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Trump’s Impact on Nuclear Proliferation,  Treating Foreign Policy as a Business

Trump’s Impact on Nuclear Proliferation,  Treating Foreign Policy as a Business, Just Security,  by Tamsin Shaw, November 18, 2020   Donald Trump has never been known for his visionary foreign policy and yet his presidency will leave the world transformed. In an age of disinformation, the precise nature of the changes he has brought about in global affairs can be elusive, particularly when those changes have resulted from his administration’s clandestine negotiations with Russian officials and businessmen. While America has been focused on the ways in which the Kremlin interfered to support Trump in the 2016 election, too little attention has been paid to what Moscow intended to get out of a Trump presidency or indeed what they got.

From the earliest days of the campaign right up until the present day, Trump and his associates have tried to conduct foreign policy through the genre they know best: the business deal. Since they didn’t use the usual government channels for foreign affairs, unless we have official investigations we won’t know exactly what transpired in these dealings. But there is one area — nuclear energy — in which it seems clear that Russia stands to benefit from these transactions at the expense not only of US interests, but also those of Ukraine and of global nonproliferation more generally. This could present serious challenges to any attempts the Biden administration might make to reconstruct a stable nonproliferation regime.

The impetus for Trump 2016 campaign associates and Trump administration officials to make nuclear energy deals has come in large part from the interest of the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, in nuclear power. And the lure of Saudi billions has created financial incentives that have eclipsed non-proliferation concerns.  ……..

An examination of two separate sets of negotiations reveals distinct forms of corruption and geopolitical risk involved in Trump associates’ nuclear energy deals. The first, led by Trump’s first National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, but also implicating other members of Trump’s inner circle, involved openly courting Russia to participate in a nuclear energy deal that would likely further Russian interests at the expense of Ukraine’s. The second, which involved an attempt to purchase nuclear company Westinghouse, was led by Trump’s close associate and former Middle East adviser, Tom Barrack. It didn’t explicitly include Russia, but it was thwarted by Jared Kushner for unknown reasons, and it now appears that Russia may have secretly been a chief beneficiary of the alternative deal that was ultimately made…….

international nuclear security has already been profoundly shaken by a few stamps of Trump’s foot. That includes his withdrawal from three international arrangements — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran’s nuclear program, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia, and the Open Skies Treaty that permitted verification of nuclear agreements — as well as his potential withdrawal from the U.S. Bilateral Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation. These extraordinary steps have collectively transformed the nuclear landscape. In June of this year he even threatened to restart nuclear testing……..

since 2016, Trump and his team have treated the international nuclear order as if it were cheap real estate in a former Soviet republic: rich in opportunities for deals, liberatingly deficient in enforceable laws and norms. Their secret bargaining over nuclear security has compounded the damage done by Trump’s highly visible unraveling of non-proliferation agreements.

Dispensing with International Regulations

The initial efforts by members of the Trump administration to strike a lucrative nuclear deal were reportedly made by General Michael Flynn. These were detailed in a report by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform under the late Elijah Cummings, in July 2019, entitled “Corporate and Foreign Interests Behind White House Push to Transfer U.S. Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia.” It exposed a concerted attempt by Trump administration officials to broker nuclear power deals in the Middle East, commenting that the attempt “virtually obliterated the lines normally separating government policymaking from corporate and foreign interests.”

The Cummings report exposed several attempts by Trump associates to get Saudi financial backing for a plan that involved building nuclear power plants in a block of Middle Eastern countries deemed potentially friendly to the interests of the United States and Israel………….. https://www.justsecurity.org/73422/trumps-impact-on-nuclear-proliferation/

November 19, 2020 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

For Joe Biden – an early trial problem – the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

The New Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Will Be an Early Trial for Biden, World Politics Review, Miles A. Pomper Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020,      With support from nearly half the world’s nations, a new United Nations treaty banning the possession and use of nuclear weapons will take effect early next year. The U.N. confirmed last month that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or TPNW, had been ratified by the required 50 countries. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it “a tribute to the survivors of nuclear explosions and tests, many of whom advocated for this treaty.”

Many non-nuclear-armed states, as well as pro-disarmament activists and organizations like the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, have celebrated the agreement, which they see as a milestone in global efforts to prevent nuclear war. However, it has drawn strong opposition from nuclear-armed states, especially the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. The Trump administration has called on the treaty’s 84 signatories to back out of it. Its entry into force on Jan. 22, 2021, will pose a thorny diplomatic challenge for the incoming Biden administration………..

In the case of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions, the major possessors of these arsenals, such as the United States and Russia, helped draft and build support for the pacts. However, the TPNW was drawn up by non-nuclear-armed states over the objections of nuclear powers. The initiative reflected the frustration of non-nuclear-weapons states with what they contended was the failure of their nuclear-armed counterparts to uphold their end of the “grand bargain” at the heart of the NPT. That bargain calls on the non-nuclear-weapon states to permanently renounce nuclear arms in exchange for access to peaceful nuclear technology and a commitment by nuclear powers to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures” toward nuclear disarmament. ………

November 19, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, politics international | Leave a comment

Could a mad, unhinged US president, push the nuclear button?

Could a mad, unhinged US president, push the nuclear button?  From JFK and the Cuban crisis, to Nixon and Watergate, to now: the sum of all fears, is still carried in a suitcase, By DAVE MAKICHUK, NOVEMBER 19, 2020  “I had no idea we had so many weapons … what do we need them for?”

— A stunned President Bush, after his first briefing on US nuclear forces

It is the elephant in the room.

And it is a very big elephant, and, a very big room.

We are living in a very surreal time, that much we know. Officials would even say, challenging — I would even say, it’s a bit worse than that.

We have a US president who still believes he won the election, despite the fact he clearly lost.

He imagines bizarre conspiracy theories, things that one can’t even comprehend, as proof that the 2020 election was

rigged.

Yet, there isn’t one iota of evidence to back up President Trump’s claims.

He is, without question, angry, in denial and — most importantly — vengeful to those who served him, whom he thinks

let him down.

All in all, it paints a picture of a man, who only cares about himself …. not the will of the people, not the country, and

not the office of the White House.A man with his finger on the nuclear trigger.

The exact opposite, in fact, of one President John F. Kennedy, who, after a meeting with the Joint Chiefs during the

Cuban missile crisis, dominated by gung-ho Air Force General Curtis LeMay, who destroyed Tokyo in a deliberate
firebombing — men, women, children, anything that walked — thought they’d all lost their minds.  ……… https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/could-a-mad-unhinged-us-president-push-the-nuclear-button/

November 19, 2020 Posted by | election USA 2020, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Anti-Nuclear Pacifists Get Federal Prison Terms for Nonviolent Protest

Anti-Nuclear Pacifists Get Federal Prison Terms for Nonviolent Protest, Reader Supported News , By Elise Swain, The Intercept, 17 November 2   The most dedicated peace activists you’ve never heard of are headed to federal prison amid a deadly pandemic.
ach weekend, while New York City’s East Village packs into sidewalk tables for brunch, activist Carmen Trotta leads a vigil for ending the U.S.-backed war in Yemen in Tompkins Square Park. He only has a few more Saturday mornings before he must report to federal prison, along with fellow activists from Plowshares, the anti-nuclear, Christian pacifist movement. Despite a lethal pandemic ravaging prison populations, Trotta, Martha Hennessy, Clare Grady, and Patrick O’Neill are due to report to prison within the next few months for activism against a suspected nuclear weapons depot.

More than two years ago, Trotta and Hennessy, two of seven activists known as the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven, peacefully broke into the naval base in Brunswick, Georgia — risking their own lives to protest the suspected nuclear arsenal housed within. Armed only with vials of their own blood, hammers, GoPro cameras, spray paint, protest banners, and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg’s book, the activists symbolically attempted to disarm the nuclear weapons located on the Trident submarines at the base.

The nonviolent direct action took place on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Far out of the spotlight of major media coverage, all but one of the activists have quietly been sentenced in their faith-based battle with the U.S. government over the “immoral” possession of nuclear weapons. The activists were charged with three felonies — conspiracy, destruction of government property, depredation — and misdemeanor trespassing.

The sentencing — sending aging activists to federal prisons amid the coronavirus pandemic — fits squarely within the long history of the U.S. government throwing the book at people of conscience who dare to dissent. President Donald Trump’s acceleration of heavy-handed federal charges against protesters have drawn critical media attention.

Yet activists like those in the Plowshares community, whose protests garner less attention, are suffering at the hands of a bipartisan consensus on harsh crackdowns related to direct action against so-called defense policies. Under the rubric of national security, the persecutions of figures like Chelsea Manning, Daniel Everette Hale, or Reality Winner become polarized or fail to raise public ire, when they are noticed at all.

That was the case last week, when few took note of the latest Plowshares sentences. Trotta, 58; Hennessy, 65; along with Grady, 62, were sentenced by Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in individual virtual court sessions. Trotta got 14 months, Grady was given 12 months and one day, and Hennessy was sentenced to 10 months; all were ordered to pay restitution and were given years of supervised release. As cases of Covid-19 engulfed Georgia, the defendants reluctantly agreed to proceed with their sentencing without appearing in person. Only Mark Colville, 59, has yet to be sentenced. Colville refuses to travel to Georgia because of the coronavirus and will not give up his constitutional right to an in-person sentencing before the court.  ………….. https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/66270-anti-nuclear-pacifists-get-federal-prison-terms-for-nonviolent-protest

November 19, 2020 Posted by | Legal, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Unanswered questions cloud the future of NuScam’s Small Modular Nuclear Reactor project

Questions Remain About ID Nuclear Reactor Project  https://www.upr.org/post/questions-remain-about-id-nuclear-reactor-project

By NORTHERN ROCKIES NEWS SERVICE  16 Nov 20, •  Questions are being raised about the future of NuScale Power’s Idaho project to bring nuclear energy to cities in the Mountain West.

NuScale‘s small, modular reactor design is the first of its kind to be approved in the United States. The new, compact concept is made up of 12 small reactors and will be located at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Sarah Fields, program director with the group Uranium Watch, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to scrutinize the project carefully. In particular, she said she’s concerned about a proposal for fewer people to oversee the project.

“They want to reduce the number of operators, and that’s just to save money,” said Fields. “And the NRC is undergoing a review of that.”.

NuScale said the project needs fewer operators because of its design is simpler and the controls involve more automation. The NRC is reviewing the proposal, which could involve policy changes since the approval process is based on conventional nuclear power plant designs.

The NRC has approved the Design Certification Application for the project in its current form. But Fields said the agency still has to authorize certain aspects of the design.

One NRC engineer has raised questions about dilution of boron water around reactor cores, which could cause a dangerous power surge even if the reactor is shut down. Fields said it could be hard to make modifications once aspects of the design are approved.

“It’s like designing a house,” said Fields. “And once you want to change one thing about the house, then you have to make all different kinds of adjustments. And then, get approvals from that.”

November 17, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Prison, big fines, for Catholic anti nuclear activists

November 17, 2020 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has filed a second lawsuit to stop bailout of nuclear reactors

November 17, 2020 Posted by | legal, USA | 1 Comment

USA looks to get $18billion now, maybe $40billion later, in flogging off nuclear reactors to Poland

November 17, 2020 Posted by | EUROPE, marketing, USA | Leave a comment

American universities in the US nuclear weapons complex

US universities should reject, not invest in, nuclear weapons  Schools of mass destruction  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/11/15/schools-of-mass-destruction/

American universities in the US nuclear weapons complex

An ICAN report

Universities across the United States are identified in this report for activities ranging from directly managing laboratories that design nuclear weapons to recruiting and training the next generation of nuclear weapons scientists. Much of universities’ nuclear weapons work is kept secret from students and faculty by classified research policies and undisclosed contracts with the Defense Department and the Energy Department.  The following is the executive summary from ICAN’s report: Schools of Mass Destruction, with some changes made for timeliness.   Posted on November 15, 2020 by beyondnuclearinternational

Over the next ten years, the Congressional Budget Office estimates U.S. taxpayers will pay nearly $500 billion to maintain and modernize their country’s nuclear weapons arsenal, or almost $100,000 per minute. A separate estimate brings the total over the next 30 years to an estimated $1.7 trillion. In a July 2019 report, National Nuclear Security Administrator Lisa Gordon-Haggerty wrote, “The nuclear security enterprise is at its busiest since the demands of the Cold War era.”

In addition to large amounts of funding, enacting these upgrades requires significant amounts of scientific, technical and human capital. To a large extent, the U.S. government and its contractors have turned to the nation’s universities to provide this capital.

At the same time, the United States is shirking its previous commitments to nuclear arms control and reducing nuclear risks despite its obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue good-faith measures towards nuclear disarmament.

In August 2019, the United States officially withdrew from the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, testing a treaty-prohibited missile shortly thereafter. The Trump Administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review expanded the circumstances under which the United States would consider the first use of nuclear weapons and called for the development of two new sea-based low-yield nuclear weapon systems.

Internationally, many member states of the United Nations have recognized the devastating humanitarian and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons: debating, adopting, signing and now ratifying the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Despite these debates, U.S. universities have continued to build connections to the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Although students and faculty have opposed university participation in nuclear weapons research and development at various points in the last 70 years, such participation continues.

Universities involve themselves in the nuclear weapons complex through the four channels listed below. In return for this engagement, universities receive funding, access to research facilities, and specific career opportunities for students.

1) Direct Management

A handful of universities directly manage nuclear weapons related activities on behalf of the federal government, retaining contracts worth billions of dollars per year collectively. These include the University of California, Texas A&M University, Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Rochester.

2) Institutional Partnerships

Many of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) sites advertise collaborative agreements with local and national universities. These formal agreements allow the institutions to cooperate on research and share personnel and expertise. They can also provide university researchers access to funding and advanced facilities in the NNSA laboratories. The report highlights more than 30 such agreements with schools in 18 states.

3) Research Programs and Partnerships

In addition to formal institutional partnerships, numerous connections exist between universities and the nuclear weapons complex at the research project level. In a report delivered to Congress in July 2019, the NNSA highlights that more than $65 million in grants were delivered to academic institutions in the last year to support stockpile stewardship. When including grants and subcontracts from the NNSA labs as well, the total amount of funding to universities for research may be higher than $150 million per year.

4) Workforce Development Programs

Former Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry has written that finding “the next generation workforce of world-class scientists, engineers and technicians is a major priority.” Through university partnerships, vocational training programs and research fellowships, the NNSA creates employment pipelines for the development of its future workforce.

A primary goal of this report is to facilitate a shared understanding of university connections to nuclear weapons research and development. A common factual basis will help communities of university faculty, students and administrations engage in robust internal debates and take action. Universities would not willingly participate today in the production of chemical and biological weapons; for the same humanitarian reasons, no university should seek an association with the other category of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons.

While American universities have played a key role in the development and continuation of nuclear weapons, they can now join U.S. cities and states that have rejected U.S. nuclear weapons and called on the federal government to support nuclear reductions and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In light of the research presented,  this report offers the following recommendations to universities:

Recommendations

• Provide greater transparency into connections with the nuclear weapons complex;

• Stop directly managing nuclear weapons production sites and dissolve research contracts solely related to nuclear weapons production;

• For contracts with dual-purpose research applications, demand greater transparency and create specific processes for ethical review of this research;

• Advocate for reinvestment of weapons activities funding to non-proliferation and environmental remediation efforts; and

• Join cities and state legislatures in urging the federal government to support the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and reverse course on nuclear arms control backsliding.

See the full list of universities.

The above is the Executive Summary of ICAN’s report on US Universities. Read the full report. Beyond Nuclear is a member of ICAN.

November 16, 2020 Posted by | Education, USA | Leave a comment

The human impact of ”Trinity” and a thousand other nuuclear bomb tests on American soil

November 16, 2020 Posted by | health, PERSONAL STORIES, Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The nuclear perils of Trump’s last days

Caligula Goes Covid: Nuclear Perils of Trump’s Last Days,   Modern Diplomacy  November 15, 2020, By Prof. Louis René Beres

“The air tonight is as heavy as the sum of human sorrows.”-Albert Camus, Caligula

It is no longer just hyperbole. Still armed with nuclear weapons, a conspicuously deranged American president may be willing to do anything to cling to power. And if that willingness should appear futile, Donald J. Trump could conceivably prefer apocalypse to “surrender.”[1]

Credo quia absurdum, said the ancient philosophers. “I believe because it is absurd.” In these presumptively final days of the Trump presidency, an impaired or irrational nuclear command decision remains possible. Though nothing can  be determined about the true mathematical probability of any such once unimaginable scenario,[2] there are increasingly compelling reasons for concern. One of these reasons is Mr. Trump’s bizarre eleventh-hour shakeup at the Department of Defense.

 Americans have let these urgent matters drift too long. Nonetheless, despite evident lateness of the hour, a summarizing query must finally be raised: Should this visibly impaired president still be allowed to decide when and where to launch American nuclear weapons? This is not a silly or trivial question.

In the early days of the Nuclear Age, when strategic weapon-survivability was still uncertain, granting presidential authority for immediate firing command was necessary to ensure credible nuclear deterrence. Today, however, when there no longer exists any reasonable  basis to doubt America’s durable second-strike nuclear capability (sometimes also called an “assured destruction” or undiminished retaliatory capability), there remains no good argument for continuing to grant the  president (any president) such potentially problematic decisional authority.

More general questions should now also be raised.

In our expansively imperiled democracy, ought any American president be permitted to hold such precarious life or death power over the entire country?

Inter alia, could such an allowance still be consistent with a Constitutional  “separation of powers?”

Can anyone reasonably believe that such existential power could ever have been favored by America’s Founding Fathers?

The correct answers are apparent, obvious and starkly uncomplicated.

We can readily extrapolate from Articles I and II of the Constitution that the Founders had  profound concern about Presidential power long before the advent of nuclear weapons. This concern predates even any imagination of apocalyptic warfare possibilities.[3]  So what next?…………………..

At this grievous point in America’s Trump-created declension, anything seems possible.

History deserves pride of place. Soon, any such disregard for plausible national harms could prove unconscionable. In the chaotic 1st century CE, long before political democracy could ever seem sustainable[12] and long before nuclear weapons, Roman Emperor Caligula revealed the overwhelmingly lethal costs of barbarous governance.

Today, a democratically defeated American president, clinging wrongfully to political power and expressing this egregious dereliction during a period of “plague,” could produce even less bearable costs.  At that nation-destroying point, the “air would be as heavy as the sum of human sorrows.”

History may not repeat itself, observed Mark Twain, “but it often rhymes.” Donald J. Trump may not be quite as decadent or depraved as Caligula,  but he may not be that far removed either. Credo quia absurdum, warned the ancient Romans. “I believe because it is absurd.”

Donald J. Trump is not Caligula, but he is a sinister stain upon the integrity and survival of the United States.  https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/11/15/caligula-goes-covid-nuclear-perils-of-trumps-last-days/

November 16, 2020 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

We should require a second voice when it comes to ordering first use of nuclear arms

A Nuclear Strike Should Require More than One Person’s Order.   We should require a second voice when it comes to ordering first use of nuclear arms. Defense One,        BY STEVEN PIFER    FELLOW, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, NOVEMBER 12, 2020.    Donald Trump has proven to be volatile, erratic, vengeful and prone to angry outbursts. Last week, as the vote count pushed his reelection bid out of sight, he reportedly fell into a dark mood. At the time, Mr. Trump had—and now has—sole authority to order the launch of U.S. nuclear weapons, just as he had in October, when his medications for COVID had side effects including mania, euphoria and a sense of invulnerability.

Do we want Mr. Trump, or any president, alone making the most consequential decision that an American president likely would ever make?
As a Foreign Service officer working on arms control, I had the opportunity to get close to nuclear weapons on three occasions. One involved viewing, through a thick, shatter-proof window, two technicians working on a warhead for a Trident ballistic missile. Our escort noted that, should one leave the room, the other would also have to leave. A “two-man” rule applied around nuclear weapons.

Another time, on a Los Angeles-class attack submarine, our group saw a nuclear-armed cruise missile in its canister with an attached cable. Ship’s officers explained that, if the canister moved slightly, alarms would sound and other sailors would quickly arrive, some with weapons. A “two- (or more) man” rule applied.

The third time, on board an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine at sea, I was offered the chance to climb into a Trident missile (yes, that is possible, and yes, I did). When the hatch to the missile was open, standard protocol provided for the presence of two armed sailors. Again, the “two-man” rule.

As a Foreign Service officer working on arms control, I had the opportunity to get close to nuclear weapons on three occasions. One involved viewing, through a thick, shatter-proof window, two technicians working on a warhead for a Trident ballistic missile. Our escort noted that, should one leave the room, the other would also have to leave. A “two-man” rule applied around nuclear weapons.

Another time, on a Los Angeles-class attack submarine, our group saw a nuclear-armed cruise missile in its canister with an attached cable. Ship’s officers explained that, if the canister moved slightly, alarms would sound and other sailors would quickly arrive, some with weapons. A “two- (or more) man” rule applied.

The third time, on board an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine at sea, I was offered the chance to climb into a Trident missile (yes, that is possible, and yes, I did). When the hatch to the missile was open, standard protocol provided for the presence of two armed sailors. Again, the “two-man” rule.

At only one level does the “two-man” rule not apply: the president, as commander-in-chief, has sole authority to order the use of U.S. nuclear arms. There is not even a requirement that the president consult someone. The always nearby “football” carries the briefing materials, codes and communications allowing the president to launch nuclear weapons. Were the president give the order, the system would rapidly transmit it. Intercontinental ballistic missiles could blast out of their silos within minutes.

If nuclear weapons are used first against America or its allies, it makes sense to allow the president sole authority to order a nuclear response. However, current U.S. policy envisages the possibility that the United States would use nuclear weapons first, perhaps in a conventional conflict that goes badly or in response to a non-nuclear strategic attack. (Whether U.S. first use makes sense is a separate question.)

When President-elect Biden takes office, we can breathe easier. Nothing guarantees, however, that a future president might not have something more like Mr. Trump’s temperament—and he reportedly is mulling a 2024 run.

We should require a second voice when it comes to ordering first use of nuclear arms………..  https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/11/nuclear-strike-should-require-more-one-persons-orders/170004/

November 16, 2020 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Quite a lot of hurdles for NuScam’s Utah project, and only 27 of UAMPS members signed up

November 16, 2020 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Julian Assange ‘targeted as a political opponent of Trump administration and threatened with the death penalty’

Julian Assange ‘targeted as a political opponent of Trump administration and threatened with the death penalty’ Evening Standard. By Tristan Kirk. @kirkkorner

09 September 2020,   Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been targeted as a “political opponent” of President Trump’s administration and threatened with the death penalty, the Old Bailey heard today.

Professor Paul Rogers, a lecturer in peace studies at Bradford University and specialist on the ‘War on Terror’, said Assange’s opinions put him “in the crosshairs” of Trump’s top team.

Giving evidence to Assange’s extradition hearing this morning, he said he believes the prosecution case is part of a drive in the United States to target “dissenters”.

“In my opinion Mr Assange’s expressed views, opinions and activities demonstrate very clearly ‘political opinions’”, he told the court.

“The clash of those opinions with those of successive US administrations, but in particular the present administration which has moved to prosecute him for publications made almost a decade ago, suggest that he is regarded primarily as a political opponent who must experience the full wrath of government, even with suggestions of punishment by death made by senior officials including the current President.”………

Professor Rogers, in his witness statement, said Assange’s work involved exposing secrets that the US government wanted to keep hidden, he had been in conflict with the Obama administration, but there was “no question” that Assange had been targeted as a political opponent by Trump’s officials.

“The opinions and views of Mr Assange, demonstrated in his words and actions with the organisation WikiLeaks over many years, can be seen as very clearly placing him in the crosshairs of dispute with the philosophy of the Trump administration”, he said.

Assange’s legal team argue that a decision was taken under President Obama not to prosecute the Wikileaks activist, but that move was overturned under Trump. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/julian-assange-donald-trump-administration-old-bailey-hearing-a4543656.html?fbclid=IwAR3Rj4n0Lzlt5GmE1lXZXoMVDsOS5BdT9sEKgj82SCmMnpNLFQ6ZfEzVUOI

November 16, 2020 Posted by | civil liberties, Legal, politics, USA | Leave a comment

The USA devised an apocalyptic nuclear weapon – the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile or SLAM

PROJECT PLUTO: THE CRAZIEST NUCLEAR WEAPON IN HISTORY  SOFREP, by Sandboxx  15 Nov 20,  “…………. Although the destructive force of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been so monstrous that they changed the geopolitical landscape of the world forever, both the U.S. and Soviet Union immediately set about developing newer, even more powerful thermonuclear weapons. Other programs sought new and dynamic delivery methods for these powerful nukes, ranging from ballistic missiles to unguided bombs.Project Pluto and the SLAM Missile

One such effort under the supervision of the U.S. Air Force was a weapon dubbed the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile or SLAM (not to be mistaken for the later AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile). The SLAM missile program was to utilize a ramjet nuclear propulsion system being developed under the name Project Pluto. Today, Russia is developing the 9M730 Burevestnik, or Skyfall missile, to leverage the same nuclear propulsion concept.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin recently pointed out, nuclear propulsion offers practically endless range, and estimates at the time suggested the American SLAM Missile would likely fly for 113,000 miles or more before its fuel was expended. Based on those figures, the missile could fly around the entire globe at the equator at least four and a half times without breaking a sweat.

The unshielded nuclear reactor powering the missile would practically rain radiation onto the ground as it flew, offering the first of at least three separate means of destruction the SLAM missile provided. In order to more effectively leverage the unending range of the nuclear ramjet, the SLAM missile was designed to literally drop hydrogen bombs on targets as it flew. Finally, with its bevy of bombs expended, the SLAM missile would fly itself into one final target, detonating its own thermonuclear warhead as it did. That final strike could feasibly be days or even weeks after the missile was first launched.

Over time, the SLAM missile came to be known as Pluto to many who worked on it, due to the missile’s development through the project with the same name.

The onboard nuclear reactor produced more than 500-megawatts of power and operated at a scorching 2,500 degrees — hot enough to compromise the structural integrity of metal alloys designed specifically to withstand high amounts of heat. Ultimately, the decision was made to forgo metal internal parts in favor of specially developed ceramics sourced from the Coors Porcelain Company, based in Colorado.

The downside to ramjet propulsion is that it can only function when traveling at high speeds. In order to reach those speeds, the SLAM would be carried aloft and accelerated by rocket boosters until the missile was moving fast enough for the nuclear ramjet to engage. Once the nuclear ramjet system was operating, the missile could remain aloft practically indefinitely, which would allow it to engage multiple targets and even avoid intercept.

The nuclear-powered ramjet was so loud that the missile’s designers theorized that the shock wave of the missile flying overhead on its own would likely kill anyone in its path, and if not, the gamma and neutron radiation from the unshielded reactor sputtering fission fragments out the back probably would. While this effectively made the missile’s engine a weapon in its own right, it also made flying the SLAM over friendly territory impossible.

While the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction has since made the launch of just one nuclear weapon the start of a cascade that could feasibly end life on Earth as we know it, Project Pluto’s SLAM Missile was practically apocalyptic in its own right. The nuclear powerplant that would grant the missile effectively unlimited range would also potentially kill anyone it passed over, but the real destructive power of the SLAM missile came from its payload.

Unlike most cruise missiles, which are designed with a propulsion system meant to carry a warhead to its target, Project Pluto’s SLAM carried not only a nuclear warhead, but 16 additional hydrogen bombs that it could drop along its path to the final target. Some even suggested flying the missile in a zig-zagging course across the Soviet Union, irradiating massive swaths of territory and delivering it’s 16 hydrogen bombs to different targets around the country.

Doing so would not only offer the ability to engage multiple targets, but would almost certainly also leave the Soviet populace in a state of terror. A low-flying missile spewing radiation as it passed over towns, shattering windows and deafening bystanders as it delivered nuclear hellfire to targets spanning the massive Soviet Union, would likely have far-reaching effects on morale.

How Do You Test an Apocalyptic Weapon?

Project Pluto’s nuclear propulsion system made testing the platform a difficult enterprise. Once the nuclear reactor onboard was engaged, it would continue to function until it hit its target or expended all of its fuel. Any territory the weapon passed over during flight would be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, limiting the ways and the places in which the weapon’s engine could even be tested.

On May 14, 1961, engineers powered up the Project Pluto propulsion system on a train car for just a few seconds, and a week later a second test saw the system run for a full five minutes. The engine produced 513 megawatts of power, which equated to around 35,000 pounds of thrust — 6,000 pounds more than an F-16’s Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 afterburning turbofan engine with its afterburner engaged.

However, those engine tests were the only large scale tests Project Pluto would ultimately see, in part, because a fully assembled SLAM missile would irradiate so much territory that it was difficult to imagine any safe way of actually testing it.

A weapon That’s Too Destructive to Use

Ultimately, Project Pluto and its SLAM missile were canceled before ever leaving the ground. The cancellation came for a litany of reasons, including the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the introduction of global strike heavy payload bombers like the B-52 Stratofortress. There were, however, some other considerations that led to the program’s downfall.

Because the SLAM would irradiate, destroy, or deafen anyone and anything it flew over, the missile could not be launched from U.S. soil or be allowed to fly over any territory other than its target nation. That meant the missile could really only be used from just over the Soviet border, whereas ICBMs could be launched from the American midwest and reach their targets in the Soviet Union without trouble.

There was also a pressing concern that developing such a terrible weapon would likely motivate the Soviet Union to respond in kind. Each time the United States unveiled a new weapon or strategic capability, the Soviet Union saw to it that they could match and deter that development. As a result, it stood to reason that America’s nuclear-spewing apocalypse missile would prompt the Soviets to build their own if one entered into service.

Project Pluto and its SLAM missile program were canceled on July 1, 1964 https://sofrep.com/news/project-pluto-the-craziest-nuclear-weapon-in-history/

November 16, 2020 Posted by | history, Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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