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Nuclear Proliferation and the “Nth Country Experiment”

“Do-it-yourself” Project Produced “Credible Nuclear Weapon” Design from Open Sources

Experimenters Developed a Plutonium Weapon Design with Potential for High Explosive Yield.

NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, Washington, D.C., January 23, 2025 – Today, the National Security Archive publishesnewly declassified information on a secret mid-1960s project in which a handful of young physicists at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory produced a design for a “credible nuclear weapon” based only on unclassified, open-source information and in just three years. One of the participants described the experiment as “truly a do-it-yourself project,” according to one of the recently declassified records. Begun in the spring of 1964, before China had conducted its first bomb test, the “Nth Country Experiment” concluded that a government with nuclear-weapons aspirations and limited resources could develop a “credible” weapon.

This new Electronic Briefing Book includes the relatively limited declassified literature on the project, including the 1967 “Summary Report on the Nth Country Experiment,” a document first released to the National Security Archive in the 1990s and that was the subject of an Archive press release in 2003. Today’s posting also includes a recently declassified, if massively redacted, Livermore report on “Postshot Activities of the Nth Country Experiment” that summarized classified briefings that two of the participants in the Experiment gave around the country to U.S. government officials. Also included is a State Department internal announcement of a forthcoming briefing on the “Nth Country Experiment” noting that “three young PhD physicists, working part-time, succeeded in achieving a workable nuclear weapons design in a period of about three years.”

……………………………….When the Experiment began in 1964, U.S. intelligence had been analyzing the problem of the potential spread of nuclear weapons capabilities for years. Before the term “nuclear proliferation” became widely used during the 1960s, however, analysts with the CIA and other intelligence organizations had thought in terms of a “4^th country” problem: Which country was likely to join the U.S., the U.K., and the Soviet Union as the fourth country with nuclear weapons capabilities? After France tested its first bomb in early 1960 and became the fourth country, analysts began to think in terms of the “Nth country problem”—that some indeterminate number of countries might develop nuclear weapons capabilities. What concerned think tankers and academic experts was that Nth countries would create a more unstable and perilous world where the United States would have less influence and its interests would be under greater threat.[1] Consistent with this, during a 1963 press conference, President John F. Kennedy warned of the possibility of a world where, by the 1970s, there were 15 or 20 nuclear powers that posed the “greatest possible danger and hazard.”[2]

………………………………………..The Department of Energy’s reviewers massively excised the two reports on the Experiment on the grounds that they include “restricted data” (RD) relating to the design of nuclear weapons. The Experiment involved RD from the beginning, with the junior physicists involved receiving Q clearances; any nuclear weapons design information they created would, under the law, be considered secret and “born classified.” Thus, the DOE reviewers completely withheld all discussion and bibliographical entries related to the unclassified and open-source publications that the Experimenters consulted.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Future declassifications by the Department of Energy may lead to the release of more information about the “Nth Country Experiment” and its inception.

The Documents…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

January 28, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Anti nuclear activists celebrate fourth banniversary of nuclear weapons

Half of the world’s nations, representing 2.5 billion people, have now signed and / or ratified the Ban Treaty. There are now 94 States Parties to the treaty and 73 have ratified their absolute adherence to it.

NFLA 22nd Jan 2025

Today (22^nd January) is the banniversary, the fourth anniversary of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons[i] entering into international law at the UN.

This treaty, usually called the Ban Treaty, is the first piece of international legislation to outlaw the production, stockpiling, transfer, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.

In the world today we have nine confirmed or acknowledged nuclear weapons states, the USA, Russia, United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, with an estimated 12,121 nuclear weapons in January 2024[ii].

In 2023, these states were estimated to have spent $91.4 billion maintaining and enhancing their nuclear arsenals.

Nuclear proliferation has been restrained because of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty[iii] which was first signed by the USA, USSR and UK in 1968 and has almost universal acceptance in the world community. Signatory nations without nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them, whilst retaining the right to employ nuclear power for energy, whilst the five nuclear weapon states, the USA, Russia, UK, France and China, which have signed it have agreed not to deploy nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. Furthermore, under Article 6 they have committed to: pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament’.

The Ban Treaty came to pass because global civil society, particularly in nations whose people suffered greatly from post-war atomic and nuclear bomb testing, such as Australia, the Pacific Islands, Algeria, and Kazakhstan, became increasingly frustrated by the failure of these nuclear nations to conduct any negotiations in ‘good faith’, despite the passage of over 60 years. Civic society groups, scientists, physicians and the Hibakusha pushed back by establishing an International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to bring about the world’s first definitive legislation to outlaw nuclear weapons.[iv]

In doing so they were following the example set by worldwide campaigners opposed to anti-personnel landmines, whose campaign led to the passage of the Ottawa Convention or the Anti-Personnel Land Mine Ban Convention.[v] This became law in 1997. Later that year the International Campaign to Ban Landmines won the Novel Peace Prize.

The new campaign aimed to bring in similar legislation to that which previously banned other weapons of mass destruction, namely chemical, biological and bacteriological weapons.

Lawyers from civil society groups and supportive nations drew up the legislation. Several years were spent by campaigners in international shuttle diplomacy, with private meetings and various regional conferences held across the world to build support amongst United Nations member states…………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. The Nuclear Free Local Authorities and Mayors for Peace are both established partners in ICAN.

Interestingly in both organisations are member authorities in the Republic of Ireland and the UK. The Republic is a neutral and non-nuclear weapon state that has signed and ratified the Ban Treaty. The UK is a NATO and nuclear weapon state which is refusing to engage with the treaty. This creates a dichotomy.

What then will the UK/Ireland NFLAs and Mayors for Peace Chapter be doing in 2025 to build support for the treaty and the communities affected by nuclear weapons and testing?

Richard Outram, explains:

The big challenge here is getting any British Government, whatever its political persuasion, which remains wedded to nuclear weapons and is a member of a nuclear weapons alliance with a first use policy, to get on board with the Treaty.

“2025 will be an especially significant year in the history of nuclear weapons, being the 80^th anniversary of the tragic atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so it will be important to have a focused plan with positive actions.”

Richard intends to:

Ask the Labour Government to send an official observer to the next conference of the Ban Treaty to join signatory states and civil society groups. This will be held in New York in March.
Lobby the Government to acknowledge the moral imperative for the UK to provide reparations and practical support for the communities, generally Indigenous, impacted by British atomic and nuclear weapons, as per the provisions of Articles 6 and 7 in the Ban Treaty.
Continue to work for justice and compensation for Britain’s atomic and nuclear test veteran community and their families. The NFLAs have been a major player in lobbying politicians at all levels in both Conservative and Labour governments, and has appointed a former British Army veteran, Councillor Tommy Judge, to be its spokesperson on these issues.
Ask Mayors for Peace to follow Manchester’s example in passing resolutions in support of the ICAN Cities Appeal calling on the British Government to sign the Treaty.
Write to parliamentarians at Holyrood in support of a resolution just tabled before the Scottish Government favouring nuclear disarmament and a nuclear free Scotland.
Support any move to lobby local government pension funds to divest from nuclear weapons.
Continue to work building up the number of our member authorities and to strengthen their capacity to act for peace in this 80^th anniversary year of the atom bombings. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/anti-nuclear-activists-celebrate-fourth-banniversary-of-nuclear-weapons/

January 25, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Memo to Trump: Cancel US Air Force’s Sentinel ICBM program

Bulletin, By Mackenzie Knight | January 17, 2025

Mr. President, the extreme cost and schedule overruns of the United States Air Force’s new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program highlight the need to address the future of our country’s ICBM force and present an opportunity for curtailing wasteful spending.

Background

In 2016, an Air Force cost analysis concluded that replacing the existing force of Minuteman III ICBMs would be cheaper than a life-extension program. But the Air Force program to develop the new Sentinel ICBM is vastly over budget and significantly behind schedule. The Air Force notified Congress in January 2024 that the program was in critical breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act, with a 37 percent cost overrun and a two-year schedule delay.

The situation had worsened as of July 2024 when, upon certifying the Sentinel program to continue after its Nunn-McCurdy breach, the Defense Department announced a new cost estimate of $140.9 billion—constituting an 81 percent increase since the previous estimate—and a three-year schedule delay. Flawed assumptions, program mismanagement, and the awarding of an unprecedented sole-source contract for a program of this size have worked together to create this problem.

The struggling Sentinel program is on track to become one of the most expensive nuclear modernization programs ever in the United States. But there is still time to put a check on some of this wasteful spending while maintaining strategic security.

Options

The following options are presented in order of the level they deviate from the current program of record, from lowest to highest.

……………………………………………………………………….. — Option 3: Cancel the Sentinel ICBM program

This option would reduce the number of deployed ICBMs to 300, life-extend Minuteman III ICBMs, and cancel the Sentinel program. This would save a significant amount of money. In 2012, it was estimated to cost $7 billion to turn Minuteman III ICBMs into what the Air Force called “basically new missiles except for the shell.” Even if a new life-extension program were more expensive than this estimate, it is unlikely that the cost would even remotely approach Sentinel’s projected $141 billion—and growing—price tag.

………………………………………………………. Recommended course of action

I recommend Option 3 at this time. Reviews by military officials and experts support a reduction in the number of deployed ICBMs. The Sentinel program’s cost and schedule challenges have become untenable and unacceptable for US taxpayers, particularly for a program that is not necessary for national security. We must prioritize government efficiency by slashing wasteful spending, streamlining modernization programs, and not allowing the legislative branch alone to dictate the US nuclear posture. This can best be achieved by reducing ICBM numbers and life-extending the current missile force. Option 1 would further delay ICBM modernization and would not guarantee lower costs. Option 4 is likely politically infeasible at this time and would incur significant costs and logistical requirements to dismantle the entire ICBM infrastructure and warheads. https://thebulletin.org/2025/01/memo-to-trump-cancel-us-air-forces-sentinel-icbm-program/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Memos%20to%20Trump%20%28he%20might%20actually%20like%29&utm_campaign=20250120%20Monday%20Newsletter

January 22, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Memo to Trump: Cancel the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile

Bulletin, By David Kearn | January 17, 2025

Mr. President, we urge the cancellation of the SLCM-N program. It is unnecessary, costly, and makes the job of rebuilding our military more difficult.

As you know, the SLCM-N program was initiated during your first term. It was canceled by the Biden administration, but Congress allocated funds to revive the program in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. However, with the benefit of study and analysis, the Navy has signaled opposition to the program, viewing it as costly distraction from pressing modernization priorities, a strain on the already struggling defense industrial base, and an unnecessary complication of the missions of the fast attack submarine fleet.

…………………………………………………….. Redundancy

The United States already deploys significant conventional military assets in key regions and can quickly augment them by moving in nuclear weapons as needed to signal to adversaries that transgressions will have severe consequences. First, the Long-Range Standoff Missile (LRSO) deployed on either B-52 or B-21 bombers—while not technically classified as a “tactical weapon”—will possess the range, penetrability, and single-kiloton yield to provide the United States with the flexibility to respond to the threatened or actual use of nuclear weapons by an adversary in a proportional way without resorting larger strategic systems. Second, the B61-12 gravity bomb provides a low-yield munition that can be delivered by bomber and strike aircraft. Finally, thanks to your leadership during the first administration, the United States also possesses a low-yield variant of the Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). In short, the United States possesses adequate nuclear capabilities to provide limited, flexible options if you or a successor would ever need them.

Costs

The expected costs of the SLCM-N—initially estimated at $10 billion but likely to be higher—are significant. The Navy will do its best to implement your preferred policies, but the SLCM-N program will require an “entirely new workforce and industrial base” to deliver this single system. The new missile cannot simply utilize an existing conventional Tomahawk cruise missile fitted with a nuclear warhead, as advocates initially assumed.

Beyond program costs, the Navy’s Strategic Systems Program office already has a “very full plate” of other programs, including upgrading the Trident II D-5 SLBM, as well as the new Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missile to be deployed on destroyers and attack submarines. A new program devoted exclusively to SLCM-N would divert workforce and resources away from these important programs at a time when industrial capacity and budgets are already stretched thin.

………………………………… Recommended course of action

We urge that you work with Congress to cancel the SLCM-N program. In doing so, you may prefer to recommend that the allocated funds be devoted to existing conventional Navy programs or toward further investment in flexible nuclear programs, such as the long-range standoff (LRSO) cruise missile…………. more https://thebulletin.org/2025/01/memo-to-trump-cancel-the-sea-launched-nuclear-cruise-missile/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Memos%20to%20Trump%20%28he%20might%20actually%20like%29&utm_campaign=20250120%20Monday%20Newsletter

January 22, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Is ‘Israel’ using small nuclear weapons in Gaza and South Lebanon?

Robert Daly, Christopher Busby, Source: Al Mayadeen English, 6 Sep 2024, https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/is–israel–using-small-nuclear-weapons-in-gaza-and-south-le

Dr. Christopher Busby is part a mixed crew of investigative reporters and commentators from Lebanon and some film-makers investigating “Israel’s” use of enriched uranium in strikes on Gaza on Lebanon, and aim to follow up on the strange illnesses that are appearing on the battlefield.

The American Peace Information Council (APIC) and Green Audit (UK) are conducting an investigation of “Israel’s” possible use of small nuclear weapons in Gaza and South Lebanon. Dr. Christopher Busby—Scientific Secretary, European Committee on Radiation Risk; once Member, UK Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters; once Member, UK Ministry of Defence Depleted Uranium Oversight Board—presents the scientific and social background of the case below.

APIC and Green Audit ask people who drive ambulances down in the South, or live there, to come forward with engine air filters from ambulances driven in bombed areas, samples of long hair (at least 10 cm in length) if they live in bombed areas, and Geiger counter readings and soil samples from bomb craters. Please send these samples and evidence to Al Mayadeen who will forward them to us. One would think that the easiest way to obtain ambulance air filters would be from the Lebanese Red Cross, but its General Secretary, Mr. Georges Kitanneh, refuses to assist this investigation.

‘Israel’ in Gaza: Red Mercury.

Dr. Christopher Busby

In 2021, a scientific report in the prestigious journal Nature confirmed what I had been saying since 2006. “Israel” has, since its attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and those on Gaza in 2008 and 2014, used a new nuclear weapon, one which kills with a high temperature radiation flash and with neutrons. This weapon, which leaves an identification footprint, but no fission products like Caesium-137, we now know was also employed by the USA in Fallujah, Iraq in 2003, and previously in Kosovo also.

The residues, inhalable Uranium aerosol dust, together with the neutron damage to tissues, cause a range of serious and often fatal health effects that puzzle doctors and defy treatment. Without knowing what caused such effects, which often mimic other illnesses or result in fungal infections that kill, doctors are powerless to help and just watch the exposed individuals die.

In the cases of direct exposures to the flash, parts of the body, arms, legs, places that were not behind significant shielding are burned to blackened sticks. The aerosol Uranium dust is inhaled, destroys the lungs through fibrosis, is translocated to the lymphatic system, and later causes cancers, not only lymphomas and leukemias, but pretty much any cancer as a result of localisation of the Uranium particle in the organ, for example the breast, which has extensive lymphatic vessels. If the particle is coughed up and swallowed, it can end up immobilised in the colon and cause cancer there.

Downstream results in exposed populations include genetic effects, unexplained infant mortality, congenital malformations, miscarriages, sex ratio perturbations at birth, and fertility loss, all of which were found in epidemiological studies I helped carry out in Fallujah from 2010-2011.

This is not science fiction or arm-waving. I have acted as an expert witness in two successful legal cases, one in England and one in Australia, where the judge and coroner court concluded that the particles caused colon cancer. I am helping a US DU veteran at the moment in his case against the military. He has a pituitary tumour (the small gland is located behind the nose where the particles lodge).

I began this investigation in 2006 when an article appeared in a Lebanese newspaper reporting that an Israeli bomb crater in Khiam was radioactive. A Dr. Ali Khobeisi had taken a Geiger counter to the crater and found a 20-times background radiation level in the crater relative to nearby. By 2006, I had become something of an alternative authority on Depleted Uranium weapons (DU). I had given evidence to the US Congressional Committee on Veterans Affairs on the effects of DU and Gulf War syndrome, I had visited Iraq and also Kosovo, and I was a member of the UK government Depleted Uranium Oversight Board (DUOB); I had written articles, including for the United Nations, I had given evidence to the Royal Society.

I asked a colleague to go to Lebanon and get samples from the crater, and also an ambulance air filter. When they were analysed, using two separate methods, they showed the presence not of Depleted Uranium, but of Enriched Uranium (EU). Now this is impossible, unless the weapon was made from EU or created EU from neutron irradiation of U-234 and U-238.

To follow the explanation of the problem, you need some science. Natural Uranium, as mined, has three isotopes, U-238 U-234 and U-235. Most of this Uranium by mass is U-238 (99.7%). The 0.3% of U-235 is important for nuclear bombs and nuclear energy and is extracted in various ways to make EU. What is left behind is less radioactive U-238, and this is what is termed Depleted Uranium (DU).

When U-238 decays, it changes into Thorium-234, which rapidly changes into Protoactinium-234 and this turns into Uranium-234. Then you get a long list of progeny, but these do not concern us. All this happens quite quickly, and the process releases some gamma rays which make DU a gamma radiation hazard, contrary to the statements of the military that DU is not a handling hazard. It is. But this is not important in this story.

The main issue here is this. Was the enriched Uranium in the Lebanon bomb a real finding? Could it have been a laboratory error? The answer is No. We used two different laboratories and two different Uranium analysis methods, ICPMS and alpha spectrometry.

What we found was picked up by the reporter Robert Fisk, who put the story into The Independent in October 2006: The Mystery of “Israel’s” Secret Uranium Bomb.

Until we found EU, I had focused on the health effects of DU. Everyone did. But in 2006 I was contacted by an eminent Italian nuclear physicist, Emilio Del Guidice. I met him in London, where he told me that the source of the EU was a new weapon which used Hydrogen or heavy hydrogen, Deuterium dissolved in Uranium and when this warhead, as small as a baseball, was fired at a solid object, the hydrogen suffered Cold Fusion to form Helium with the emission of a powerful gamma ray which cause the U238 to convert to an unstable U-239 which decayed to U-235 and a neutron.

I am not a nuclear physicist, though I have my own ideas about this explanation but at that time I accepted that he knew what he was talking about. At least it explained the source of the enrichment.

In 2008 I was approached by some doctors in Egypt who wondered if the Israelis were bombing Gaza with DU. With some difficulty, I obtained samples from Gaza, again soil samples and an air filter, and analysis showed the presence of EU. In 2010, as part of our study of the congenital malformations in Fallujah, we analysed the hair of the mothers for 52 elements to try and identify the cause of the birth defects. We found EU in the mothers’ hair.

Further support for the existence of an EU-containing or EU-producing weapon came from a study of a Kosovo war Veteran whose mysterious illnesses were investigated thoroughly by some doctors in Liverpool and Manchester. The man’s kidneys contained Enriched Uranium.

Emilio del Guidice had not stood still in this Sherlock Holmes investigation. Together with reporters from Italian TV (Rai News) he had visited the father of Cold Fusion, Prof Martin Fleischmann, whom I had also previously worked with when I was at the University of Kent in 1980. Fleishmann added to the intriguing scientific puzzle, but was unwilling to get involved. It seemed that scientists looking at cold fusion were dying under suspicious circumstances. Fleischmann himself had seemingly been poisoned with something that caused multi-site cancer and passed away on August 3, 2012. A cold fusion colleague developed the same multi-site cancer and didn’t survive.

Del Guidice and the Rai News producer following up the story wrote a book: The Secret of the Three Bullets, published in 2014. It is still in print and contains their side of the story. I am in the book under various names. But a few months before its publication, del Guidice unexpectedly died when alone in his house.

I am told that the Rai News co-author editor of the book, Maurizio Torrealta has gone into hiding after having been posted three real bullets in an envelope.

Fast forward to 2021. The Nature paper gave the results of analyses of 65 samples of soil, sand, cement, and building materials from Gaza. Using gamma spectrometry (where you use the whole sample and look at the identifiable peaks from U-235 and Th-234 = U238) the authors identified some significantly high levels of Enriched Uranium in all the samples, but mostly in the soil samples. The levels of enrichment had become greater than those that we found in our earlier studies. The natural isotope mass ratio in nature (U238/U235) is 138. In Lebanon we found 116. In Gaza 108. The 2021 paper found about 85. Since this was before the recent bombing, this contamination must date to the 2014 Israeli bombing. What should we expect to find now?

In March of this year, I wrote to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the official UN watchdogs for the use of nuclear weapons. My colleague from Fallujah, Dr. Mohamad Al-Darraji also sent my letter under his name. Nothing happened. No reply. He was to organise a Press Conference in Vienna to draw attention to the use of this weapon in Fallujah, and the cover up of the residual high levels of radiation by the Iraqi Ministry of Science. I made a video to be presented at this conference (it is online). But he couldn’t get a venue.

I followed the letter up with a second version in July, demanding that the IAEA respond. I wrote a paper about the issue and submitted it to two journals, putting the pre-print online. It was rejected on the basis that the reviewers didn’t believe the Nature analysis results. Eventually, Al-Darraji got a reply from the IAEA (naturally, I didn’t). The IAEA didn’t believe the Nature results. Nothing to investigate. No problem.

The UK Green Party House of Lords member, Baroness Jenny Jones (who I know) asked a question in UK Parliament. The government said they didn’t have anything to say about it. About the high level of Enriched Uranium in Gaza.

So that’s it. What can we do? “Israel” and the USA (at least) have developed what is almost certainly a mini-neutron bomb. “Israel” is using it in Gaza. And may be using it in Lebanon (again). In fact, there is evidence for the development of such a bomb having been tested as long ago as October 1962, in the final US atmospheric test in the Dominic series in the Pacific. This was the test named “Housatonic” which achieved 9.96Mt yield but reportedly had zero fallout. That means it had no fission primer in the first stage, a necessary requirement for all the hydrogen bombs before it.

The significance of this appears to have been overlooked, but, astonishingly, you can find details on Wikipedia. The UK government put all that stuff under the Official Secrets Act and when I was representing the Test Veterans in the Royal Courts of Justice from 2010 to 2016, I was refused access to these details. The new bomb was successfully detonated just before the Kennedy Kruschev test ban, and just before Kennedy was assassinated. Could there be a link?

I have joined a mixed crew of investigative reporters and commentators from Lebanon and some film-makers to seek out the solution to this conundrum. We aim to follow up on the strange illnesses that are appearing on the battlefield. We aim to look for Enriched Uranium and also neutron activation products like Cobalt-60, Tritium and Carbon-14. In a new development, the laboratories that I used to examine the earlier samples have all suddenly closed their doors. One of them was shut down altogether after the first Gaza analysis. One of them was threatened. But we can do a lot with what we have.

What we want is for people to obtain Geiger Counters to check out the impact sites soon after the explosion, and if it is radioactive to get us samples of dust and dirt. We want women’s hair samples, especially long hair, cut from the nape of the neck, from women who were near or lived in areas that were bombed. You can buy a simple Geiger Counter now for about 60 euros. You can even get a low-resolution portable gamma spectrometer for about 350 euros.

We would like anyone with comments or information to contact us. This is a big deal.

The weapon will certainly be used in future exchanges, and will make local nuclear war possible, since the scary scenarios involving fallout may not materialise. I have named the device Red Mercury because that is what it probably is (remember the red mercury story: written off officially by science (haha) as a fraud, as a phony). Red Mercury was Stalin’s code for Enriched Uranium. Clearly, from the Dominic Housatonic test, the USA also developed the weapon. Since it kills without leaving fission products, it is invisible to the global nuclear explosion detection systems and the IAEA watchdogs.

But there is no doubt the IAEA know about it. Their latest report on Uranium in the Environment completely ignores Enriched Uranium. When I asked one of the report authors why, I was told they were short of money. They only had enough to look at Depleted Uranium. Can you believe this stuff?

January 20, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Are AI defense firms about to eat the Pentagon?

Competitors are becoming collaborators in the industry’s hottest segment.

Defense One, Patrick Tucker, 15 Dec 24

In an unprecedented wave of collaboration, leading AI firms are teaming up—sometimes with rivals—to serve a Pentagon and Congress determined to put AI to military use. Their growing alignment may herald an era in which software firms seize the influence now held by old-line defense contractors.

“There’s an old saying that software eats the world,” Byron Callan, managing director at Capital Alpha Partners, told Investors Business Daily on Wednesday. “It’s going to eat the military too.”

Over the last week, Palantir, Anduril, Shield AI, OpenAI, Booz Allen, and Oracle announced various partnerships to develop products tailored to defense needs. Meanwhile, the House passed the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act with provisions that push the Defense Department to work more closely with tech firms on AI, and DOD announced yet another office intended to foster AI adoption.

Perhaps the most significant partnership is between Palantir and Anduril, two companies that offer somewhat competing capabilities related to battlefield data integration. Palantir holds the contract for the Maven program, the seminal Defense Department AI effort to derive intelligence from vast amounts of data provided by satellites, drones, and other sensors. Anduril offers a mesh-networking product called Lattice for rapid collection and analysis of battlefield data for drone swarming and other operations. …………………………………………………………………

Congress gets behind AI firms

On Wednesday, the House approved a 2025 defense authorization bill that includes several provisions intended to spur military adoption of AI. The bill puts a big emphasis on building out data and cloud computing resources to enable much faster adoption of AI and AI-enabled weapons, areas where companies like Anduril, Palantir, Booz Allen, and Shield AI excel.

One of the most ambitious is Section 1532, which mandates the expansion of secure, high-performance computing infrastructure to support AI training and development.

This infrastructure, which will include partnerships with commercial and hybrid cloud providers, is critical for developing scalable AI models capable of adapting to evolving mission requirements………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2024/12/are-ai-defense-firms-about-eat-pentagon/401673/?oref=d1-author-river

January 18, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Virginia, we have a problem

14 Jan 2025, |Peter Briggs, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/virginia-we-have-a-problem/

Australia’s plan to acquire Virginia-class submarines from the United State is looking increasingly improbable. The US building program is slipping too badly.

This heightens the need for Australia to begin looking at other options, including acquiring Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) from France.

The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted work at the two shipyards that build Virginias, General Dynamics Electric Boat at Groton, Connecticut, and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ yard at Newport News, Virginia. It badly hindered output at many companies in the supply chain, too. With too few workers, the industry has built up a backlog, and yards are filling with incomplete submarines.

Within six years, the US must decide whether to proceed with sale of the first of at least three and possibly five Virginias to Australia, a boat that will be transferred from the US Navy’s fleet.

Nine months before the transfer goes ahead, the president of the day must certify that it will not diminish USN undersea capability. This certification is unlikely if the industry has not by then cleared its backlog and achieved a production rate of 2.3 a year—the long-term building rate of two a year for the USN plus about one every three years to cover Australia’s requirement.

The chance of meeting that condition is vanishingly small.

The situation in the shipyards is stark. The industry laid down only one SSN in 2021. It delivered none from April 2020 to May 2022. The USN has requested funding for only one Virginia in fiscal year 2025, breaking the two-a-year drumbeat, ‘due to limits on Navy’s budget topline and the growing Virginia class production backlog’.

As of January 2025, five of 10 Block IV Virginias ordered are in the yards, as are five of 12 Block Vs for which acquisition has been announced. (Work has not begun on the other seven Block Vs.)

The building time from laying down until delivery has increased from between 3 and 3.5 years before the pandemic to more than 5 years. The tempo is still slowing: the next Virginia, USS Iowa, is due to be delivered on 5 April 2025, 5.8 years after it was laid down.

On the original, pre-pandemic schedule, all the Block IVs could probably have been delivered to the USN by now. This is a gap that cannot be recovered in a few years, despite all the expensive manpower training and retention programs in hand.

Exacerbating the problem for the yards, the Block V submarines are 30 percent larger, and more complex to build, making a return to shorter build times unlikely. Speaking to their shareholders in October, the chief executives of Huntington Ingalls and General Dynamics blamed their slowing delivery tempo on supply chain and workforce issues. HII says it is renegotiating contracts for 17 Block IV and Block V Virginias.

Furthermore, Electric Boat has diverted its most experienced workers to avoid further slippage in building the first two ballistic missile submarines of the Columbia class, the USN’s highest priority shipbuilding program, in which the Newport News yard also participates.

It gets worse. Many USN SSNs that have joined the US fleet over the past few decades are unavailable for service, awaiting maintenance. The pandemic similarly disrupted shipyards that maintain the SSNs of the Los Angeles and Virginia classes. In September 2022, 18 of the 50 SSNs in commission were awaiting maintenance. The Congressional Budget Office reports lack of spending on spare parts is also forcing cannibalisation and impacting the availability of Virginia class SSNs.

Australia’s SSN plan must worsen the US’s challenge in recovering from this situation, adding to the congestion in shipyards and further over loading supply chains already struggling to deliver SSNs to the USN.

A US decision not to sell SSNs to Australia is inevitable, and on current planning we will have no stopgap to cover withdrawal of our six diesel submarines of the Collins class, the oldest of which has already served for 28 years.

In the end, Australia’s unwise reliance on the US will have weakened the combined capability of the alliance. And Australia’s independent capacity for deterrence will be weakened, too.

As I wrote in December, it is time to look for another solution. One is ordering SSNs of the French Suffren class. The design is in production, with three of six planned boats delivered. It is optimised for anti-submarine warfare, with good anti-surface, land-strike, special-forces and mining capability. It is a smaller design, less capable than the Virginia, but should be cheaper and is a better fit for Australia’s requirements.

Importantly, it requires only half the crew of a Virginia, and we should be able to afford and crew the minimum viable force of 12 SSNs.

Let’s build on the good progress in training, industry and facility preparations for supporting US and British SSNs in Australia, all of which should continue, and find a way to add to the alliance’s overall submarine capability, not reduce it.

January 17, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Outgoing CIA director says ‘no sign’ Iran developing nuclear weapons

William Burns stated that the Islamic Republic made a decision in 2003 not to pursure nuclear weapons and has not changed its policy

The Cradle, News Desk, JAN 12, 2025

Outgoing CIA director William Burns stated in an interview on 10 January that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, following a decision it made in 2003, and that the US is concerned about the revival of ISIS.

In an interview with state broadcaster National Public Radio (NPR) to discuss his time as director of the notorious spy agency under President Joe Biden, Burns was asked whether Iran may accelerate its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons given the setbacks the Islamic Republic and its allies in the regional Axis of Resistance have sustained over the past year.

Burns answered that “the Iranian regime could decide in the face of that weakness that it needs to restore its deterrence as it sees it and, you know, reverse the decision made at the end of 2003 (an oral fatwa issued by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) to suspend their weaponization program.”

However, Burns clarified, “We do not see any sign today that any such decision has been made, but we obviously watch it intently. “

He added that Iran’s weakness could instead lead to negotiations for a nuclear deal similar to the one signed by Iran and the United States under President Obama in 2014. President Trump later withdrew from the deal following intense lobbying by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“You know that that sense of weakness could also theoretically create a possibility for serious negotiations, too. And, you know, that’s something the new administration is going to have to sort through. I mean, it’s something I have a lot of experience in with the secret talks a decade ago, a little more than a decade ago with the Iranians. So, you know, that’s that’s also a possibility,” Burns stated.

Regarding the negotiations for a possible ceasefire and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Burns said he believes there is a chance for an agreement.

“I think the gaps between the parties have narrowed. There’s an Israeli delegation in Doha right now working through proximity talks managed by the Qataris, with the support of the Egyptians and with our support. So, I think there’s a chance.”……………………………………………………. https://thecradle.co/articles/outgoing-cia-director-says-no-sign-iran-developing-nuclear-weapons

January 17, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, weapons and war | Leave a comment

How to dismantle the deadly arms trade

The devastating human impact of the arms industry is clear, but war is good news for industry shareholders. The market value of military equipment manufacturers in the US and Europe increased by nearly 60 per cent between February 2022 and March 2024, thanks to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine.

Activists forced Canadian Bank of Nova Scotia to halve its stake in Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest arms company. In October 2024, Elbit shut down its promotional booth at the Japan International Aerospace Exhibition in Tokyo after protests.

New Internationalist, Amy Hall, 6 Jan 25

People across the world are standing up to the power of the arms trade. Amy Hall explores its threat to life and democracy.

It’s a cold, bright morning on a narrow street in Brighton, on the south coast of England. Neighbours are peering through windows, or coming out onto the pavement, to see why around 15 protesters are standing outside the business premises at the end of the road with a banner declaring: ‘Genocide in Gaza made in Brighton’.

The answer is that the campaigners say they saw this company, London & Brighton Plating – which specializes in metal coating and plating used in a range of industries, including aerospace – delivering to L3Harris. The latter is one of the world’s biggest arms companies, and makes bomb release mechanisms for fighter jets used by Israel at its site on the outskirts of the city.

At least here in Brighton we have a strong protest movement,’ says Gummy Bear, one of the protesters. They point to the number of Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza. On 14 November 2024, the day of the protest, the death toll stood at well over 43,000. ‘We’re calling on supplier companies to divest from L3Harris and to stop working with them. We want L&B Plating to end their contract.’

Before they decided to form this picket, the Stop L3Harris group says it tried to contact L&B Plating in other ways but not had any response; they did not respond to New Internationalist’s request for comment either. The campaigners have drawn up a list of companies that they believe are working with L3Harris. While the group has held several protests and actions at the factory itself, it is also working along the supply chain to try and make it harder for L3Harris to stay open in their city.

The trading of arms and military equipment has always faced opposition, but since 7 October 2023, when Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza, there has been an explosion of activism against the arms industry. In neighbourhoods across the world, people are taking action – from shutting down shipyards or destroying equipment, to encampments at universities and divestment campaigns.

But despite the might of the industry, many ordinary people around the world have been winning where they have acted against it. Activists forced Canadian Bank of Nova Scotia to halve its stake in Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest arms company. In October 2024, Elbit shut down its promotional booth at the Japan International Aerospace Exhibition in Tokyo after protests. And in November, Palestine Action – a group which has been taking direct action against Elbit Systems since 2020 – announced that Hydrafeed, which had been supplying equipment to Elbit, had cut ties with the arms company ‘as a direct result’ of the group’s actions.

‘I’ve never see this level of activism against the arms trade,’ says Emily Apple of Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

People are not just taking action over Palestine. There has been a growing campaign against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for its complicity in the war in Sudan, which has killed up to 150,000 people. In England, activists have protested outside Arsenal football club’s Emirates Stadium in north London, due to its sponsorship from the airline Emirates, which is owned by the UAE state. There have also been demonstrations in a number of cities calling on the British government to take action.

Some of the most inspiring solidarity has come from workers normally key to the arms trade’s operation. After Israel’s latest assault on Gaza began, Palestinian trade unions called for support from fellow workers – and many answered. In November 2024 dockers in the Moroccan port of Tangiers refused to load a ship belonging to the logistics company Maersk, after the vessel was found to have received a number of US military shipments bound for Israel. The month before, members of a Greek dock-workers’ union in Athens Pireaus port blocked the loading of a container of ammunition on its way for use in Gaza.

Nor is Palestine the only cause that provokes such practical solidarity. Since 2019 workers in Genoa, Italy have declared a ‘war against the war’ in Yemen, refusing to load ships with weapons or other military equipment that could be used to kill civilians.

A global industry

Another frontier of the movement is the legal system, as campaigning lawyers push governments to stop arming the violence of states such as Israel. Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) have been fighting the British state over its arms exports to Israel……………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://newint.org/arms/2025/how-dismantle-deadly-arms-trade?utm_source=ni-email-whatcounts%20&utm_medium=1%20NI%20Main%20List1%20-%20enews%20-%20International%20AND%20North%20America&utm_campaign=2025-01-10%20enews

January 13, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Lancet Study: Gaza Health Ministry Undercounted Death Toll By 41%

The study doesn’t account for indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege

by Dave DeCamp January 9, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/01/09/lancet-study-gaza-health-ministry-undercounted-death-toll-by-41/

A new study published in the British medical journal The Lancet found that the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip has significantly undercounted the number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s genocidal war.

The study reviewed the period between October 7, 2023, and June 30, 2024, and found there were 64,260 “traumatic injury deaths” in that timeframe. At the end of June 2024, Gaza’s Health Ministry said there were 37,877 dead, an undercount of about 41%.

As of October 2024, the study said the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli military action likely exceeds 70,000. The latest numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry put the death toll at 46,006.

Explaining the methodology, the study said it used “capture-recapture methods to estimate total deaths from traumatic injury in the Gaza Strip from Oct 7, 2023, to June 30, 2024. By combining three data lists—official hospital lists, an MoH survey, and social media obituaries—we provide an estimate of mortality that accounts for under-reporting.”

The study accounts only for deaths caused by violence and not indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege and the destruction of medical and other civilian infrastructure.

The figures coming from Gaza’s Health Ministry have been under significant scrutiny from Israeli officials and their supporters in the West. In the early days of the genocidal war, President Biden cast doubt on their accuracy, but a high-level US State Department official later acknowledged the real number of dead was likely higher than what the Health Ministry was reporting.

The number of indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege is unclear but is likely significantly higher than the violent deaths. A letter written by experts and published by The Lancet in July 2024 estimated that if the war ended at that time, the conflict could account for 186,000 deaths, including 37,396 violent deaths (based on June 2024 Health Ministry figures) and indirect deaths.

January 13, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Trident nuclear submarines leave UK reliant on the US, in lockstep with the US.

By Lynn Jamieson and Samuel Rafanell-Williams

The special relationship has meant that UK leaders typically fall in lockstep with US superpower logic, most catastrophically in Iraq, no matter how devastating the consequences.
An important and easily overlooked reason why Westminster is so willing to
do Washington’s bidding is the reliance of our supposedly
“independent” nuclear weapons capability on US military infrastructure
and technology.

The nuclear weapons based on the west coast of Scotland,
are arguably more of a US technology than British. The submarines, whilst
built in Barrow-in-Furness in England, are assembled according to US
blueprints and with US components. The Trident missiles fired by the
submarines are built, supplied and maintained in the US.

The National 10th Jan 2025,
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24846637.trident-nuclear-submarines-leave-uk-reliant-us/

January 13, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Genocide: The New Normal

By Chris Hedges ScheerPost January 7, 2025, https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/07/chris-hedges-genocide-the-new-normal/

Joe Biden’s parting gift of $8 billion in weapons sales to the apartheid state of Israel acknowledges the gruesome reality of the genocide in Gaza. This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. This is a permanent, endless war designed not to destroy Hamas, or free Israeli hostages, but to eradicate, once and for all, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It is the final push to create a Greater Israel, which will include not only Gaza and the West Bank, but chunks of Lebanon and Syria. It is the culmination of the Zionist dream. And it will be paid for with rivers of blood — Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security of Israel Avi Dichter was probably offering conservative estimates when he said “I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor].”

Mass extermination takes time. It is also expensive. Fortunately for Israel, its lobby in the U.S. has a stranglehold on Congress, our electoral process and the media narrative. Americans, although 61 percent support ending weapons shipments to Israel, will pay for it. And those that express dissent will be frog-marched into Zionist black holes where their voices are silenced and their careers jeopardized or destroyed. Donald Trump and the Republicans have an open disdain for democracy, but so do the Democrats and Joe Biden.

The U.S. provided $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024, a substantial increase from the already $3.8 billion in military aid the U.S. gives Israel annually. This is a record for a single year. The State Department has informed Congress that it intends to approve another $8 billion in purchases of U.S.-made arms by Israel. This will provide Israel with more GPS guidance systems for bombs, more artillery shells, more missiles for fighter jets and helicopters, and more bombs, including 2,800 unguided MK-84 bombs, which Israel has a habit of dropping on densely packed tent encampments in Gaza. The pressure wave from the 2,000-pound MK-84 pulverizes buildings and exterminates life within a 400-yard radius. The blast, which ruptures lungs, rips apart limbs and bursts sinus cavities up to hundreds of yards away, leaves behind a 50-foot-wide and 36-foot-deep crater. Israel appears to have used this bomb to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, in Beirut on September 27, 2024.

The genocide, and the decision to fuel it with billions of dollars, marks an ominous turning point. It is a public declaration by the U.S. and its allies in Europe that international and humanitarian law, although blatantly disregarded by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and a generation earlier in Vietnam, is meaningless. We will not even pay lip service to it. This will be a Hobbesian world where nations that have the most advanced industrial weapons make the rules. Those who are poor and vulnerable will kneel in subjugation. The genocide in Gaza is the template for the future. And those in the Global South know it.

The “wretched of the earth” who lack sophisticated weapons, who do not have modern armies, artillery units, missiles, navies, armored units and warplanes, will strike back with crude tools. They will match individual acts of terror against massive campaigns of state terror.

Are we surprised we are hated? Terror begets terror. We saw this in New Orleans where a man who was allegedly inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) killed 14 people when he drove his pickup truck into a crowd on New Year’s Day. We will see more of it. But let’s be clear. We started it. The moral void of the suicide bomber is birthed from our moral void.

Israel’s frustration at the dogged resistance in Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen and Lebanon increases the bloodlust. Members of Israel’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee sent a letter to Minister of Defense Israel Katz, calling on the government to intensify the siege of Gaza.

“Effective control of the territory and the population is the only means towards cleansing enemy lines from the strip, and naturally towards decisive victory, rather than treading [water] in a war of attrition, where the side that is most worn is Israel,” they write. “Therefore we end up inserting our soldiers again and again into neighborhoods and alleys that were already conquered by them many times.”

Israel, the letter reads, must carry out “remote elimination of all energy sources, that is fuel, solar panels and any relevant means (pipes, cables, generators etc.)” It should ensure the “elimination of all food sources including warehouses, water and all relevant means (water pumps etc.)” and it must facilitate the “remote elimination of anyone who moves in the area and does not exit with a white flag during the days of the effective siege.”

The letter concludes that “after these actions and the days of siege upon those who remain, [the] IDF must enter gradually and conduct a full cleansing of the enemy nests…. This should be done in the northern Gaza Strip, and similarly in any other territory: encirclement, evacuation of the population to a humanitarian zone, and effective siege until surrender or full elimination of the enemy. This is how every army acts, and so must the IDF act.”

In short, exterminate the brutes.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old U.S. military veteran who plowed his pick-up truck into a crowd of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans killing 14 people and injuring 35 others, spoke to us in the language we use to speak to the Arab world. Indiscriminate death. The targeting of innocents. The callous indifference to life. The thirst for revenge. The demonization of others. The belief that fate or God or western civilization has decreed that we have a right to impose our vision of the world with violence. Jabbar, who posted videos online in which he professed his support for Islamic State, is our murderous doppelgänger. He will not be the last.

“When a society is dispossessed, when the injustices thrust upon it appear insoluble, when the ‘enemy’ is all-powerful, when one’s own people are bestialised as insects, cockroaches, ‘two-legged beasts,’ then the mind moves beyond reason,” Robert Fisk writes in The Great War for Civilization. “It becomes fascinated in two senses: with the idea of an afterlife and with the possibility that this belief will somehow provide a weapon of more than nuclear potential. When the United States was turning Beirut into a NATO base in 1983, and using its firepower against Muslim guerrillas in the mountains to the east, Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Baalbek were promising that God would rid Lebanon of the American presence. I wrote at the time — not entirely with my tongue in my cheek — that this was likely to be a titanic battle: U.S. technology versus God. Who would win? Then on 23 October 1983 a lone suicide bomber drove a truckload of explosives into the U.S. Marine compound at Beirut airport and killed 241 American servicemen in six seconds…I later interviewed one of the few surviving marines to have seen the bomber. ‘All I can remember,’ he told me, ‘is that the guy was smiling.’

These acts of terrorism, or in the case of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Yemen armed resistance, are used to justify endless mass killing. This Via Dolorosa leads to a global death spiral, especially as the climate crisis reconfigures the planet and international bodies, such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, become hollow appendages.

We are sowing the Middle East with dragon’s teeth and, as in the ancient Greek myth, these teeth are rising from the soil as enraged warriors determined to destroy us.

January 9, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Could AI soon make dozens of billion-dollar nuclear stealth attack submarines more expensive and obsolete?

By Wayne Williams, 5 Jan 25, https://www.techradar.com/pro/could-ai-soon-make-dozens-of-billion-dollar-nuclear-stealth-attack-submarines-more-expensive-and-obsolete

Artificial intelligence can detect undersea movement better than humans.

AI can process far more data from a far more sensors than human operators can ever achieve

But the game of cat-and-mouse means that countermeasures do exist to confuse AI

Increase in compute performance and ubiquity of always-on passive sensors need also be accounted for.

The rise of AI is set to reduce the effectiveness of nuclear stealth attack submarines.

These advanced billion-dollar subs, designed to operate undetected in hostile waters, have long been at the forefront of naval defense. However, AI-driven advancements in sensor technology and data analysis are threatening their covert capabilities, potentially rendering them less effective.

An article by Foreign Policy and IEEE Spectrum now claims AI systems can process vast amounts of data from distributed sensor networks, far surpassing the capabilities of human operators. Quantum sensors, underwater surveillance arrays, and satellite-based imaging now collect detailed environmental data, while AI algorithms can identify even subtle anomalies, such as disturbances caused by submarines. Unlike human analysts, who might overlook minor patterns, AI excels at spotting these tiny shifts, increasing the effectiveness of detection systems.

Game of cat-and-mouse

AI’s increasing role could challenge the stealth of submarines like those in the Virginia-class, which rely on sophisticated engineering to minimize their detectable signatures.

Noise-dampening tiles, vibration-reducing materials, and pump-jet propulsors are designed to evade detection, but AI-enabled networks are increasingly adept at overcoming these methods. The ubiquity of passive sensors and continuous improvements in computational performance are increasing the reach and resolution of these detection systems, creating an environment of heightened transparency in the oceans.

Despite these advances, the game of cat-and-mouse persists, as countermeasures are, inevitably, being developed to outwit AI detection.

These tactics, as explored in the Foreign Policy and IEEE Spectrum piece, include noise-camouflaging techniques that mimic natural marine sounds, deploying uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) to create diversions, and even cyberattacks aimed at corrupting the integrity of AI algorithms. Such methods seek to confuse and overwhelm AI systems, maintaining an edge in undersea warfare.

As AI technology evolves, nations will need to weigh up the escalating costs of nuclear stealth submarines against the potential for their obsolescence. Countermeasures may provide temporary degree of relief, but the increasing prevalence of passive sensors and AI-driven analysis suggests that traditional submarine stealth is likely to face diminishing returns in the long term.

January 7, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | technology, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Biden discussed plans to strike Iran nuclear sites if Tehran speeds toward bomb

Barak Ravid. AXIOS, 2 Jan 25

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan presented President Biden with options for a potential U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities if the Iranians move towards a nuclear weapon before Jan. 20, in a meeting several weeks ago that remained secret until now, three sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios.

Why it matters: A U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear program during the lame duck period would be an enormous gamble from a president who promised he would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, but who would also risk handing a fresh conflict over to his successor. Biden did not green light a strike during the meeting and has not done so since, the sources said.

Biden and his national security team discussed various options and scenarios during the meeting, which took place roughly one month ago, but the president did not make any final decision, according to the sources.A U.S. official with knowledge of the issue said the White House meeting was not prompted by new intelligence or intended to end in a yes or no decision from Biden. Instead, it was part of a discussion on “prudent scenario planning” of how the U.S. should respond if Iran were to take steps like enriching Uranium to 90% purity before Jan. 20, the official said.Another source said there are currently no active discussions inside the White House about possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Behind the scenes: Some of Biden’s top aides have argued internally that two trends —the acceleration of Iran’s nuclear program, and the weakening of Iran and its proxies in their war with Israel — together give Biden an imperative and an opportunity to strike.

The sources said some of Biden’s aides, including Sullivan, think that the degrading of Iran’s air defenses and missile capabilities, along with the significant weakening of Iran’s regional proxies, would improve the odds of a successful strike and decrease the risk of Iranian retaliation and regional escalation.
The U.S. official said Sullivan did not make any recommendation to Biden on the issue, but only discussed scenario planning. The White House declined to comment.

The intrigue: One source said Biden honed in on the question of urgency, and whether Iran had taken steps that justify a dramatic military strike a few weeks before a new president takes office.

The other side: Iran has long denied it is seeking a nuclear weapon and stressed that its nuclear program is only for civilian purposes.

But in recent months, several former and current Iranian officials spoke publicly about the possibility of changing Iran’s nuclear doctrine………………………………………………………. more https://www.axios.com/2025/01/02/iran-nuclear-weapon-biden-white-house

January 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Quiet Crisis Above: Unveiling the Dark Side of Space Militarization

By Justin James McShane, GeopoliticsUnplugged, Nov 28, 2024

Summary:

In this episode, we examine the growing militarization of space, focusing on the development and testing of anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) by various nations, including the U.S., Russia, China, and India. We detail the history of space militarization, from the Cold War to the present, highlighting the dangers of space debris and the inadequacy of existing treaties like the Outer Space Treaty in addressing modern threats. Different types of ASATs are described, both kinetic and non-kinetic, along with electronic warfare systems used for disrupting satellites. We also discuss the lack of international cooperation and robust enforcement mechanisms to prevent an arms race in space, emphasizing the need for new agreements to ensure the peaceful use of outer space. Ultimately, we warn of the potential for space to become a new theater of conflict. cooperation?”………………………………………………….

https://geopoliticsunplugged.substack.com/p/ep93-the-quiet-crisis-above-unveiling-ed9

January 5, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | space travel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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