Embarrassing failure of North Korea’s latest missile launch
North Korea fails to launch Musudan missile, US defence official says, ABC News, 15 Apr 16 North Korea’s attempt to launch what appears to be a medium-range Musudan missile has failed on the birthday of founding leader Kim Il-sung, a high-profile misstep after Pyongyang claimed a series of breakthroughs in its nuclear weapons program.
Key points:
- North Korea fails to launch what appears to be a Musudan-class missile
- Launch failure occurred on the birthday of founding leader Kim Il-Sung
- Musudan missiles are reported to have a range of up to 4,000 kilometres
There had been widespread intelligence reports in recent days that the North was preparing a first-ever flight test of the Musudan, believed to be capable of striking US bases in the Pacific island of Guam.
The US and South Korean militaries both detected and tracked the early morning test.
“We assess that the launch failed,” a US defence official said, adding that it was “presumably” a Musudan.
The April 15 birthday of Kim Il-sung — the grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong-un — is a major public holiday in North Korea, where key political anniversaries are often marked with displays of military muscle.
A Pentagon spokesman described the attempted launch as a catastrophic failure………
Failed launch heightens possibility of further nuclear tests
South Korean officials and international experts said the failed launch heightened the possibility of North Korea conducting another nuclear test, possibly within weeks.
“North Korea is capable of conducting an additional nuclear test at any time if there is a decision by Kim Jong-un,” said a senior South Korean official involved in national security policies involving the North……. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-15/north-korea-missile-launch-fails/7329968
Radiation effects of depleted uranium continue to bring disease and death in Iraq
Fallujah (pop. 300,000) is Iraq’s most contaminated city.
Cancers in Fallujah catapulted from 40 cases among 100,000 people in 1991 to at least 1,600 by 2005. In a 2010International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health article, Busby and two colleagues, Malak Hamden and Entesar Ariabi, reported a 38-fold increase in leukemia, a 10-fold increase in breast cancer, and infant mortality rates eight times higher than in neighboring Kuwait.
Busby sampled the hair of Fallujah women with deformed babies and found slightly enriched uranium. He found the same thing in the soil. “The only possible source was the weapons,” he states.
These numbers are probably low. “Iraqi women whose children have birth defects feel stigmatized and often don’t report them,” says Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a Michigan-based environmental toxicologist who won the 2015 Rachel Carson Award.
IRRADIATED IRAQ The Nuclear Nightmare We Left Behind, The Washington Spectator, By Barbara Koeppel 30 Mar 16 When the United States revealed in January that it is testing a more nimble, more precise version of its B61 atom bomb, some were immediately alarmed. General James Cartwright, a former strategist for President Obama, warned that “going smaller” could make nuclear weapons “more thinkable” and “more usable.”
However, what is little known is that for the past 25 years, the United States and its allies have routinely used radioactive weapons in battle, in the form of warheads and explosives made with depleted, undepleted, or slightly enriched uranium. While the Department of Defense (DOD) calls these weapons “conventional” (non-nuclear), they are radioactive and chemically toxic. In Iraq, where the United States and its partners waged two wars, toxic waste covers the country and poisons the people. U.S. veterans are also sick and dying.
Scott Ritter, a former Marine Corps officer in Iraq and United Nations weapons inspector, told me, “The irony is we invaded Iraq in 2003 to destroy its non-existent WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. To do it, we fired these new weapons, causing radioactive casualties.”
The weapons were first used in 1991 during Desert Storm, when the U.S. military fired guided bombs and missiles containing depleted uranium (DU), a waste product from nuclear reactors. The Department of Defense (DOD) particularly prized them because, with dramatic density, speed, and heat, they blasted through tanks and bunkers.
Within one or two years, grotesque birth defects spiraled—such as babies with two heads. Or missing eyes, hands, and legs. Or stomachs and brains inside out.
Keith Baverstock, who headed the radiological section of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Center of Environment and Health in the 1990s, explained why: When uranium weapons explode, their massive blasts produce gray or black clouds of uranium oxide dust particles. These float for miles, people breathe them, and the dust lodges in their lungs. From there, they seep into the lymph system and blood, flow throughout the body, and bind to the genes and chromosomes, causing them to mutate. First, they trigger birth defects. Within five or more years, cancer. Organs, often the kidneys, fail.
At one Basra hospital, leukemia cases in children up to age 14 doubled from 1992 to 1999, says Amy Hagopian, a University of Washington School of Public Health professor. Birth defects also surged, from 37 in 1990 to 254 in 2001, according to a 2005 article in Environmental Health.
Leukemia—cancer of the blood—develops quickly. Chris Busby, a British chemical physicist, explains: “Blood cells are the most easily damaged by radiation and duplicate rapidly. We’ve known this since Hiroshima.”
Dai Williams, an independent weapons researcher in Britain, says the dust emits alpha radiation—20 times more damaging than the gamma radiation from nuclear weapons. The military insists the dust is harmless because it can’t penetrate the skin. They ignore that it can be inhaled.
Fast forward to 2003. When the United States reinvaded Iraq, it launched bunker-busting guided bombs, cruise missiles, and TOW anti-tank missiles. It also fired new thermobaric warheads—much stronger explosives with stunningly large blasts. Many of these, says Ritter, contained some type of uranium, whether depleted, undepleted, or slightly enriched.
Williams says thermobaric weapons explode at extremely high temperatures and “the only material that can do that is uranium.” He adds that while today’s nuclear weapons are nominally subject to international regulations, no existing arms protocol addresses uranium in a non-nuclear context.
While the U.S. government has cleaned up some contaminated sites at home—such as a former uranium munitions plant in Concord, Mass.—it has yet to acknowledge the mess in Iraq.
“Iraq is one large hazardous waste site,” Ritter says. “If it was the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency would declare it a Superfund site and order it be cleaned.
Left behind in Fallujah
Fallujah (pop. 300,000) is Iraq’s most contaminated city. The U.S. military attacked it twice in 2004, and in the November siege, troops fired thermobaric weapons, including a shoulder-launched missile called the SMAW-NE. (NE means “novel explosive.”)
Ross Caputi was there with the U.S. 1st Battalion 8th Marines. He told me, “We used the SMAW-NE and guys raved about how you could fire just one round and clear a building.” Concrete bunkers and buildings were instantly incinerated and collapsed. The DOD was not disappointed.
Cancers in Fallujah catapulted from 40 cases among 100,000 people in 1991 to at least 1,600 by 2005. In a 2010International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health article, Busby and two colleagues, Malak Hamden and Entesar Ariabi, reported a 38-fold increase in leukemia, a 10-fold increase in breast cancer, and infant mortality rates eight times higher than in neighboring Kuwait.
Busby sampled the hair of Fallujah women with deformed babies and found slightly enriched uranium. He found the same thing in the soil. “The only possible source was the weapons,” he states.
These numbers are probably low. “Iraqi women whose children have birth defects feel stigmatized and often don’t report them,” says Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a Michigan-based environmental toxicologist who won the 2015 Rachel Carson Award.
Besides the cancers and birth defects, an Irish pathologist (who asked for anonymity) said an unusually high number of children have cerebral palsy (CP) near the city of Hawija. “I was skeptical when Iraqi doctors told me, but I examined 30 and saw it was classic CP. I don’t know what caused this, but the increase is almost certainly war-related.”
It is often argued that uranium occurs in nature, so it’s impossible to link soil and other samples to the weapons. But, Ritter told me that when experts examine a site, they take samples, study them in a special lab, and can easily tell the difference between uranium that is natural and that which was chemically processed. “The idea that you can’t link soil samples to weapons because of the presence of natural uranium is simply ludicrous. It’s done all the time by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency and within the nuclear programs of all major nuclear powers,” Ritter says.
Burn pits and toxic clouds
In addition to the weapons’ lethal dust, Iraqis and coalition troops were exposed to poisonous smoke from huge open burn pits, some stretching 10 acres. From 2003 to 2011, U.S. military bases burned waste in the pits around the clock—spewing toxic clouds for miles.
Two were near Fallujah. Caputi says,“We dumped everything there. Our plastic bottles, tires, human waste, and batteries.”
Rubber, oil, solvents, unexploded weapons, and even medical waste were also tossed into the pits. As a 2008 Army Times article noted, Balad Air Base burned around 90,000 plastic bottles a day.
When plastic burns, it gives off dioxin—the key ingredient in Agent Orange…..http://linkis.com/washingtonspectator.org/b2hLC
Russian naval officer who saved the world from nuclear war
You (and Almost Everyone You Know) Owe Your Life to This Man. CURIOUSLY KRULWICHA Blog by Robert Krulwich NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, FRI, 03/25/2016 “……The world owes an enormous debt to a quiet, steady Russian naval officer who probably saved my life. And yours. And everyone you know. Even those of you who weren’t yet born. I want to tell his story.The sub is hiding in the ocean, and the Americans are dropping depth charges left and right of the hull. Inside, the sub is rocking, shaking with each new explosion. What the Americans don’t know is that this sub has a tactical nuclear torpedo on board, available to launch, and that the Russian captain is asking himself, Shall I fire?
This actually happened.
The Russian in question, an exhausted, nervous submarine commander named Valentin Savitsky, decided to do it. He ordered the nuclear-tipped missile readied. His second in command approved the order. Moscow hadn’t communicated with its sub for days. Eleven U.S. Navy ships were nearby, all possible targets. The nuke on this missile had roughly the power of the bomb at Hiroshima.
“We’re gonna blast them now!”…….
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov steps into the story…. He was Savitsky’s equal, the flotilla commander responsible for three Russian subs on this secret mission to Cuba—and he is maybe one of the quietest, most unsung heroes of modern times.
What he said to Savitsky we will never know, not exactly. But, says Thomas Blanton, the former director of the nongovernmental National Security Archive, simply put, this “guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world.”
Arkhipov, described by his wife as a modest, soft-spoken man, simply talked Savitsky down.
The exact details are controversial. The way it’s usually told is that each of the three Soviet submarine captains in the ocean around Cuba had the power to launch a nuclear torpedo if—and only if—he had the consent of all three senior officers on board. On his sub, Savitsky gave the order and got one supporting vote, but Arkhipov balked. He wouldn’t go along.
He argued that this was not an attack……
The debate between the captain and Arkhipov took place in an old, diesel-powered submarine designed for Arctic travel but stuck in a climate that was close to unendurable. And yet, Arkhipov kept his cool. After their confrontation, the missile was not readied for firing. Instead, the Russian sub rose to the surface, where it was met by a U.S. destroyer. The Americans didn’t board. There were no inspections, so the U.S. Navy had no idea that there were nuclear torpedos on those subs—and wouldn’t know for around 50 years, when the former belligerents met at a 50th reunion. Instead, the Russians turned away from Cuba and headed north, back to Russia……..
the world is very, very lucky that at one critical moment, someone calm enough, careful enough, and cool enough was there to say no. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/25/you-and-almost-everyone-you-know-owe-your-life-to-this-man/
“Dirty” nuclear bomb – the weapon of mass disruption
What does “nuclear terrorism” really mean? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Elisabeth Eaves, 7 Apr 16 “………….– we’re far more likely to see the second scenario—a dirty bomb attack—than a nuclear explosion in the near future.
So what will that look like? Nothing like the aftermath of a nuclear weapon attack. As the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission explains, “A dirty bomb is in no way similar to a nuclear weapon.” The latter relies on fission or fusion to create an explosion millions of times more powerful than the former. A nuclear bomb could spread radiation over hundreds of square miles, whereas a dirty bomb could only do so over a few square miles. Dirty bombs have more in common with nuclear medicine than nuclear war.
A dirty bomb wouldn’t immediately kill any more people than an ordinary explosive. It is a weapon ideally suited to terrorism, though, part of the very purpose of which is to sow fear. In fact, in the perverse psychology of terrorism, a mere claim that a bomb had spread radioactive material would have some of the same effect as a bomb that actually did so.
That said, getting hold of the sort radioactive material needed to make a dirty bomb isn’t difficult; it has occasionally even been stolen by accident. Literally thousands of sites, in more than 100 countries, contain the kind of sources required, which have many uses in agriculture, industry, and medicine. Radioactive isotopes are commonly used, for example, to irradiate blood before transfusions and treat cancer tumors…………
Once the public knew the bomb was radioactive, it would be hard to stop fear and chaos from escalating. Authorities would have to decide whether to let people flee, which could reduce their radiation exposure and begin an evacuation, but might also spread radiation through the city and let perpetrators escape.
So many variables would be involved in a possible dirty bomb attack that it’s hard to definitively predict an outcome. The IAEA divides radioactive materials into five categories, from Category 1, which is so harmful that exposure for only a few minutes to an unshielded source may be fatal, to Category 5, which poses a relatively low hazard. But Category 5 materials—such as the americium-241 found in lightning detectors or the strontium-90 used in brachytherapy cancer treatment—are more readily available, and if enough are brought together in one place, they can add up to a harmful dose. An early task for first responders would be to figure out what kind of radioactive material was used.
Then there’s fear of the big C. Radioactive isotopes are associated with an increase in various cancers, but by how much and over what time period isn’t perfectly known. A great deal depends on the concentration to which a person was exposed. Much ofwhat scientists have learned about radiation-caused cancer comes from studying the aftereffects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Various cities and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have produced studies and briefings on how to respond to a dirty bomb attack, and many of these focus on the costs of evacuation and decontamination. “A radioactive dirty bomb would not cause catastrophic levels of death and injury,” the Nuclear Threat Initiative report says, “but depending on its chemistry, form, and location, it could leave billions of dollars of damage due to the costs of evacuation, relocation, and cleanup … Buildings could have to be demolished and the debris removed. Access to a contaminated area could be denied for years as a site is cleaned up well enough to meet even minimum environmental guidelines for protecting the public.” Businesses would close, shipping would halt, wages would be lost. This kind of upheaval has earned dirty bombs the moniker “weapons of mass disruption.”………http://thebulletin.org/what-does-nuclear-terrorism-really-mean9309
Nuclear competition between India and Pakistan is now a global threat
Nuclear Winter on a Planetary Scale: The Biggest Threat to Mankind Virtually No One Is Talking About, ALTERNET, By Dilip Hiro / TomDispatch April 8, 2016 A war between India and Pakistan could produce human suffering the likes of which the world has never seen before…….
When it comes to Pakistan’s strategic nuclear weapons, their parts are stored in different locations to be assembled only upon an order from the country’s leader. By contrast, tactical nukes are pre-assembled at a nuclear facility and shipped to a forward base for instant use. In addition to the perils inherent in this policy, such weapons would be vulnerable to misuse by a rogue base commander or theft by one of the many militant groups in the country.
In the nuclear standoff between the two neighbors, the stakes are constantly rising as Aizaz Chaudhry, the highest bureaucrat in Pakistan’s foreign ministry, recently made clear. The deployment of tactical nukes, he explained, was meant to act as a form of “deterrence,” given India’s “Cold Start” military doctrine — a reputed contingency plan aimed at punishing Pakistan in a major way for any unacceptable provocations like a mass-casualty terrorist strike against India.
New Delhi refuses to acknowledge the existence of Cold Start. Its denials are hollow. As early as 2004, it was discussing this doctrine, which involved the formation of eight division-size Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs). These were to consist of infantry, artillery, armor, and air support, and each would be able to operate independently on the battlefield. In the case of major terrorist attacks by any Pakistan-based group, these IBGs would evidently respond by rapidly penetrating Pakistani territory at unexpected points along the border and advancing no more than 30 miles inland, disrupting military command and control networks while endeavoring to stay away from locations likely to trigger nuclear retaliation. In other words, India has long been planning to respond to major terror attacks with a swift and devastating conventional military action that would inflict only limited damage and so — in a best-case scenario — deny Pakistan justification for a nuclear response.
Islamabad, in turn, has been planning ways to deter the Indians from implementing a Cold-Start-style blitzkrieg on their territory. After much internal debate, its top officials opted for tactical nukes. In 2011, the Pakistanis tested one successfully. Since then, according to Rajesh Rajagopalan, the New Delhi-based co-author of Nuclear South Asia: Keywords and Concepts, Pakistan seems to have been assembling four to five of these annually.
All of this has been happening in the context of populations that view each other unfavorably. ……….
India’s Two Secret Nuclear Sites
On the nuclear front in India, there was more to come. Last December, an investigation by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity revealed that the Indian government was investing $100 million to build a top secret nuclear city spread over 13 square miles near the village of Challakere, 160 miles north of the southern city of Mysore. When completed, possibly as early as 2017, it will be “the subcontinent’s largest military-run complex of nuclear centrifuges, atomic-research laboratories, and weapons- and aircraft-testing facilities.” Among the project’s aims is to expand the government’s nuclear research, to produce fuel for the country’s nuclear reactors, and to help power its expanding fleet of nuclear submarines. It will be protected by a ring of garrisons, making the site a virtual military facility.
Another secret project, the Indian Rare Materials Plant, near Mysore is already in operation. It is a new nuclear enrichment complex that is feeding the country’s nuclear weapons programs, while laying the foundation for an ambitious project to create an arsenal of hydrogen (thermonuclear) bombs.
The overarching aim of these projects is to give India an extra stockpile of enriched uranium fuel that could be used in such future bombs. As a military site, the project at Challakere will not be open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency or by Washington, since India’s 2008 nuclear agreement with the U.S. excludes access to military-related facilities. These enterprises are directed by the office of the prime minister, who is charged with overseeing all atomic energy projects. India’s Atomic Energy Act and its Official Secrets Act place everything connected to the country’s nuclear program under wraps. In the past, those who tried to obtain a fuller picture of the Indian arsenal and the facilities that feed it have been bludgeoned to silence.
Little wonder then that a senior White House official was recently quoted as saying, “Even for us, details of the Indian program are always sketchy and hard facts thin on the ground.” He added, “Mysore is being constantly monitored, and we are constantly monitoring progress in Challakere.” However, according to Gary Samore, a former Obama administration coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, “India intends to build thermonuclear weapons as part of its strategic deterrent against China. It is unclear, when India will realize this goal of a larger and more powerful arsenal, but they will.”
Once manufactured, there is nothing to stop India from deploying such weapons against Pakistan. “India is now developing very big bombs, hydrogen bombs that are city-busters,” said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a leading Pakistani nuclear and national security analyst. “It is not interested in… nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield; it is developing nuclear weapons for eliminating population centers.”
In other words, as the Kashmir dispute continues to fester, inducing periodic terrorist attacks on India and fueling the competition between New Delhi and Islamabad to outpace each other in the variety and size of their nuclear arsenals, the peril to South Asia in particular and the world at large only grows.
Cambridge votes to Divest $1Billion From Nuclear Weapons
Hawking Says ‘Don’t Bank on the Bomb’ and Cambridge Votes to Divest $1Billion From Nuclear Weapons, Future of Life Institute April 4, 2016/ by Max Tegmark
1,000 nuclear weapons are plenty enough to deter any nation from nuking the US, but we’re hoarding over 7,000, and a long string of near-misses have highlighted the continuing risk of an accidental nuclear war which could trigger a nuclear winter, potentially killing most people on Earth. Yet rather than trimming our excess nukes, we’re planning to spend $4 million per hour for the next 30 years making them more lethal.
Although I’m used to politicians wasting my tax dollars, I was shocked to realize that I was voluntarily using my money for this nuclear boondoggle by investing in the very companies that are lobbying for and building new nukes: some of the money in my bank account gets loaned to them and my S&P500 mutual fund invests in them. “If you want to slow the nuclear arms race, then put your money where your mouth is and don’t bank on the bomb!”, my physics colleague Stephen Hawking told me. To make it easier for others to follow his sage advice, I made an app for that together with my friends at the Future of Life Institute, and launched this“Brief History of Nukes” that’s 3.14 long in honor of Hawking’s fascination with pi.
Our campaign got off to an amazing start this weekend at an MIT conferencewhere our Mayor Denise Simmons announced that the Cambridge City Council has unanimously decided to divest their billion dollar city pension fund from nuclear weapons production.“Not in our name!”, she said, and drew a standing ovation. “It’s my hope that this will inspire other municipalities, companies and individuals to look at their investments and make similar moves”.
“In Europe, over 50 large institutions have already limited their nuclear weapon investments, but this is our first big success in America”, said Susi Snyder, who leads the global nuclear divestment campaign dontbankonthebomb.com. Boston College philosophy major Lucas Perry, who led the effort to persuade Cambridge to divest, hoped that this online analysis tool will create a domino effect: “I want to empower other students opposing the nuclear arms race to persuade their own towns and universities to follow suit.”
Many financial institutions now offer mutual funds that cater to the growing interest in socially responsible investing, including Ariel, Calvert, Domini, Neuberger, Parnassuss, Pax World and TIAA-CREF. “We appreciate and share Cambridge’s desire to exclude nuclear weapons production from its pension fund. Pension funds are meant to serve the long-term needs of retirees, a service that nuclear weapons do not offer”, said Julie Fox Gorte, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Pax World.
“Divestment is a powerful way to stigmatize the nuclear arms race through grassroots campaigning, without having to wait for politicians who aren’t listening”, said conference co-organizer Cole Harrison, Executive Director of Massachusetts Peace Action, the nation’s largest grassroots peace organization. “If you’re against spending more money making us less safe, then make sure it’s not your money.”
You’ll find our divestment app here. If you’d like to persuade your own municipality to follow Cambridge’s lead, using their policy order as a model, here it is::……….http://futureoflife.org/2016/04/04/hawking-says-dont-bank-on-the-bomb-and-cambridge-votes-to-divest-1billion-from-nuclear-weapons/
India upset, but Obama maintains concern over nuclear arsenal in South Asia
Despite India’s criticism, White House says Obama stands by concern over nuclear arsenal in South Asia, DNA, 5 Apr 2016 White House says US favours reduction of tension between India and Pak.
A day after India criticised Barack Obama for asking it to reduce its nuclear arsenal, the White House said the President stands by his concerns over nuclear and missile developments in South Asia.
“The President’s comments were motivated by the concern that we have about nuclear and missile developments in South Asia. In particular, we’re concerned by the increased security challenges that accompany growing stockpiles, particularly tactical nuclear weapons that are designed for use on the battlefield,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “These systems are a source of concern because they’re susceptible to theft due to their size and load of employment.
Essentially, by having these smaller weapons, the threshold for their use is lowered and the risk that a conventional conflict between India and Pakistan, could escalate to include the use of nuclear weapons,” he said…….
On Friday, Obama had identified South Asia in particular India and Pakistan as one area where there is a need to be progress in the area of nuclear security and reduction of nuclear arsenal. India reacted strongly to Obama’s comments. http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-despite-india-s-criticism-white-house-says-obama-stands-by-concern-over-nuclear-arsenal-in-south-asia-2198484
New arms race makes nuclear catastrophe more likely
The new nuclear arms race , LA Times, 3 Apr 16 Doyle McManus Contact Reporter Former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, one of the nation’s wise men on national security, delivered an arresting message last week: We’re about to find ourselves in a new nuclear arms race.
“The danger of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than during the Cold War,” Perry said.
The danger stems not only from terrorist groups like Islamic State, which would gladly steal or buy nuclear material on the black market, but also from the huge nuclear arsenals the United States, Russia and other big powers maintain more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War. Those nuclear forces are bigger than they need to be — almost 16,000 warheads in all. And they still include hundreds of missiles on hair-trigger alert.
If an apparent attack against U.S. missile bases is detected, officials will have only a few minutes to decide whether to launch the missiles in response, or lose them.
“We’ve avoided a catastrophe more by good luck than by good management,” Perry told a meeting at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank.
But since that 2010 pact, progress toward nuclear disarmament has virtually stopped. Both Russia and the U.S. have launched expensive plans to modernize their nuclear forces, reaffirming the weapons’ central role in national security. In Obama’s case, the modernization program, which will cost an estimated $355 billion over 10 years, was the price of winning Republican votes in the Senate to ratify the 2010 treaty.
As Russia builds new weapons, Perry said, “I have no doubt that the United States will follow suit.”
So Perry is trying to revive a proposal that a handful of arms control advocates have floated in previous years: The U.S. should eliminate all of its 400-plus land-based nuclear missiles.
For decades, U.S. nuclear strategy has relied on a “triad” of weapons platforms: land-based missiles or ICBMs, manned bombers and submarines.
The basic idea was redundancy: If one system was knocked out by an enemy, the others would still be available.
Over the years, however, U.S. nuclear submarines have become virtually undetectable. Stealth bombers are difficult for opponents to find, as well.
The land-based missiles, by contrast, are more vulnerable. They’re stuck in one place. Their locations are known to the Russians and other potential enemies.
That means they face a dilemma known as “use it or lose it.” If an apparent attack against U.S. missile bases is detected, officials will have only a few minutes to decide whether to launch the missiles in response, or lose them.
And that makes them susceptible to false alarms — which actually occurred several times in both the U.S. and Russia during the Cold War. (Luckily, officers realized that their radar was malfunctioning.)
That vulnerability is still there. “The way to solve it is simply to eliminate the ICBMs,” Perry said……….http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0403-mcmanus-nuclear-danger-20160403-column.html
Russia building new multiple-warhead missiles
Russia Doubling Nuclear Warheads New multiple-warhead missiles to break arms treaty limit, Washington Free Beacon, BY: Bill Gertz April 1, 2016 Russia is doubling the number of its strategic nuclear warheads on new missiles by deploying multiple reentry vehicles that have put Moscow over the limit set by the New START arms treaty, according to Pentagon officials.
A recent intelligence assessment of the Russian strategic warhead buildup shows that the increase is the result of the addition of multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, on recently deployed road-mobile SS-27 and submarine-launched SS-N-32 missiles, said officials familiar with reports of the buildup.
“The Russians are doubling their warhead output,” said one official. “They will be exceeding the New START [arms treaty] levels because of MIRVing these new systems.”
The 2010 treaty requires the United States and Russia to reduce deployed warheads to 1,550 warheads by February 2018……..http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-doubling-nuclear-warheads/
Absence of Russia at nuclear security summit
Russia’s absence means nuclear summit likely to end in anticlimax for Obama
Signature policy initiative for the president is set to fall short of its goals as the state with the biggest nuclear arsenal stays away from the Washington meeting, IWhen Barack Obama welcomes more than 50 world leaders to Washington on Thursday ahead of his fourth and final nuclear security summit, one of the most important chairs will be empty.
Russia is thought to possess more nuclear weapons than any other country,including the US. Together the cold war foes share more than 90% of the world’s arsenal. So President Vladimir Putin’s decision to boycott the high-level talks threatens to turn them into an elaborate anticlimax, even as fears of nuclear terrorism are on the up……..
n an opinion column in the Washington Post on Wednesday, Obama argued that the US and Russia should negotiate to further reduce their nuclear stockpiles. “Our massive cold war nuclear arsenal is poorly suited to today’s threats,” he said. But the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Reuters that Russia was skipping the summit because of a “shortage of mutual cooperation” in working out the agenda……….
Jim Walsh, research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s security studies programme, said: “He deserves credit among the nuclear weapons states for being a leader trying to move things in the right direction. You can’t say that about anybody else.”
Assessing the legacy of the Prague speech, Walsh added: “Would you like to have cleared up all the nuclear materials? Of course. Was it realistic? Of course not. But we got a new start.”
Whoever succeeds Obama – and the prospect of Donald Trump gaining access to the nuclear codes fills some with dread – it is very possible that the issue will be less of a diplomatic priority for the next president. Walsh added: “I’m a fan of the summit process but over time the momentum has slowed. Among those attending there’s a bittersweet feeling this may be the last one for a while. It’s hard to build an international regime in six to eight years.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/31/nuclear-security-summit-obama-russia-absence
Nuclear power plants: all ready to be used by enemies, as weapons of war
Nuclear Power Plants: Pre-Deployed WMDs, CounterPunch 28 Mar 16, by KARL GROSSMAN Pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction.
That’s what nuclear power plants are. And that’s another very big reason—demonstrated again in recent days with the disclosure that two of the Brussels terrorists were planning attacks on Belgian nuclear plants—why they must be eliminated.
Nuclear power plants are sitting ducks for terrorists. With most positioned along bays and rivers because of their need for massive amounts of coolant water, they provide a clear shot. They are fully exposed for aerial strikes.
The consequences of such an attack could far outweigh the impacts of 9/11 and, according to the U.S. 9/11 Commission, also originally considered in that attack was the use of hijacked planes to attack “unidentified nuclear power plants.” The Indian Point nuclear plants 26 miles north of New York City were believed to be candidates…….
a main mission of the IAEA, ever since it was established by the UN in 1957 has been to promote nuclear power. It has dramatically minimized the consequences of the catastrophic accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima and routinely understated all problems with atomic technology.
The “Nuclear Security Summit,” with the IAEA playing a central role, is part of a series of gatherings following a speech made by President Barack Obama in Prague in 2009 in which he said “I am announcing a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world.”……..
Like the IAEA—formed as a result of a speech by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower promoting “Atoms for Peace” at the UN—officials involved with nuclear power in the U.S. government and the nation’s nuclear industry have long pushed atomic energy and downplayed problems about nuclear power and terrorism.
As the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says in its “Nuclear Security” statement, “The adequacy of a security system depends on what we think we are protecting against. If we have underestimated the threat, we may overestimate our readiness to meet it. The NRC [U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission] has sometimes used unrealistically modest assumptions about potential attackers. The design basis threat (DBT) is the official definition of the security threats power plant management is required to protect against….After 9/11, UCS criticized the DBT for nuclear plants on these grounds, among others.”
UCS says the NRC “ignored the possibility of air-and water-based attacks…it did not address the possibility of large attacking groups using multiple entry points, or of an attack involving multiple insiders…it concentrated on threats to the reactor core, failing to address the vulnerability of spent fuel storage facilities.” Since 2011, says the UCS, the NRC “finally revised its rules to address the threat of aircraft attack for new reactor designs—but at the same time has rejected proposed design changes to protect against water- and land-based attacks.”
There is “also concern about the testing standard used,” notes UCS. “In July 2012, the NRC adopted the new process. However, as a result of industry pressure, the standards were watered down..”
Further, says UCS, testing is “currently required only for operating reactors, leaving questions about the adequacy of protection against attacks on reactors that have shut down, but still contain radioactive materials that could harm the public if damaged.”
A pioneer in addressing how nuclear power plants are pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction has been Dr. Bennett Ramberg. As he wrote in his 1980 landmark book, Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy: An Unrecognized Military Peril, despite the “multiplication of nuclear power plants, little public consideration has been given to their vulnerability in time of war.”
As he writes in a piece in the current Foreign Affairs, “Nuclear Power to the People: The Middle East’s New Gold Rush,” spotlighting the push now by many nations in the Middle East to build nuclear power plants, “Whatever the energy promise of the peaceful atom, evidently lost in the boom are the security risks inherent in setting up reactors in the Middle East—and not just the commonly voiced fear that reactors are harbingers of weapons. The real risk is the possibility that the plants themselves will become targets or hostages of nihilist Middle East militants, which could result in Chernobyl and Fukushima-like meltdowns.”
“Given the mayhem that Islamic State (also called ISIS) and kindred groups have sown in the region and their end-of-days philosophy, the plausibility of an attempted attack on an operating nuclear power plant cannot be denied,” writes Ramberg.
In fact, the plausibility of an attempted attack cannot be denied in the Middle East—or anywhere in world…..http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/28/nuclear-power-plants-pre-deployed-wmds/
Canadian activists push for a nuclear- free world, despite Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion
Activists want Canada to push for nuclear-free world despite Dion’s reticence http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2016/03/29/activists-want-canada-to-push-for-nuclear-free-world-despite-dion-s-reticence.html By: Mike Blanchfield The Canadian Press Mar 30 2016
OTTAWA — Anti-nuclear campaigners who want Canada to push for a global ban on nuclear weapons are concerned that Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion is showing a definite lack of enthusiasm for that goal.
Dion said in a speech earlier this month that the current global security environment is simply not conducive to a ban on nuclear weapons because some states just won’t relinquish them.
Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of the peace group Project Ploughshares, says there’s never a perfect time to push for such a ban and the time to start is now.
Nuclear disarmament and security will be front and centre later this week as U.S. President Barack Obama hosts his final Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to attend the two-day meeting, which is focused on curbing nuclear terrorism by cracking down on the trafficking of materials needed to build such a weapon.
Obama announced the initiative in a landmark speech in Prague in 2009, in which he expressed his aspiration for a nuclear-free world, even if it didn’t come in his lifetime.
Earlier this month, Dion said in a speech in Geneva that any negotiations to ban nuclear weapons would have to include all countries that possess them. “Without the participation of the countries possessing nuclear weapons, a ban would not bring us any closer to our shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons,” Dion said on March 2. “Indeed, premature action risks undermining international stability by creating a false sense of security, without any reliable underpinnings.”
Dion’s remarks largely flew under the radar but anti-nuclear activists took note.
“The reality is that there will never be ideal international security conditions for nuclear disarmament,” Jarmillo said Monday. “Nuclear abolition will be a complex, multifaceted undertaking that will need to coexist with international security crises of varying gravity,” he added. “Nuclear disarmament measures must be started, implemented and concluded in geopolitical conditions that are predictably less than perfect.”
Paul Meyer, a retired diplomat who once served as Canada’s disarmament ambassador, said Dion should be pushing harder for a progress on broader disarmament in spite of the geopolitical obstacles. He cited Canada’s leadership in championing the anti-landmine treaty in the 1990s.
“Minister Dion should recall that if Canada had only been willing to consider ‘incremental’ progress on the disarmament of landmines back in 1997 we would still be in a world awash with these weapons,” Meyer wrote in a recent column in Ottawa’s Embassy newsweekly.
This week’s Washington summit on curbing the trafficking of nuclear components comes amid periodic reports of the theft of radioactive material that could be used to build a so-called “dirty bomb.”
Jaramillo said preventing nuclear terrorism is a worthy and urgent objective.
“But it cannot be understood in isolation from the broader multilateral dynamics related to nuclear disarmament and the slow pace of progress toward that goal,” he added. “It is still early in the Liberal government and it may still be formulating its stand on nuclear abolition. So far, however, there has been little change from the Conservative government concerning Canada’s core positions in this regard.”
Former general says Israel could destory Iran’s Nuclear Program
Ex-IAF General: Israel Capable Of Destroying Iran’s Nuclear Program, Breitbart, TEL AVIV 27 Mar 16 – The IDF is capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities with a preemptive strike, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) said on Saturday.
“The Israeli Air Force can meet the challenge of destroying Iran’s nuclear reactors if necessary,” Maj Gen (ret.) Amos Yadlin said in a speech reported by Channel 10 news.
Yadlin, who served as an IAF commander as well as the IDF’s military attaché to Washington, stated that if Israel were to find itself at an “intersection where you have to choose between two alternatives: One is whether Iran will have a bomb and we do nothing … and the second is whether to conduct a preemptive action to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon,” then Israel would be capable of destroying the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.
Yadlin also made reference to similar operations in the past that met with success. These include Operation Opera, in which Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, and the destruction of a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.
He noted that both operations drew sharp criticism of Israel, even though the country never claimed responsibility in the case of Syria……..http://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2016/03/27/ex-iaf-general-israel-capable-of-destroying-iranian-nuclear-program/
Video from North Korea depicts Nuclear Strike on Washington
North Korean Propaganda Video Depicts Nuclear Strike on Washington, NYT By CHOE SANG- HUNMARCH 26, 2016 SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea released a propaganda video on Saturday that depicts a nuclear strike on Washington, along with a warning to “American imperialists” not to provoke the North.
The four-minute video clip, titled “Last Chance,” uses computer animation to show what looks like an intercontinental ballistic missile flying through the earth’s atmosphere before slamming into Washington, near what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial. A nuclear explosion follows.
“If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a pre-emptive nuclear strike,” read the Korean subtitles in the video, which was uploaded to the YouTube channel of D.P.R.K. Today, a North Korean website. “The United States must choose! It’s up to you whether the nation called the United States exists on this planet or not.”
Such remarks are in line with recent threats and assertions from North Korea about its nuclear and missile capabilities………http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/world/asia/north-korea-propaganda-video-nuclear-strike.html?_r=0
NEW NUCLEAR AIR-LAUNCHED CRUISE MISSILE A REDUNDANT CAPABILITY
CRUISE CONTROL: WHY THE U.S. SHOULD NOT BUY A NEW NUCLEAR AIR-LAUNCHED CRUISE MISSILE KINGSTON REIF MARCH 21, 2016 The Obama administration’s fantastical plan to modernize the Cold War-era nuclear triad of land-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and long-range bombers is prompting an increasingly loud and much-needed debate in Washington and beyond about whether the effort is necessary and sustainable.
One of the most controversial pieces of this “all of the above” sustainment approach, which is projected to exceed $350 billion over the next decade, is the Air Force’s proposal to build a new fleet of roughly 1,000 nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs).
The Defense Department and supporters of replacing the nuclear ALCM in Congress and the think tank communityargue that building a new missile is necessary to maintain an effective U.S. nuclear deterrent because the current missile is losing its ability to penetrate increasingly sophisticated air and missile defenses. These proponents alsoclaim that retaining an ALCM option for the bomber leg of the triad provides the president with unique options to control escalation and respond proportionally to a limited nuclear attack. In other words, the new missiles would augment the ability of the U.S. military to fight a nuclear war.
In the halls of the Pentagon, where planners have spent decades justifying nuclear force levels that would make a hoarder seem frugal by comparison, these arguments have taken on an almost religious quality. Yet strip away the magical thinking that permeates so much of U.S. nuclear strategy and the case for a new ALCM is weak: it is redundant, recklessly expensive, and potentially destabilizing………
A redundant capability
While supporters of the LRSO cite anticipated improvements in the air defenses of potential adversaries as a reason to develop the new nuclear cruise missile, it is doubtful that any target the missile could hit could not also be destroyed by other U.S. nuclear weapons or conventional cruise missiles……..
U.S. nuclear capabilities would remain highly credible and flexible even without a nuclear ALCM. The arsenal includes other weapons that can produce more “limited” effects, most notably the B61 gravity bomb. More importantly, the notion the use of nuclear weapons can be fine-tuned to carefully control escalation to a full-scale nuclear exchange is very dangerous thinking. It is highly unlikely that an adversary on the receiving end of a U.S. nuclear strike would (or could) distinguish between a large warhead and a small warhead. The fog of war is thick. The fog of nuclear war would be even thicker.
Large or small, nuclear weapons are extremely blunt instruments, both in terms of their destructive power and the taboo associated with the fact they have not been used in 70 years. As Michael Krepon has elegantly put it, the case for the LRSO “demands a fealty to nuclear warfighting concepts that most Americans will be hard-pressed to understand. The nuclear deterrence business is most persuasive to taxpayers in the abstract; particulars require the suspension of disbelief.”
Other arguments in favor of the LRSO are also unconvincing. ……..
Furthermore, as highlighted by William Perry, President Bill Clinton’s defense secretary, and Andrew Weber, President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, “cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon” due to the fact that “they can be launched without warning and come in both nuclear and conventional variants.”
The possible risk of miscalculation and unintended escalation posed by the LRSO requires far more scrutiny than the blithe assertions from the administration that the missile will be stabilizing.
Indefensible Costs
The case for the LRSO is further undermined when one considers the high budgetary costs and significant opportunity costs. The United States is planning to rebuild all three legs of the nuclear triad and their associated warheads at a cost and on a schedule that many military leaders say is unsustainable…….
The bloated U.S. nuclear arsenal of approximately 4,700 weapons is largely irrelevant to the most pressing national security challenges the United States faces. Retaining an unnecessarily large arsenal and enhancing U.S. nuclear warfighting capabilities will not help Washington address the challenges posed by great powers such as Russia and China. If anything, doing so will exacerbate relations with these countries.
The choice is clear: chart a more realistic path for the nuclear arsenal that doesn’t severely constrain the force-sizing options of future presidents and reduces the risk of doing serious damage to conventional capabilities and other national security programs. As an early step in this course correction, the Pentagon should cancel its new cruise missile program and prioritize continued investments in the other legs of the nuclear triad and more relevant and usable non-nuclear capabilities, including longer-range conventional cruise missiles.
Doing so would be far more beneficial to U.S. security than spending billions to buy a redundant new nuclear missile unneeded for either deterrence or assurance.
Kingston Reif is the Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control Association. You can follow him on Twitter at @KingstonAReif. http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/cruise-control-why-the-u-s-should-not-buy-a-new-nuclear-air-launched-cruise-missile/
1 This Month
of the week- – THE ONENESS of HUMANITY
We the Nuclear Free North
1st July – Webinar Waste of Space: The Environmental Harm of Military and Civil Space Activity st July, 7 pm
Report Launch Online: We are seeing an increasing exploitation of space for military and commercial purposes. This must change.
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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