USA – resuming nuclear tests would wreck the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), with no military or strategic benefit
 The Trump Administration’s Nuclear Test Delusions, Just Security, by Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr. June 10, 2020 Even as the Trump administration continued to struggle to contain the coronavirus in mid-May, White House officials preoccupied themselves with manufacturing a wholly unnecessary threat. On May 15, senior national security officials at an interagency meeting reportedly discussed the possibility of abandoning the longstanding U.S. moratorium on nuclear-weapons testing that has been in place for nearly three decades and is now accepted by the entire world, even North Korea. According to a May 22 report in the Washington Post, the proponents of ending the moratorium argued in the meeting that the United States should resume testing because Russia and China were conducting low-level nuclear-weapons tests, allegations that appear to be based on no evidence.Such tests would bring no military or strategic benefit to the United States. Instead, they would undermine the foundational global agreement that has curbed the spread of nuclear weapons worldwide for more than 50 years, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Such low-level tests would be of little military benefit to Russia and China either, as there is scant information for them to gain that they do not already possess. Thus, even if such tests occurred, they would not represent any kind of significant security threat to the United States. The only conceivable benefit for the United States of resuming a nuclear-weapons testing program would be to create an opportunity for President Donald Trump to somehow distort the value of it and use it as another meaningless political ploy to bolster his campaign for re-election in November……. In 1961, the United Nations unanimously passed the “Irish” Resolution (introduced by Ireland), which called on all states to conclude an international agreement prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional countries. In 1965, another resolution was passed by the U.N. General Assembly calling on nations to negotiate an international treaty to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear weapons, which became the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). China had just completed an initial nuclear-weapons test program, bringing the number of declared nuclear weapon states to five: the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China. This new treaty would be based on five principles, among them a commitment to ultimately abolish nuclear weapons and, in the interim, a balance of obligations among the five nuclear-weapons states and other state parties that thus far had no nuclear weapons. This balance required interim steps toward nuclear disarmament, short of elimination — seen in the depths of the Cold War as a distant objective — in exchange for a commitment that all parties would be permitted to pursue peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The principal interim step was considered to be the worldwide termination of nuclear-weapons tests. (Although the Limited Test Ban Treaty had been negotiated in 1962, led by President John F. Kennedy, and nuclear-weapon tests were prohibited everywhere except underground, by 1968, many tests were being conducted underground.) The NPT was signed in 1968. It was to last for 25 years, after which on a one-time basis, the parties would decide by majority vote how much longer it would exist. The non-nuclear-weapons states in the treaty negotiations had urged the inclusion of a reference to interim steps in the agreement, especially an accord to ban nuclear testing, which became the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The CTBT was looked upon by the non-nuclear-weapons states as the price to be paid by the five states holding nuclear weapons for the others giving up their rights to develop such armaments. Thus, a ban on nuclear testing was essential to the strategic bargain of the NPT. The United States and the Soviet Union would not agree to any interim step in the text of the NPT, with one exception: a reference to the CTBT in the preamble. The two nations also promised that interim steps, including the CTBT, would be negotiated at the treaty review conferences that were required under the agreement every five years……. U.S. President Bill Clinton was the first to sign, and ultimately, the CTBT was signed by 184 states, of which 168 have ratified it. But the Treaty requires that all 44 of those states that had nuclear facilities of any kind on their territories in 1996, called Annex 2 states, must ratify the treaty before it enters into force. Of these Annex 2 states, 36 have ratified—states such as Germany, Japan, Britain, France, and Russia. The eight that have not ratified are the United States and seven others that are more or less waiting for the United States to move forward. Despite having led the negotiations, the United States has been unable to ratify the treaty. The reason is that the Republican Party turned against arms control and disarmament and, ultimately, against peace and diplomacy themselves. . This from a party that once stood at the forefront of arms control and disarmament, with major initiatives such as President Ronald Reagan agreeing with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik to eliminate all nuclear weapons and President George H.W. Bush concluding four such agreements, more than any other president. The Clinton administration submitted the CTBT to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification in 1997. Two years later, in 1999, it was rejected by the Republican-led Senate—led by two senators from the right—Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ). Ever since, Republicans in the Senate have blocked ratification, but the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations informally observed the treaty’s terms. The United States also has abided by Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which obligates a state not to defeat the object and purpose of a treaty that it has signed and that is pending ratification unless and until such state has made its intention clear not to become a party. The United States is not a party to the convention, but has recognized its authority. Thus, it is obligated not to do nuclear-weapons testing of any kind unless it clearly states its intention not to ratify. Doing such a test would certainly defeat the object and purpose of the CTBT, and the United States has made no indication that it intends never to ratify the CTBT. Republican Party, Once Leading on Arms Control, Backs Away In the last decade, elements in the Republican Party have tried to promote the elimination of this obligation and reopen the door to an underground nuclear-weapons testing program. First, Republicans made an argument for years that the United States was observing a CTBT standard of not testing weapons of any yield even though Russia and China never agreed to do the same. But the negotiating record showed Russia and China stating clearly that they recognize the CTBT is a “zero-yield treaty,” and the strength of that record wore down this argument. ……. Now Republicans are back again with a similar argument, only this time adding China. They allege — once again without evidence — that both Russia and China are doing low-level nuclear-weapons tests and benefiting from doing so. Perhaps someone will also bring up again the non-argument that Russia and China have the capability to do this. Apparently one senior official at the recent White House meeting asserted that a demonstration by the United States that it could “rapid test” could be useful in a trilateral nuclear negotiation with Russia and China, a seemingly fruitless position that Trump is trying to pursue in withholding an extension of the New START agreement between the United States and Russia that expires early next year. China has made it clear that it will not participate in such a negotiation. Biden found the idea “delusional.” Notably, the reaction to the report that the Trump administration is considering a resumption of testing was not positive in significant domestic circles either. In its editorial, the Las Vegas Sun also said, “The state endured four decades of nuclear tests – more than 1,000 in all, before testing ceased in 1992 via an international moratorium. We and our downwind neighbors in Utah endured nuclear fallout in above-ground tests during the 1950s and 1960s, and our desert remains irradiated by underground tests conducted later. “We will fight any effort to reopen the door to that dark era…” It is difficult to imagine a greater threat to U.S. national security than for the United States to pursue a nuclear-weapons test program at the present time. Such action would defeat the object and purpose of the CTBT, which means the United States would be turning its back on the essential glue that holds the NPT together. The likely result would be that the NPT would gradually come apart. Other states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Turkey, and Egypt would use the U.S. tests as an excuse to develop their own test programs and to acquire nuclear weapons for a national arsenal. Eventually, in an era when many countries may feel less and less secure as climate change erodes their remaining national assets such as arable land and fresh water, they might see nuclear weapons as more and more attractive. Once the door kept closed by the NPT is opened, we would enter a nightmare world, a risk foreseen by past American statesmen. https://www.justsecurity.org/70654/the-trump-administrations-nuclear-test-delusions/ |
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Continuing court battle against proposed nuclear waste site near Carlsbad
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Legal battle continues against proposed nuclear waste site near Carlsbad, Carlsbad Current Argus, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus June 10, 2020 A planned nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad was challenged in federal court, as opponents sought to appeal a decision by the federal government to reject contentions to the project that would see spent nuclear fuel rods stored temporarily at a location near the Eddy-Lea county line. Beyond Nuclear filed its appeal on June 4 in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, questioning the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s April 23 decision to reject challenges to Holtec International’s application for a license to build and operate a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) that would hold nuclear waste at the surface until a permanent, deep geological repository was available to hold the waste permanently. The facility would store up to 173,000 metric tons of the waste. Such a permanent repository does not exist, and Beyond Nuclear — a non-profit organization that addresses nuclear issues nationwide — worried one wouldn’t be available until 2048. The group also pointed to another NRC order in October 2018 where the NRC deemed contentions inadmissible but argued against both decisions that it said upheld a regulatory process that violated federal law. The licensing process itself was illegal, read NRC’s court filing, because it considered the possibility that the U.S. Department of Energy would take ownership of the waste — a move illegal under federal law unless a permanent repository is available to hold the waste. “This NRC decision flagrantly violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which prohibits an agency from acting contrary to the law as issued by Congress and signed by the President,” said Mindy Goldstein, an attorney for Beyond Nuclear. “The Commission lacks a legal or logical basis for its rationale that it may issue a license with an illegal provision, in the hopes that Holtec or the Department of Energy won’t complete the illegal activity it authorized. The buck must stop with the NRC.”…….. https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2020/06/10/federal-appeal-filed-against-nuclear-waste-site-proposed-near-carlsbad/5317995002/ |
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Delay to community vote on nuclear waste dump for South Bruce, Ontario
 South Bruce council says no to immediate vote on nuclear waste plan, CTV News, Scott Miller, CTV News London Videographer 10 June 20,
TEESWATER, ONT. — South Bruce Mayor Robert Buckle says now is not the time to have a community vote on the possibility of burying nuclear waste near Teeswater.
“Due to the medical crisis we have right now, we cannot have a referendum. Furthermore, we have to make sure that people in South Bruce are familiar with all the pros and cons, because this project is going to have a tremendous effect on our community, not only now but for generations,” he says. The decision on where to bury Canada’s high-level nuclear waste is down to the Municipality of South Bruce, near Teeswater, and Ignace, in Northern Ontario. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is looking for a home for 5.2 million used nuclear fuel bundles, that remain dangerously radioactive for centuries. About 1,300 acres of land north of Teeswater has been optioned by the NWMO, as a potential site to bury the waste, forever. Michelle Stein is a local farmer who lives directly beside the proposed site. She is leading a local group opposed to the plan. Protect our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste presented a petition to South Bruce council with 1,500 local signatures against the project Tuesday night. They’re asking council for a community vote on the nuclear waste plan as soon as possible. “We’re trying to let them know that it’s time for them to listen to their constituents. There’s a lot of us who are not willing to host the nuclear dump. And it’s time the community gets a vote to decide what’s going on,” Stein says. Hundreds took part in a rolling protest of the nuclear waste plan after presenting the petition Tuesday night……. Stein says an online petition in opposition of the project. has garnered over 10,000 signatures from across Canada. https://london.ctvnews.ca/south-bruce-council-says-no-to-immediate-vote-on-nuclear-waste-plan-1.4977788 |
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Russia has nuclear-powered icebreakers. Trump wants USA to have them, too
 Trump Orders Coast Guard To Look Into Building Nuclear-Powered Icebreakers Like Russia. The  memo also calls for examining possible defensive armament options to protect these ships against near-peer threats. The Drive, BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK, JUNE 9, 2020 US. President Donald Trump issued a memorandum on Arctic and Antarctic security today that called on the U.S. Coast Guard to explore the possibility of buying nuclear-powered icebreakers, a type of ship that only Russia operates. The same document orders an assessment of what kind of defensive weapons any future icebreakers might carry, specifically to defend against possible threats from “near-peer competitors,” such as Russia or China. The Coast Guard’s tiny existing icebreaking fleets have been in increasingly desperate need of replacement for years now and the service finally awarded a contract for its first new heavy icebreaker, a conventionally-powered design, in decades just over a year ago.
Trump issued the new Memorandum on Safeguarding U.S. National Interests in the Arctic and Antarctic Regions on June 9, 2020. Despite its more general name, the document is centered entirely on buying icebreakers and related issues. The memo directs the Department of Homeland Security, by way of the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and in cooperation with the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of Energy, to conduct a study of the “benefits and risks of a polar security icebreaking fleet mix that … are appropriately outfitted to meet the objectives of this memorandum.” This is part of a larger assessment of icebreaking requirements that the Secretary of Homeland Security, with help from the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, is now also instructed to conduct……..
nuclear propulsion is costly and complex, and employing it on icebreakers could raise concerns about potential operational and environmental risks for ships that will be primarily operating in regions well known for experiencing extreme weather. Environmental activists have long expressed these concerns with regard to Russia’s nuclear icebreaking fleets, as well as its new floating nuclear powerplants. Taymyr alone has suffered a number of radiation leaks over the years. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33971/trump-orders-coast-guard-to-look-into-building-nuclear-powered-icebreakers-like-russia
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The last major treaty for nuclear weapons control now hangs in the balance
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Nuclear might crux of push for new pact. Treaty expiration would end caps on arms; U.S. envoy says Russia meeting set Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette by PAUL SONNE AND ROBYN DIXON, 10 June 20, THE WASHINGTON POST The last major treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear might hangs in the balance as the Trump administration pushes to replace it with an arms-control pact that also includes China five months before the U.S. presidential election.The New START accord, which restricts the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and certain launch platforms, is set to expire in February. If the Trump administration declines to extend it and the caps disappear, the United States and Russia will be left without any significant limits on their nuclear forces for the first time in decades.
Russia has said it is willing to extend the New START pact unconditionally. But the Trump administration has balked, saying the treaty signed by former President Barack Obama in 2010 is outdated, insufficient and overly advantageous for Moscow. …….. The result is a game of nuclear brinkmanship in the waning days of the Trump administration’s first term…… https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/jun/10/nuclear-might-crux-of-push-for-new-pact/ |
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USA’s failing nuclear industry will not be saved by new plan to stockpile uranium
Will More Uranium Really Solve America’s Nuclear Crisis? Oil Price, By Haley Zaremba – Jun 10, 2020, “…….. Even though the United States is responsible for a whopping third of all nuclear energy production worldwide, the country is quickly losing ground as nuclear plants struggle to turn a profit. Hit hard by the influx of cheap oil and natural gas from the domestic shale revolution, the nuclear energy industry in the U.S. is now being pummeled once again by COVID-19, and this time, many experts are wondering whether the industry can weather the storm.Trump’s dangerous idea on nuclear testing – top Democrats demand answers
Top Democrats demand answers on Trump administration’s ‘unfathomable’ consideration of nuclear testing The Hill BY REBECCA KHEEL – 06/08/20 A group of top House Democrats is demanding answers from the Trump administration on reported conversations within the administration on whether to resume nuclear testing.“It is unfathomable that the administration is considering something so short-sighted and dangerous, and that directly contradicts its own 2018 Nuclear Posture Review,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter Monday to Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Defense Secretary Mark Esper
The posture review, the lawmakers wrote, “which this administration often cites as inviolable, makes clear that ‘the United States will not resume nuclear explosive testing unless necessary to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.’
The letter was signed by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), along with Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces; Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), chairwoman of the Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water; and Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.
The Pentagon declined to comment………
The lawmakers demanded answers to questions by June 22, as well as a briefing by June 25. Questions include under what legal authority and funding testing is being considered, whether the intelligence community is analyzing what the effects of a test would be on U.S. allies and adversaries, and whether there has been any independent assessment requested by the Energy or Defense departments on the need, cost and effect of resuming nuclear testing. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/501687-top-democrats-demand-answers-on-trump-administrations-unfathomable
Nuclear testing ban to be introduced in U.S. Congress
Reps. Steven Horsford and Dina Titus announce nuclear testing ban legislation, 8 NewsNow by: Kaitlyn Olvera Jun 8, 2020, LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Congressman Steven Horsford and Congresswoman Dina Titus have introduced a nuclear testing ban. The Preserving Leadership Against Nuclear Explosives Testing (PLANET) Act, introduced Monday, would prevent President Donald Trump from restarting nuclear weapons testing in Nevada.This legislation “would prevent the Trump administration from restarting explosive nuclear weapons testing by restricting funds for fiscal year 2021 and all previous years from being used for such a purpose,” a release about the legislation stated.
The Washington Post reported the Trump administration had a discussion about conducting a nuclear test with top security officials on May 15, in response to accusations that Russia and China were performing low-yield nuclear tests. This is a claim both countries have denied.
Specifically, the PLANET Act would, according to Rep. Horsford’s office:
- Prohibit the use of funds appropriated in Fiscal Year 2021 or from any previous year to prepare for or to conduct an explosive nuclear test that produces any yield
- Allow for stockpile stewardship activities that are consistent with U.S. law – such as certifying the safety, security and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile – so long as those activities are consistent with the “zero-yield” scope of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)…… https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/reps-steven-horsford-and-dina-titus-announce-nuclear-testing-ban-legislation/
Number two executive of the defunct SCANA Corpto plead guilty to fraud conspiracy in nuclear plant failure
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Top SCANA ex-official to plead guilty to fraud conspiracy in nuclear plant failure https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article243356621.html, BY JOHN MONK
JUNE 08, 2020 The number two executive of the defunct SCANA Corp. — whose top officials engineered the biggest business failure in South Carolina history: the $10 billion V.C. Summer nuclear plant fiasco — has agreed to plead guilty to criminal conspiracy fraud charges in connection with the nuclear failure, according to a document filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Columbia.
The upcoming guilty plea of Stephen A. Byrne, 60, is a centerpiece of a Monday filing involving his alleged criminal actions. He will need to have his guilty plea formally accepted by a U.S. District Court judge before it becomes official. Byrne is charged with conspiring to commit mail fraud, the document said. The document is a motion requesting a stay in a Securities and Exchange civil fraud lawsuit against Byrne and SCANA’s former CEO, Kevin Marsh. That civil lawsuit was filed in February. One big difference between civil and criminal proceedings is that in a criminal proceeding, a defendant can be subject to a prison term. The document alleges that “through intentional and material misrepresentations and omissions, Byrne and others deceived regulators and customers to maintain financing for the (nuclear) project and to financially benefit SCANA.” The Monday filing said there is “an ongoing criminal investigation” and indicated more criminal charges against other former SCANA top officials may be in the offing. |
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Top Democrats promote bill to ban live nuclear tests
Lead Dems back bill to ban live nuclear tests, Defense News, By: Joe Gould 5 June 20, WASHINGTON ― The Senate’s top Democrat, Sen. Chuck Schumer, is co-sponsoring legislation meant to prevent the Trump administration from restarting explosive nuclear weapons testing.
The Preserving Leadership Against Nuclear Explosives Testing, or PLANET, Act, announced Thursday, would bar any funds from being used for such tests. It follows a Washington Post report of high-level discussions around the possibility of doing a “rapid test” ― potentially America’s first live nuclear test since 1992.
The bill is led by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and a longtime arms control advocate on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. While a key administration official has said tests could begin within months if ordered by the president for technical or geopolitical reasons, critics say it could incentivize Russia and China to openly test with little valuable data to show for U.S. tests…….. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/06/04/lead-dems-back-bill-to-ban-live-nuclear-tests/
If he wins election, Joe Biden would restore Iran nuclear deal
Biden would restore nuclear deal if he wins elections: George 
Washington University professor, By Javad Heirannia Tehran Times, June 7, 2020
Professor Askari, who served as special advisor to Saudi finance minister, also says a Democratic president “would set about undoing Trump’s foreign policy errors.”
Following is the text of the interview:…………………..
Q: If Joe Biden is elected the next president of the United States, will he change his approach toward China? Also, what would be his approach to Iran and the nuclear deal in general?
A: I think a Biden, or for that matter any Democratic President, would set about undoing Trump’s foreign policy errors. Yes, he would try to chart a new course with China. Tough but with a plan that is step by step to restore workable relations. Not a series of disjointed reactions to the moment in time. He would restore, or rejoin, the nuclear agreement with Iran. But now he would want an extension of the time that Iran could resume for nuclear research and have breakout capabilities. In this way, he would appear as tough but at the same time reduce tensions in the Persian Gulf and America’s military exposure around the world. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/448604/Biden-would-restore-nuclear-deal-if-he-wins-elections-George
Trump tells Iran they should get “a better deal” with him now, before the U.S. election
Urging Iran to ‘Make the Big Deal,’ Trump Ties Nuclear Negotiations to Election, The president’s invitation came as international inspectors were said to have found that Iran had boosted its stockpile of low-enriched uranium in the past three months.
Aides to Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Trump declined to explain why, if the United States was negotiating in its own national interest, Iran might get preferential treatment for negotiating with Mr. Trump before the election……
“We had a deal when you entered office,” Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, responded to Mr. Trump in a tweet on Friday. Iran and the other participants in the 2015 agreement — Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, Russia and China — “never left the table,” he said. “Your advisers — most fired by now — made a dumb bet. Up to you to decide *when* you want to fix it.”
Hesameddin Ashena, the top policy adviser to President Hassan Rouhani of Iran also responded. “You are going down on November 3rd and we know that,” he tweeted. “So you’ll need to offer much more than Obama did!”…….. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear.html
Legal challenge to “Interim” storage of nuclear wastes, before permanent disposal determined
Holtec’s interim nuclear waste application challenged in court, BY THERESA DAVIS / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER, AlbuquerquebJournal, June 6th, 2020
Holtec International’s proposed nuclear waste interim storage facility in southeast New Mexico faces a new legal challenge.
Anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear filed a petition for review Thursday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The group asks for review of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s rejection of their petitions.
The group alleges that the NRC cannot issue Holtec a license because the company’s application includes a provision that the U.S. Department of Energy may be the owner of the facility’s nuclear waste. The group says approval would violate the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
That law prevents the government from taking ownership of nuclear waste from private utilities before a permanent repository is in operation. The government has yet to open such a site.
“The reason that provision is in the NWPA is to protect a state like New Mexico from being forced to store this waste before a permanent repository is opened,” said Kevin Kamps, a radioactive waste specialist with Beyond Nuclear. “(Holtec has) now added a clause that includes ‘and/or nuclear utilities’ in the list of potential customers. That was good enough for the NRC, apparently.”
Beyond Nuclear presented its petition to NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. In April, the NRC upheld that board’s dismissal of the petition.
An April 23 NRC order says Holtec “hopes Congress will change the (NWPA) law to allow DOE to enter into temporary storage contracts with Holtec.”………
The petition alleges that the NRC is also violating the Administrative Procedure Act.
“Agencies have to work with what Congress gave (them),” said Mindy Goldstein, an attorney for Beyond Nuclear and the director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at the Emory University School of Law. “We feel NRC is stepping around that requirement. Congress has said that DOE can’t own this waste.”
The proposed facility would store spent nuclear fuel in 500 canisters on a 1,000-acre site between Carlsbad and Hobbs. The full project could store 10,000
Many $billions for U.S. Air Force’s new nuclear weapons
The Air Force Is Getting Ready To Receive New Nuclear Weapons, National Interest, David Axe, 5 June 20, Here’s What You Need To Remember: Now the command is in the beginning of a modernization effort costing tens of billions of dollars. New B-21 stealth bombers are slated to supplant the B-1s and B-2s starting in the mid-2020s. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent rocket, a replacement for the 1960s-vintage Minuteman, is in development.
The U.S. Air Force’s nuclear command says it’s about to undergo a major reorganization as it prepares to field new bombs, missiles, bombers and rockets.
Air Force Global Strike Command stood up in 2009 as the successor to Strategic Air Command, which maintained around-the-clock nuclear alerts during the Cold War.
Today the command’s 34,000 personnel oversee 20 B-2 stealth bombers, 76 B-52 bombers and 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles together capable of delivering thousands of nuclear warheads.
It also operates 62 B-1 bombers that do not have a nuclear mission.
AFGSC’s forces comprise the aerial and ground “legs” of the United States’s atomic triad, which also includes the U.S. Navy’s submarine-launched Trident ballistic missiles.
The command’s forces are capable of extinguishing essentially all life on Earth within a matter of hours.
Accidents and misbehavior marred AFGSC’s early years. In 2014 ICBM crews got caught cheating on tests. In 2018 security forces at Minot Air Force Base, home to a portion of the Minuteman fleet, lost track of some of their weapons. The suicide rate is high in the atomic force.
Now the command is in the beginning of a modernization effort costing tens of billions of dollars. New B-21 stealth bombers are slated to supplant the B-1s and B-2s starting in the mid-2020s. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent rocket, a replacement for the 1960s-vintage Minuteman, is in development.
The new Long-Range Stand-Off Weapon, a nuclear-tipped cruise missile, will replace the B-52’s current nuclear cruise missiles. The bomber fleet is getting a refurbished model of its main atomic gravity bomb, the B-61. The missile wings’ security forces are swapping out their five-decade-old UH-1 helicopters for new MH-139s……….https://news.yahoo.com/air-force-getting-ready-receive-060000340.html
Trump wants a nuclear test – adding to the sickness of the world
Trump apparently wants a nuclear test. It could be bad for your health. https://thebulletin.org/2020/06/trump-apparently-wants-a-nuclear-test-it-could-be-bad-for-your-health/#Sara Z. Kutchesfahani
June 5, 2020 In recent weeks, the Trump administration reportedly discussed the possibility of doing something the United States has not done since 1992: resuming explosive testing of nuclear weapons. Since the creation of the nuclear bomb, at least eight nations have detonated 2,056 nuclear test explosions at test sites around the world. Ten years ago, Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto created an informative but scary time-lapse map depicting all of these explosions. In it, each nation gets a flashing dot on the map whenever it detonates a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen.
While the story begins in 1945 with the first ever nuclear weapon test (code-named Trinity), the real action comes in 1962, when there were 178 tests globally, more than in any other year. Not only is the rapid rate alarming, but where they happened—mainly on the lands of indigenous people—is also shocking.
A US resumption of nuclear tests would send a bad signal to other countries and prompt them to test and create their own nuclear weapons. Moreover, innocent bystanders could be exposed to the radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion. Tens of thousands of people have been afflicted by leukemia, thyroid cancer, miscarriages, and severe birth defects as a result of past nuclear testing in the United States alone.
Half of the 2,056 nuclear tests were conducted by one country alone: the United States. Yes, that’s right: the total number of US-conducted tests stands at 1,030, which is more than the number of tests done by the other seven nuclear testing countries combined. Most of the explosions took place at the height of the Cold War in a series of tit-for-tat exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Even before the banner year of 1962, nuclear testing was already out of control. In 1954, the United States carried out Castle Bravo, the most powerful US nuclear weapon test (and its first thermonuclear weapon, also known as an H-bomb). The 1961 Soviet Tsar Bomba (“King of Bombs”) detonation, though, remains the most powerful human-made explosion in history. Tsar Bomba created an explosion equivalent to 50 megatons of TNT. Let’s pause for a moment for a mathematical intermission to put this yield into perspective.
1 ton = 1,000 kilograms, or 2,200 pounds of explosives
1 kiloton = 1,000 tons, or about 2,200,000 pounds
1 megaton = 1,000,000 tons, or about 2,200,000,000 pounds
The biggest conventional bomb in the US arsenal = 11 tons of TNT
Little Boy (Hiroshima) = 16 kilotons of TNT
Fat Man (Nagasaki) = 20 kilotons of TNT
Castle Bravo = 15 megatons of TNT (roughly 1,000 times more powerful than the Little Boy bomb)
Tsar Bomba = 50 megatons of TNT (roughly 10 times the total explosive power unleashed in all of World War Two, including both the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
Each and every above-ground nuclear explosion spread radioactive materials throughout the atmosphere. Once the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty took effect in 1963, many of the tests moved underground, but those still sometimes leaked radioactive materials into the atmosphere. The overall effect was the contamination of the air and soil where people live and work—some of which is still around today.
While testing continued throughout the Cold War, it came to a gradual halt by 1992, such that by 1993, negotiations for a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty began. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is an international treaty banning all nuclear explosions for both civilian and military purposes, in all environments, but it has yet to enter into force. Although the United States has not ratified the treaty, it and all other nuclear weapon states (apart from North Korea), have honored the test ban. Perhaps maybe until now.
Why should the average person care about all this? Well, because there was and is an enormous human cost of nuclear weapons testing. If you go back and watch the Hashimoto video, you’ll notice none of the 1,030 US tests were conducted anywhere near Washington, DC. Likewise, none of the Soviet, French, or British tests were carried out around Moscow, Paris, or London. Instead, the explosions took place mainly on the lands of indigenous people, such as in the Marshall Islands, or in some cases, in the country’s own backyard, such as in New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada.
Nuclear testing ignores the voices of those who are tangibly affected by it. The human cost of nuclear weapons testing, from environmental contamination to the exploitation of powerless communities, has largely been overlooked. When the United Sates opened a nuclear testing site near Las Vegas, the people who lived downwind of the test site were assured that only a safe level of radiation could reach them. Yet, sheep started getting sick. They had burns on their faces and lips and blisters on their bodies. Ewes miscarried. Many lambs were born deformed or too weak to nurse. Around 20,000 sheep in total—a quarter of the herds in southern Utah and Nevada—died.
If that was the effect on sheep, imagine the effect on humans. Cancers associated with radiation exposure (including leukemia and thyroid cancer) were all too common. Women suffered from miscarriages. Those who didn’t miscarry gave birth to babies with severe birth defects, some of which were so severe that the infants didn’t look human. In 1990, US Congress created the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to help rectify these injustices. To date, over 36,000 people have claimed benefits from the fund, giving a sense of the scale of the harm. But this is a lower limit. An independent study has estimated that radiation from testing caused more than 340,000 excess American deaths between 1951 and 1973.
The harms are not just a thing of the past: Utah “downwinders” are still suffering and dying as a result of health effects from nuclear tests conducted upwind in Nevada decades ago. One such downwinder is Mary Dickson, who has seen friends and family die of cancer, and has even had her own battles with it. In 2007, she wrote Exposed—an unpublished screenplay based on a true story about her sister, a fellow downwinder, and her deteriorating health due to the effects of the above-ground nuclear tests.
I’ve had the privilege of reading Exposed, and it is superb. Dickson pieces together the historical nuclear nuggets in such a compelling way that it not only deserves a thorough and careful read, but also a viewing, with tissues at hand. It is extremely powerful and personal, so much that anyone reading or watching it would be outraged by the Trump administration’s latest proclamations to resume nuclear testing. (The Players Club in New York had planned to stage a reading of the play in May 2020 on the sidelines of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, but unfortunately these plans were put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.) One of the most dramatic lines of the play reads, “The hardest thing is not the dying. It’s that the dead are so easily forgotten. We’re fighting for all of them. So their lives will serve as a warning. So it won’t happen again.”
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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