush’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the decision by the Obama administration to deploy anti-missile systems in Romania and Poland, as well as Japan and South Korea.
  • Last is the decision by the White House to spend upwards of $1 trillion upgrading its nuclear weapons arsenal, which includes building bombs with smaller yields, a move that many critics argue blurs the line between conventional and nuclear weapons.

The Yugoslav War and NATO’s move east convinced Moscow that the Alliance was surrounding Russia with potential adversaries, and the deployment of anti-missile systems (ABM) – supposedly aimed at Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons – was seen as a threat to the Russian’s nuclear missile force.

One immediate effect of ABMs was to chill the possibility of further cuts in the number of nuclear weapons. When Obama proposed another round of warhead reductions, the Russians turned it down cold, citing the anti-missile systems as the reason.

Playing with hellfire

What has made today’s world more dangerous, however, is not just advances in the destructive power of nuclear weapons, but a series of actions by the last three US administrations.

  • First was the decision by President Bill Clinton to abrogate a 1990 agreement with the Soviet Union not to push NATO further east after the reunification of Germany or to recruit former members of the defunct Warsaw Pact.
    NATO has also reneged on a 1997 pledge not to install “permanent” and “significant”military forces in former Warsaw Pact countries. This month NATO decided to deploy four battalions on, or near, the Russian border, arguing that since the units will be rotated they are not ‘permanent’ and are not large enough to be ‘significant’. It is a linguistic slight of hand that does not amuse Moscow.
  • Second was the 1999 US-NATO intervention in the Yugoslav civil war and the forcible dismemberment of Serbia. It is somewhat ironic that Russia is currently accused of using force to “redraw borders in Europe” by annexing the Crimea, which is exactly what NATO did to create Kosovo. The US subsequently built Camp Bond Steel, Washington’s largest base in the Balkans.
  • Third was President George W, Bush’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the decision by the Obama administration to deploy anti-missile systems in Romania and Poland, as well as Japan and South Korea.
  • Last is the decision by the White House to spend upwards of $1 trillion upgrading its nuclear weapons arsenal, which includes building bombs with smaller yields, a move that many critics argue blurs the line between conventional and nuclear weapons.

The Yugoslav War and NATO’s move east convinced Moscow that the Alliance was surrounding Russia with potential adversaries, and the deployment of anti-missile systems (ABM) – supposedly aimed at Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons – was seen as a threat to the Russian’s nuclear missile force.

One immediate effect of ABMs was to chill the possibility of further cuts in the number of nuclear weapons. When Obama proposed another round of warhead reductions, the Russians turned it down cold, citing the anti-missile systems as the reason……..

There is no evidence that Russia contemplates an attack on the Baltic states or countries like Poland, and, given the enormous power of the US, such an undertaking would court national suicide.

Moscow’s ‘aggression’ against Georgia and Ukraine was provoked. Georgia attacked Russia, not vice versa, and the Ukraine coup torpedoed a peace deal negotiated by the European Union, the US, and Russia. Imagine Washington’s view of a Moscow-supported coup in Mexico, followed by an influx of Russian weapons and trainers.

In a memorandum to the recent NATO meetings in Warsaw, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity argued, “There is not one scintilla of evidence of any Russian plan to annex Crimea before the coup in Kiev and coup leaders began talking about joining NATO. If senior NATO leaders continue to be unable or unwilling to distinguish between cause and effect, increasing tension is inevitable with potentially disastrous results.”

The organization of former intelligence analysts also sharply condemned the NATO war games. “We shake our heads in disbelief when we see Western leaders seemingly oblivious to what it means to the Russians to witness exercises on a scale not seen since Hitler’s army launched ‘Unternehumen Barbarossa’ 75 years ago, leaving 25 million Soviet citizens dead.”

European states are getting scared – and so they should be!

While the NATO meetings in Warsaw agreed to continue economic sanctions aimed at Russia for another six months and to station four battalions of troops in Poland and the Baltic states – separate US forces will be deployed in Bulgaria and Poland – there was an undercurrent of dissent. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for deescalating the tensions with Russia and for considering Russian President Vladimir Putin a partner not an enemy.

Greece was not alone. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeler called NATO maneuvers on the Russian border “warmongering” and “saber rattling”. French President Francois Hollande said Putin should be considered a “partner”, not a “threat”, and France tried to reduce the number of troops being deployed in the Baltic and Poland. Italy has been increasingly critical of the sanctions.

Rather than recognizing the growing discomfort of a number of NATO allies and that beefing up forces on Russia’s borders might be destabilizing, US Secretary of State John Kerry recently inked defense agreements with Georgia and Ukraine.

After disappearing from the radar for several decades, nukes are back, and the decision to modernize the US arsenal will almost certainly kick off a nuclear arms race with Russia and China. Russia is already replacing its current ICBM force with the more powerful and long range ‘Sarmat’ ICBM, and China is loading its ICBM with multiple warheads.

Add to this volatile mixture military maneuvers and a deliberately opaque policy in regards to the use of nuclear weapons, and it is no wonder that Perry thinks that the chances of some catastrophe is a growing possibility.

Conn Hallinan is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, A Think Tank Without Walls, and an independent journalist. A winner of a Project Censored ‘Real News Award’, he lives in Berkeley, California, and blogs at Dispatches from the Edge.  http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2987941/us_must_stop_playing_with_nuclear_hellfire.html

July 29, 2016 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Hans Kristensen verified Ploughshares’ facts on America’s nuclear arsenal and its costs

GRANTEE SPOTLIGHT: HANS KRISTENSEN  http://www.ploughshares.org/issues-analysis/article/grantee-spotlight-hans-kristensen  Nuclear weapons information vital to debate in Washington State, Ploughshares.org. Will Lowry, July 26, 2016

  A growing number of leaders like Representative Adam Smith (D-WA), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, are increasingly concerned about the US government’s $1 trillion plan to rebuild our nuclear arsenal – a plan that could trigger a new arms global arms race with Russia and China. “I think to have a Cold War nuclear [weapons] policy is completely inappropriate to the current times,” the US Congressman from Washington State recently said.

He has reason to worry. Few people in the US are aware of this dangerous taxpayer-funded plan that could profoundly impact Washington State. And few locals know that if Washington State were a country, it would be the third largest nuclear state in the world, that just 20 miles west across the Puget Sound is the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the United States at the Kitsap-Bangor base, and that the US Navy is planning to expand the Kitsap-Bangor base to accommodate Trident-class nuclear weapons submarines.

That is why the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action recently sponsored a public bus advertising campaign in Seattle to raise public awareness of the nuclear threat so close to home.

“We hope to generate a measure of citizen interest, and to begin a public discussion of nuclear weapons in the Puget Sound region. In this election year the danger of nuclear weapons ought to be a topic of discussion,” Ground Zero member Rodney Brunelle recently said of the bus ad campaign.

However, Ground Zero encountered an unanticipated problem. According to the group, the county was hesitant to run the ad, doubting the accuracy of the claim.

That’s where Ploughshares Fund grantee, renowned nuclear expert Hans Kristensen, came into the picture.

Ground Zero contacted Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, to verify the facts in order to convince the county that their ad was not making false claims. He regularly provides the general public and policymakers with information and analysis on the status, number, and operation of nuclear weapons, the policies that guide their potential use and nuclear arms control.

We believe the public needs this type of information and analysis if for no other reason than that we live in a democracy where people should have a say in the most important decisions the country makes – and this includes policy decisions related to nuclear weapons.

Funding expert sourcing and verification of information around nuclear weapons can help democratize important decisions and inform expert policy analysis at the same time. We are proud to support Kristensen and the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. Information is the lifeblood of a democracy. We believe that through reason, information and dialogue, the threat of nuclear weapons can be reduced – and one day – even eliminated.

July 29, 2016 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

B61 thermonuclear warheads in Turkey – a worry in the light of coup attempt

Coup attempt in Turkey raises a nuclear concern at US air base Incirlik Air Base was an operational centre of the attempted coup. It is also America’s largest foreign stockpile of nuclear weapons.  South China Morning Post, 24 July, 2016  A little more than 100 miles from the territory held by Islamic State, there is a little piece of Americana. It has an eight-lane swimming pool, a baseball diamond and housing tracts built on carefully manicured cul-de-sacs.

The Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey has some other American assets: several dozen B61 thermonuclear warheads. The base has been a linchpin in Nato’s southern flank for more than half a century, the staging ground for US anti-terrorism missions and the fight against Islamic State.

warheads nuclear

But the failed military coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has increased long-standing concerns about the military usefulness and security of the Incirlik armoury, America’s largest foreign stockpile of nuclear weapons. Security remains at the highest level. Electrical power was restored Friday after a weeklong blackout that strained living conditions at the base. The 3,000 US service personnel stationed there have been ordered to remain inside the gates. Hundreds of dependents were sent home months ago because of fears of a terrorist attack.

The base was an operational centre of the attempted coup. Its commander and his subordinates were arrested on suspicion of trying to overthrow the Turkish government, leaving junior officers in control. The developments have shocked US military experts who say they demonstrate a worrying level of instability in Turkey’s military command close to the B61s.

Defence officials have never acknowledged the existence of these weapons on the base and refused at news briefings after the coup attempt to answer questions about them…….

The weapons are in underground vaults in a mile-long security zone at the base, protected by an Air Force guard unit with attack dogs. The nearly 12-foot-long weapons have devices that are supposed to prevent unauthorised detonation, but experts are divided on the effectiveness of those controls.

Unlike the strategic weapons that the US deploys in missile silos, submarines and intercontinental bombers, the B61s at Incirlik are tactical weapons that can be deployed at low altitude in the battlefield……..

“The weapons should be pulled back,” said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists. “They have been in excess of what is needed in Europe for the past two decades. And now we have this new situation. This is the US nuclear base closest to a war zone. The country has a deeply fractured political and military system.” http://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1994052/coup-attempt-turkey-raises-nuclear-concern-us-air-base

July 25, 2016 Posted by | safety, Turkey, weapons and war | Leave a comment

BBC reveals its plans for nuclear war during the Cold War period

atomic-bomb-lflag-UKThe BBC’s detailed plans for nuclear war, BBC News 23 July 2016  For the first time, the BBC has given detailed access to the plans it drew up in the Cold War for a Wartime Broadcasting System to operate in the event of nuclear war. Paul Reynolds, a former BBC diplomatic and foreign correspondent, has been studying the secrets of what was known as the “War Book”.

The War Book reveals a world of meticulous BBC planning. The Wartime Broadcasting System (WTBS) – referred to in the book as “Deferred Facilities” – would have operated from 11 protected bunkers spread across the UK.

Known as “Regional Seats of Government”, these would also have sheltered government ministers and staff from government departments during what is termed a “nuclear exchange”. The BBC had a studio in each, usually with five staff drawn mostly from nearby local radio stations.

The BBC’s headquarters would have been a bunker at the Engineering Training Department at Wood Norton in Worcestershire, where 90 BBC staff would have been assembled, including engineers, announcers, 12 news editors and sub-editors and ominously “two nominations from Religious Broadcasting”. Output would have been controlled by the government…….http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36865345

July 25, 2016 Posted by | history, media, UK, weapons and war | 1 Comment

North Korea’s nuclear weapons not able to reach Britain

flag-N-KoreaNorth Korea admits ‘our nuclear weapons aren’t a threat to the UK’, Mirror UK, , 22 JUL 2016, [good pictures and video] 

The rogue state claimed that Theresa May’s comments on the nuclear threat that Kim Jong-un poses were “absolutely astonishing”. North Korea has admitted that its nuclear weapons CAN’T reach the United Kingdom. Pyongyang said that claims made by Theresa May on the threat it poses were “absolutely astonishing”.

A statement from the North Korean foreign ministry said: “It is illogical that the DPRK’s nuclear weapons pose a threat to the UK.

“It is a pity that the UK makes an excuse for the building of [nuclear submarines] by finding fault with the DPRK, thousands [of] kilometres away from it.”

Prime Minister May was making the case for renewing Britain’s Trident missile defence system when she pointed out that the UK must be prepared to act should it come under attack. May added: “We must continually convince any potential aggressors that the benefits of an attack on Britain are far outweighed by their consequences and we cannot afford to relax our guard or rule out further shifts which would put our country in grave danger.”

However North Korea responded: “The DPRK does not regard the UK’s nuclear weapons as a threat to it.

“Therefore, the UK has no need to regard the DPRK’s nukes as a threat to it.”………http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/north-korea-admits-our-nuclear-8469712

July 23, 2016 Posted by | North Korea, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

India will never sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

flag-indiaIndia Will Never Sign Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Says Sushma http://www.news18.com/news/india/india-will-never-sign-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty-says-sushma-1271759.html CNN-News18 July 20, 2016,  New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday said that India will never sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

While making statement in the Lok Sabha, she said, India will continue to engage with China over its opposition to India’s entry to the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

“If someone does not agree to something once, it doesn’t mean that they will never agree to it. We are continuing our efforts in engaging with China on this issue,” the foreign minister said on India’s bid to gain entry to the NSG.

Swaraj’s statements on the NSG issue came in response to queries from Opposition members on the status of India’s bid for entry into the elite nuclear trading group.

July 23, 2016 Posted by | India, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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