The escalation of nuclear tension between USA and Iran
Timeline: How tensions escalated with Iran since Trump withdrew US from nuclear deal
President Trump’s decision to leave the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was followed by an escalation of rhetoric, sanctions and attacks between the countries. George Petras, Jim Sergent, Janet Loehrke, Karl Gelles and Javier Zarracina, USA TODAY, 3 Jan 2020,
July 25, 2015
Iran, the United States and other nations approve a deal in which Iran agrees to shift its nuclear program from weapons production to peaceful commercial use for 10 years. Iran allows international inspectors on its nuclear weapons sites.
In exchange, the United States and the United Nations Security Council lift energy, trade, technology and financial sanctions against Iran.
The pact, established during the tenure of President Barack Obama, is an executive agreement, not a treaty, which means it isn’t formally approved by Congress. Republicans oppose the deal and question its legality.
Leaving the deal
October 2016
Presidential candidate Donald Trump says Iran should write the United States a thank you letter for “the stupidest deal of all time.” Trump says the United States will withdraw from the deal if he’s elected.
May 8, 2018
President Trump announces the withdrawal from the Iran deal. Iran, France, Britain and Germany say they will stay in the pact.
US increases pressure
August-November 2018
The United States reimposes economic sanctions targeting Iran’s energy, financial, shipping and shipbuilding industries. Iran says it will take unspecified actions regarding the nuclear deal if Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China don’t help it engage in international trade.
April 8, 2019
Trump says he will designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization. The Pentagon opposes the change, saying it increases the possibility of retaliation against American military and intelligence personnel.
April 22
May 5
John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, says the United States will send an aircraft carrier strike force and Air Force bombers to the Middle East. The deployment shows Iran that “any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”
Iran retaliates
May 8
Iran says it will increase its production of enriched uranium and heavy water.
May 12
Four oil tankers – two from Saudi Arabia, one from the United Arab Emirates and one from Norway – are attacked in the Persian Gulf. The United States says Iran is behind the attacks.
June 13
Two oil tankers – one from Norway, the other from Japan – are attacked in the Gulf of Oman. The United States blames Iran, which denies responsibility.
June 20
Iran shoots down a U.S. surveillance drone it says violated Iranian airspace. The U.S. Central Command says the aircraft was in international territory.
June 20
Trump orders retaliatory attacks against Iran but cancels the strikes shortly before they are to be launched. Four days later, he imposes more sanctions against Iran.
July 1
Iran says it’s exceeded the amount of low-enriched uranium it was allowed to build under the 2015 agreement.
US-Iranian tensions rise………
Jan. 2 2020
Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani and five others are killed in a U.S. drone strike at Baghdad airport. U.S. officials call it a “defensive action,” saying Soleimani planned attacks on U.S. diplomats and troops. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2020/01/03/us-iran-conflict-since-nuclear-deal/2803223001/
War planners ignore the fire effects of nuclear bombing
City on fire, Nuclear Darkness, by Lynne Eden, 30 Dec 19, By ignoring the fire damage that would result from a nuclear attack and taking into account blast damage alone, U.S. war planners were able to demand a far larger nuclear arsenal than necessary.
For more than 50 years, the U.S. Government has seriously underestimated damage from nuclear attacks. The earliest schemes to predict damage from atomic bombs, devised in 1947 and 1948, focused only on blast damage and ignored damage from fire, which can be far more devastating than blast effects.
The failure to include damage from fire in nuclear war plans continues today. Because fire damage has been ignored for the past half-century, high-level U.S. decision makers have been poorly informed, if informed at all, about the extent of damage that nuclear weapons would actually cause. As a result, any U.S. decision to use nuclear weapons almost certainly would be predicated on insufficient and misleading information. If nuclear weapons were used, the physical, social, and political effects could be far more destructive than anticipated.
How can this systematic failure to assess fire damage have persisted for more than half a century? The most common response is that fire damage from nuclear weapons is inherently less predictable than blast damage. This is untrue. Nuclear fire damage is just as predictable as blast damage.
One bomb, one city
To visualize the destructiveness of a nuclear bomb, imagine a powerful strategic nuclear weapon detonated above the Pentagon, a short distance from the center of Washington, D.C.1 Imagine it is a “near-surface” burst-about 1,500 feet above the ground-which is how a military planner might choose to wreak blast damage on a massive structure like the Pentagon. Let us say that it is an ordinary, clear day with visibility at 10 miles, and that the weapon’s explosive power is 300 kilotons-the approximate yield of most modern strategic nuclear weapons. This would be far more destructive than the 15-kilotonbomb detonated at Hiroshima or the 21-kiloton bomb detonated at Nagasaki.2
Washington, D.C., has long been a favorite hypothetical target.3 But a single bomb detonated over a capital city is probably not a realistic planning assumption.
When a former commander in chief of the U.S. Strategic Command read my scenario, he wanted to know why I put only one bomb on Washington. “We must have targeted Moscow with 400 weapons,” he said. He explained the military logic of planning a nuclear attack on Washington: “You’d put one on the White House, one on the Capitol, several on the Pentagon, several on National Airport, one on the CIA, I can think of 50 to a hundred targets right off. . . . I would be comfortable saying that there would be several dozens of weapons aimed at D.C.” Moreover, he said that even today, with fewer weapons, what makes sense would be a decapitating strike against those who command military forces. Today, he said, Washington is in no less danger than during the Cold War.
The discussion that follows greatly understates the damage that would occur in a concerted nuclear attack, and not only because I describe the effects of a single weapon. I describe what would happen to humans in the area, but I do not concentrate on injury, the tragedy of lives lost, or the unspeakable loss to the nation of its capital city. These are important. But I am concerned with how organizations estimate and underestimate nuclear weapons damage; thus, I focus largely, as do they, on the physical environment and on physical damage to structures.
With this in mind, let us look at some of the consequences of a nuclear weapon detonation, from the first fraction of a second to the utter destruction from blast and fire that would happen within several hours. This will allow us to understand the magnitude of the damage from both effects, but particularly from fire, which is neither widely understood nor accounted for in damage prediction in U.S. nuclear war plans.
Unimaginable lethality
The detonation of a 300-kiloton nuclear bomb would release an extraordinary amount of energy in an instant-about 300 trillion calories within about a millionth of a second. More than 95 percent of the energy initially released would be in the form of intense light. This light would be absorbed by the air around the weapon, superheating the air to very high temperatures and creating a ball of intense heat-a fireball.
Because this fireball would be so hot, it would expand rapidly. Almost all of the air that originally occupied the volume within and around the fireball would be compressed into a thin shell of superheated, glowing, high-pressure gas. This shell of gas would compress the surrounding air, forming a steeply fronted, luminous shockwave of enormous extent and power-the blast wave.
By the time the fireball approached its maximum size, it would be more than a mile in diameter. It would very briefly produce temperatures at its center of more than 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius)-about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun.
This enormous release of light and heat would create an environment of almost unimaginable lethality. Vast amounts of thermal energy would ignite extensive fires over urban and suburban areas. In addition, the blast wave and high-speed winds would crush many structures and tear them apart. The blast wave would also boost the incidence and rate of fire-spread by exposing ignitable surfaces, releasing flammable materials, and dispersing burning materials.
Within minutes of a detonation, fire would be everywhere. Numerous fires and firebrands-burning materials that set more fires-would coalesce into a mass fire. (Scientists prefer this term to “firestorm,” but I will use them interchangeably here.) This fire would engulf tens of square miles and begin to heat enormous volumes of air that would rise, while cool air from the fire’s periphery would be pulled in. Within tens of minutes after the detonation, the pumping action from rising hot air would generate superheated ground winds of hurricane force, further intensifying the fire.4
Virtually no one in an area of about 40-65 square miles would survive.
A little farther away…….
Within minutes of a detonation, fire would be everywhere. Numerous fires and firebrands-burning materials that set more fires-would coalesce into a mass fire. (Scientists prefer this term to “firestorm,” but I will use them interchangeably here.) This fire would engulf tens of square miles and begin to heat enormous volumes of air that would rise, while cool air from the fire’s periphery would be pulled in. Within tens of minutes after the detonation, the pumping action from rising hot air would generate superheated ground winds of hurricane force, further intensifying the fire.4
Virtually no one in an area of about 40-65 square miles would survive.
A little farther away……
Three miles from ground zero……..
A hurricane of fire…..
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….The first indicator of a mass fire would be strangely shifting ground winds of growing intensity near ground zero. (Such winds are entirely different from and unrelated to the earlier blast-wave winds that exert “drag pressure” on structures.) These fire-winds are a physical consequence of the rise of heated air over large areas of ground surface, much like a gigantic bonfire.
The inrushing winds would drive the flames from combusting buildings horizontally toward the ground, filling city streets with hot flames and firebrands, breaking in doors and windows, and causing the fire to jump hundreds of feet to swallow anything that was not yet violently combusting. These extraordinary winds would transform the targeted area into a huge hurricane of fire. Within tens of minutes, everything within approximately 3.5 to 4.6 miles of the Pentagon would be engulfed in a mass fire. The fire would extinguish all life and destroy almost everything else. Firestorm physicsThis description of the physics of mass fire is based on the work of a few scientists who have examined in detail the damaging effects of nuclear weapons, including nuclear engineer Theodore A. Postol and physicist Harold Brode. Postol is one of the country’s leading non-government funded technical experts on nuclear weapons, missiles, and arms control. Brode’s five-decade career has been devoted to the study of nuclear weapons effects. That mass fires have occurred, and that something like the firestorm described here could occur, is not in dispute. What is not widely accepted is that nuclear weapons detonated in urban or suburban areas would be virtually certain to set mass fires, and that the resulting damage is as predictable as blast damage. The much more widely held view is that the probability and range of mass fire depends on many unpredictable environmental variables, including rain, snow, humidity, temperature, time of year, visibility, and wind conditions. But the work of Postol, Brode, and Brode’s collaborators shows that mass fire creates its own environment. Except in extreme cases, environmental factors do not affect the likelihood of mass fire. Weather can affect the fire’s range, but this can be reasonably well predicted. For nuclear weapons of approximately 100 kilotons or more, the range of destruction from mass fire will generally be substantially greater than from blast. The extraordinarily high air temperatures and wind speeds characteristic of a mass fire are the inevitable physical consequence of many simultaneous ignitions occurring over a vast area. The vacuum created by buoyantly rising air follows from the basic physics of combustion and fluid flow (hydro- or fluid dynamics). As the area of the fire increases, so does the volume of rising air over the fire zone, causing even more air to be sucked in from the periphery of the fire at increasingly higher speeds. Only a few mass fires have occurred in human history: those created by British and U.S. conventional incendiary weapons and by U.S. atomic bombs in World War II. These include fires that destroyed Hamburg, Dresden, Kassel, Darmstadt, and Stuttgart in Germany, and Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki in Japan. History’s first mass fire began on the night of July 27, 1943, in Hamburg-created by allied incendiary raids. Within 20 minutes, two thirds of the buildings within an area of 4.5 square miles were on fire. It took fewer than six hours for the fire to completely burn an area of more than five square miles. Damage analysts called it the “Dead City.” Wind speeds were of hurricane force; air temperatures were 400-500 degrees Fahrenheit. Between 60,000 and 100,000 people were killed in the attack.6 A mass fire from a modern nuclear bomb could be expected to destroy a considerably larger urban or suburban area, in a similarly short time. The unique features of the mass fire fundamentally distinguish it from the more slowly propagating line fire. …….. Fire environments created by mass fires are fundamentally more violent and destructive than smaller-scale fires, and they are far less affected by external weather conditions. They are not substantially altered by seasonal and daily weather conditions. ….. Average air temperatures in the burning areas after the attack would be well above the boiling point of water; winds generated by the fire would be hurricane force; and the fire would burn everywhere at this intensity for three to six hours. Even after the fire burned out, street pavement would be so hot that even tracked vehicles could not pass over it for days, and buried, unburned material from collapsed buildings could burst into flames if exposed to air even weeks after the fire. Those who sought shelter in basements of strongly constructed buildings could be poisoned by carbon monoxide seeping in, or killed by the ovenlike conditions. Those who tried to escape through the streets would be incinerated by the hurricane-force winds laden with firebrands and flames. Even those able to find shelter in the lower-level sub-basements of massive buildings would likely die of eventual heat prostration, poisoning from fire-generated gases, or lack of water. The firestorm would eliminate all life in the fire zone. All publication data from “Whole World on Fire” by Lynn Eden at Google Books http://www.nucleardarkness.org/web/cityonfire/ |
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Ohio’s nuclear legal battles: Supreme Court will hear case filed by Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts (OACB).
Kallanish Energy 30th Dec 2019, Legal battles over the Ohio energy law that starts providing subsidies to the state’s two nuclear power plants in 2021, may continue, Kallanish Energy learns.
The Ohio Supreme Court voted 4-0 to hear the case filed by Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts (OACB). Three justices recused
themselves from the case, citing political campaign conflicts, Energy
Central News reported. OACB maintains it was denied a full 90 days to
gather signatures for a referendum. They want to overturn the law that
subsidizes Ohio’s two nuclear power plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions
and two coal-fired plants owned by Ohio Valley Electric Corp. The law also
shrinks and eventually eliminates requirements that utilities get a
percentage of their power from renewable energy sources and scraps
utilities’ state-mandated energy efficiency programs.
https://www.kallanishenergy.com/2019/12/30/ohio-supreme-court-will-hear-nuclear-bailout-case/
America Almost Stockpiled Nuclear Weapons In Iceland
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Secrets Revealed: America Almost Stockpiled Nuclear Weapons In Iceland
Why didn’t it happen? National Interest, by Michael Peck, 29 DEc 19, Key point: We still don’t officially know which nations had U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil.
If Miss Manners were a diplomat, she would tell us how rude it is to place nuclear bombs in the territory of our allies without being invited to.
But it turns out that in the 1950s, the United States considered deploying nuclear weapons in Iceland without telling the Icelanders, according to declassified documents published by the watchdog organization National Security Archive. “At the end of the 1950s the U.S. Navy ordered the construction of a facility for storing nuclear depth bombs, an Advanced Underseas Weapons (AUW) Shop at the outskirts of Keflavik airport,” the National Security Archive wrote. “The AUW facility was built by local Icelandic workers who thought its purpose was to store torpedoes.”…….. the problem is that Iceland didn’t want nukes on its soil, which would have made the little nation a big target in Soviet eyes. In fact, Iceland’s decision to join NATO in 1949 sparked riots in the normally placid country. In 1951 and in 1960, Icelandic officials asked whether the United States had deployed nuclear weapons at its bases in Iceland. The United States never did—or at least as has so far been revealed—store these weapons on Iceland, and told Icelandic officials so. However, National Security Archive researchers believe that in a still-classified letter, the State Department in 1960 told Tyler Thompson, U.S. ambassador to Iceland, that “the U.S. government was free to deploy nuclear weapons in Iceland without securing the agreement of Reykjavik.”
The evidence is in Thompson’s reply to the State Department, in which the name of the nation was redacted by the declassification censors, but whichalmost certainly refers to Iceland. If U.S. policy was never to store nuclear weapons on Canadian soil without Canadian permission, then why should Iceland be treated differently? Thompson asks. “The possibility of [Iceland’s] withdrawal from Nato in protest should not be overlooked,” he added……. we still don’t officially know which nations had U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil. “The U.S. government has not acknowledged the names of a number of other countries which directly participated in the NATO nuclear weapons stockpile program during the Cold War (and later): Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey (only West Germany and the United Kingdom have been officially disclosed),” according to the National Security Archive. Guaranteed that the Russians know, but we don’t. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/secrets-revealed-america-almost-stockpiled-nuclear-weapons-iceland-109321 |
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Missouri lawmaker pushes for helping nuclear companies to charge customers in advance
 Local rep looks to boost nuclear by letting companies charge customers for plants up front, Austin Huguelet, Springfield News-Leader Dec. 29, 2019 Missouri hasn’t seen a new nuclear plant in more than 30 years.A local lawmaker and state air conservation officials say that needs to change to meet the demands of the future.
Their first step: letting power companies bill customers up front for the cost. Rep. John Black, R-Marshfield, filed a bill earlier this month that would allow companies to add the cost of a new nuclear plant or renewable energy generator to customers’ rates while they’re under construction. Missouri voters banned the practice via initiative petition in 1976, shortly after St. Louis-based Ameren’s corporate predecessor won approval to collect costs while it built the state’s first nuclear power plant in Callaway County. Consumer advocates railed against the idea of paying for something not yet in service. Environmentalists raised the specter of potential disasters. At the ballot box, 63 percent of voters agreed, delivering a durable mandate that has withstood efforts to repeal the law. …….. John Coffman, who led the state’s utility watchdog from 2003-2005 and now does advocacy work around the country, said Black’s idea is simply about shifting risk from Wall Street to utility customers. “Sometimes Wall Street doesn’t want to invest in it unless they’re using the ratepayers’ money to do it,” Coffman said. “But then people should be asking, ‘Why is that?’” ……..Ed Smith, the policy director for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment he said the lack of easy taxpayer or ratepayer money for nuclear has led Ameren to make better decisions for the public. “Missouri was spared of having its customers spend billions of dollars on a nuclear plant,” he said. “And Ameren has acquired wind farms, built pipelines and done other things that are prudent for its customers rather than chasing this shiny nuclear idea that would generate a chunk of money for investors but was not in the best interest of their customers.”…….. John Coffman, who now represents the Consumers Council of Missouri, said all Black’s bill does is shift the risk taken on by investors and shareholders to customers. That may not be a problem if a project is completed on time and on budget, but Coffman said other recent projects suggest there’s no guarantee and plenty of downside. He represented AARP of South Carolina in the aftermath of that state passing a law allowing cost recovery during construction, which led to utility companies spending $9 billion on a reactor and then abandoning it amid cost overruns, delays, falling energy demand and the bankruptcy of its lead contractor. Ratepayers have already paid more than $2 billion for the project, according to the (Charleston) Post and Courier, and are on the hook to pay a new owner roughly the same amount over 20 years. “The public should not be their insurance,” Coffman said……… The legislation is House Bill 1784. https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/29/john-black-nuclear-power-charging-customers-up-front/2752198001/ |
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America’s choice – stop the nuclear weapons obsession, or take the road to extinction
extinction https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/helen-caldicott-our-nuclear-arms-obsession-is-a-countdown-to-extinction,13408, By Helen Caldicott | 14 December 2019 America could lead the way in reallocating its arms budget towards fixing the planet’s problems, writes Dr Helen Caldicott.I WRITE THIS PIECE as a physician expertly trained to make accurate diagnoses to either cure the patient or to alleviate their symptoms.
I, therefore, approach the viability of life on Earth from a similar and honest perspective. Hence, for some, this may be an extremely provocative article but as the planet is in the intensive care unit, we have no time to waste and the startling truth must be accepted.
As TS Elliott wrote so long ago, ‘This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper’.
Will we gradually burn and shrivel the wondrous creation of evolution by emitting the ancient carbon stored over billions of years to drive our cars and to power our industries, or will we end it suddenly with our monstrous weapons within which have captured the energy powering the sun?
Here’s the stark diagnosis from a U.S. perspective.
The Department of Defence has nothing to do with defence, because it is, in effect, the Department of War. Over one trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money is stolen annually to create and build the most hideous weapons of death and destruction, even to launch killing machines from space.
And since 9/11, six trillion dollars have been allotted to the slaughter of over half a million people, almost all of whom were civilians — men, women and children.
Brilliant people, mostly men, are employed by the massive military-industrial corporations – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE, United Technologies, to name a few – deploying their brainpower to devise better and more hideous ways of killing.
From an unbiased perspective, the only true terrorists today are Russia and the United States of America, both of which have several thousand hydrogen bombs larger by orders of magnitude than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched with a press of a button in the U.S. by the President.
This so-called nuclear “exchange” would take little over one hour to complete. As in Japan, people would be seared to bundles of smoking char as their internal organs boiled away and, over time, the global environment would be plunged into another ice age called “nuclear winter”, annihilating almost all living organisms over time, including ourselves.
But the stark truth is that the United States of America has no enemies. Russia, once a sworn communist power is now a major capitalist country and the so-called “war on terror” is just an excuse to keep this massive killing enterprise alive and well.
Donald Trump is right when he says we need to make friends with the Russians because it’s the Russian bombs that could and might annihilate America. Indeed, we need to foster friendship with all nations throughout the planet and reinvest the billions and trillions of dollars spent on war, killing and death to saving the ecosphere by powering the world with renewable energy including solar, wind and geothermal and planting trillions of trees.
Such a move would also free up billions of dollars to be reallocated to life such as free medical care for all U.S. citizens, free education for all, to house the homeless, to hospitalise the mentally sick, to register all citizens to vote and to invest in the abolition of nuclear weapons.
The United States of America urgently needs to rise to its full moral and spiritual height and lead the world to sanity and survival. I know this is possible because, in the 1980s, millions of wonderful people rose up nationally and internationally to end the nuclear arms race and to end the Cold War.
This, then, is the sound template upon which we must act. You can follow Dr Caldicott on Twitter @DrHCaldicott. Click here for Dr Caldicott’s complete curriculum vitae.
Hawaii’s law-makers very worried about the nuclear coffin at the Marshall Islands
How A Nuclear Waste Site 2,800 Miles Away Became A Hawaii Priority https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/12/how-a-nuclear-waste-site-2800-miles-away-became-a-hawaii-priority/
The Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands is cracked and in danger of spilling its radioactive contents into the Pacific Ocean. By Nick Grube / December 26, 2019 WASHINGTON — A concrete dome built decades ago by the U.S. government on a Marshall Islands atoll 2,800 miles from Hawaii has the state’s federal lawmakers worried.
The Runit Dome is a relic of America’s atomic past. It’s home to 3 million cubic feet of radioactive waste that was buried there as part of the government’s effort to clean up the mess left from dozens of nuclear tests in the 1940s and ’50s that decimated the atoll.
A warming climate and rising sea levels now threaten the integrity of the saucer-shaped structure, which, if it fails, could spill its radioactive contents into the Pacific, a scenario that would threaten both people and the surrounding environment.
Members of Hawaii’s federal delegation, led by U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, recently secured a provision in the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act to study what it would take to repair the dome.
It was among the top priorities for Hawaii, at least in the House. Hawaii Congressman Ed Case, who is a founder of the Pacific Islands Caucus, said the Runit Dome is of critical importance, not only for the islands but the U.S. as a whole.
“This is a concern on a number of levels,” Case said. “The basic one being: Is the Runit Dome capable, especially in a time of rising sea levels, of containing the very deadly radioactive waste that we deposited into that dome? The short answer is we’re not sure.”
Columbia University researchers published a study in July that found that the amount of radiation on Enewetak atoll, where the dome is located, and other parts of the Marshall Islands rival what’s been detected around Chernobyl and Fukushima, two locations synonymous with nuclear catastrophe.
The NDAA provision calls on the Secretary of Energy to submit a report to Congress within 180 days that includes a detailed plan to repair the Runit Dome and ensure that it “does not have any harmful effects to the local population, environment, or wildlife.”
The report should include an assessment of the current structure, cost analysis for the repair and a summary of discussions between the U.S. government and Marshall Islands regarding the dome.
In addition, the report will analyze how rising sea levels will affect the ability of the dome to contain the radioactive contents.
Case said the U.S. has an obligation to the Marshall Islands to at least analyze whether the Runit Dome is in danger of failure after it absolved itself of any responsibility through the execution of a Compact of Free Association, a treaty that effectively settled any claims related to past nuclear testing.
“The Marshall Islands obviously does not have the financial or human resources or expertise to effectively manage any issues that might be arising at the Runit Dome,” Case said.
“I think we owe it not only to the Marshalls but to the other islands of the Pacific to be sure we’re comfortable with what’s happening there, and, if we’re not comfortable with it, to determine what exactly we need to do to secure that waste.”
Case’s concerns about being a good ally come as the U.S. attempts to renegotiate its Compacts of Free Association with the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau.
The compacts give the U.S. military control over the countries’ land, airspace and surrounding waters, and are strategically important to American interests, especially as China tries to exert more influence in the region.
Gabbard did not respond to a Civil Beat request for an interview about the NDAA or the Runit Dome.
In June, Gabbard issued a press release stating that she was successful in including the provision for a public study in the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the NDAA.
She also noted that she was a co-sponsor of legislation named after former Hawaii Congressman Mark Takai that aimed to make it easier for veterans involved in the clean-up at Enewetak atoll to seek treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Takai died in 2016 of cancer.
“The Marshallese people are gravely concerned about environmental threats to the integrity of the storage site and the impact on their country,” Gabbard said in the statement. “The U.S. government is responsible for this storage site and must ensure the protection of the people and our environment from the toxic waste stored there.”
U.S. Congress votes $billions of tax-payers’ money for a new nuclear weapon for Trump
 Congress’s Christmas gift to Trump: A new nuclear weapon, The Hill
BY JOHN TIERNEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 12/24/19 In reaction to the Trump administration’s inept negotiating process on denuclearization, the North Koreans have threatened to send an ominous “Christmas gift.” Unfortunately, Americans are already certain to get a different nightmarish present, compliments of the U.S. Congress.
Absent convincing logic or reason, and against the House of Representative’s inclinations, legislators overwhelmingly decided to provide President Donald Trump with a new nuclear warhead — one that his administration thinks is “more usable.” Indeed, upon signing the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, this president — only the third in U.S. history to be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors — will be in the position to gain control over the new nuclear weapon he first requested in 2018, a submarine-launched “low-yield” warhead. The United States has the most sophisticated conventional and nuclear arsenals in the world, with capabilities to respond to any limited use of nuclear weapons in multiple ways, including a thousand existing low-yield options that can be delivered by air. In fact, Congress and the last two administrations have already devoted billions of dollars to ensure these assets can effectively penetrate the most advanced air defenses. Based on existing bipartisan-supported plans, those investments are sure to continue. The Trump Administration has never given a convincing explanation why current bloated investments in upgrades to the U.S. nuclear deterrent are insufficient or why the deployment of the new warhead would make any real change in our current deterrent forces. Their half-hearted case for this new warhead is fragile, bordering on specious. It contends that Russia has a doctrine whereby it would employ nuclear weapons on a limited basis to end a conventional conflict with NATO. But there is scant evidence of this doctrine’s existence and the question remains: If the current and planned air-launched options cannot properly respond to any such Russian action, why are American taxpayers being asked to spend billions of dollars on those systems? Moreover, while the yield of this “low-yield” nuclear weapon is estimated to be roughly one-third to one-half of the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and killed approximately 80,000 people, this is still a weapon that could kill tens of thousands of people in seconds. Launching even a “low-yield” nuclear weapon off a submarine greatly increases the chances of nuclear miscalculation. How would an adversary know the size of the weapon being launched at them? They would not, and would likely respond as if the worst-case scenario was occurring, exponentially increasing the risk of nuclear escalation. …….. https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/475794-congresss-christmas-gift-to-trump-a-new-nuclear-weapon |
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Growing concern over safety of aging Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant
Aging Alabama nuclear plant worries critics, Al Alabama, Dec 25, 2019; By The Associated Press Critics are raising alarms over the age of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, which opened 46 years ago on the banks of the Tennessee River and is still operating.
Some say equipment at the three-reactor plant is being forced to generate power longer than originally intended and that the storage of spent nuclear fuel is a growing problem, The Decatur Daily reported……..
The first reactor at Browns Ferry opened on Dec. 20, 1973 as the U.S. nuclear industry was growing. The plant has had major problems since, including a serious fire in 1975 and poor operating reviews in 2010.
Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, called the age of the plant “a huge issue looming on the horizon.”
“TVA is making the equipment and the plant work longer and harder than it was originally designed for,” said Smith, who also serves on a council that advises TVA directors. “People need to be very concerned about this.”
The Washington-based Union for Concerned Scientists said that having 46 years of spent fuel stored onsite in pools could be a threat to the entire region.
“Our main concern is that creates an unacceptable higher risk for fire,” said Edwin Lyman, acting director of nuclear safety projects for the group. Lyman said “a terrorist attack could reach a cooling pool with an explosive device and could breach the liner of the cooling pool.”
Ohio court to weigh group’s effort to block nuclear plant rescue
By: Associated Press December 27, 2019 The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments from a group attempting to overturn the roughly $1 billion financial rescue of Ohio’s two nuclear power plants…. (subscribers only) https://journalrecord.com/2019/12/27/ohio-court-to-weigh-groups-effort-to-block-nuclear-plant-rescue/
Faith leaders, heed pope’s call on nuclear weapons
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/commentary-faith-leaders-heed-popes-call-on-nuclear-weapons/ Washington state’s legacy is tied to nuclear weapons; its religious leaders have a duty to oppose them. Sunday, December 22, 2019 By Carly Brook / For The Herald
Just a few weeks ago, Pope Francis called for the global abolition of nuclear weapons while paying homage to the victims of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan. Nagasaki was destroyed by atomic weapons with plutonium produced in Washington state’s Catholic Diocese.
The Holy Father declared: “With deep conviction I wish once more to declare that the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home. The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral, as I already said two years ago. We will be judged on this. Future generations will rise to condemn our failure if we spoke of peace but did not act to bring it about among the peoples of the earth. How can we speak of peace even as we build terrifying new weapons of war?”
Washington state has the largest collection of deployed nuclear weapons in the Western Hemisphere at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor on Hood Canal, just 20 miles from Seattle. This nuclear weapons installation, added to Washington state’s large city centers and many other military installations, makes our state a primary target in the event of a nuclear exchange.
Washington state is also home to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the most contaminated nuclear site in the Western Hemisphere, and the Midnite Mine, a former nuclear weapons uranium mine located on the Spokane Tribe of Indians Reservation, and it hosts one of the largest communities of Marshall Islanders in the United States, whose home was the site of67 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests during the Cold War.
The legacy of nuclear weapons and their production in Washington has — and continues to — disproportionately affect communities of color and indigenous people, none of whom has been adequately compensated for the environmental and health consequences of nuclear weapons activities pursued by the United States government during the 50 years of the Cold War.
Congress recently approved funding to deploy a new kind of nuclear weapon: the W76-2 warhead. This gateway nuke, which is being called “useable” will be deployed on Trident nuclear submarines just 20 miles from Seattle in the coming months.
As a person of faith, and coordinator of the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition, we call on religious leaders in Seattle, especially the Seattle Archbishop, to heed the words of Pope Francis in Nagasaki. We call on faith leaders to join other faith-based members of the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition and actively preach to your congregants that the continuing possession and so-called modernization of nuclear weapons is immoral.
As the pope said, “Future generations will rise to condemn our failure if we spoke of peace but did not act to bring it about among the peoples of the earth.” I respectfully suggest that Seattle Archbishop Paul Etinne and other faith leaders should act accordingly.
Carly Brook is a member of the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition
USA House Democrats let Jared Kushner suck them in to a very bad space weapons deal
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The Very Bad Space Force Deal, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/18/the-very-bad-space-force-deal/ by KARL GROSSMAN Unless grassroots action somehow stops it, it looks likely that the Trump scheme for a Space Force, a sixth branch of United States armed forces, will happen. The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed the $738 billion military policy bill that gives Trump his sought-for Space Force as he moves for what he terms “American dominance in space.”The vote for what is titled the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2020 was 377 to 48. Some 189 Republicans and 188 Democrats voted for it. Six Republican House members voted no, along with 41 Democrats and one independent. The large Democratic yes vote came as a result of a trade-off for 12 weeks of paid parental leave for civilian federal employees. The New York The U.S. Senate now will consider the measure and pass it considering the Trump-controlled majority in the Senate, and Trump will sign it. Indeed, last week Trump tweeted: “Wow! All our priorities have made it into the final NDAA: Pay Raises for our Troops, Rebuilding our Military, Paid Parental Leave, Border Security, and Space Force!” Establishment of a U.S. Space Force would come despite the landmark Outer Space Treaty of 1967, put together by the U.S., then Soviet Union and the U.K., designating space as a global commons to be used for peaceful purposes. The U.S. move to negate the intent of the Outer Space Treaty will cause Russia and China to respond in kind—especially considering Trump’s declaration that “it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.” This will lead to an arms race in space. The Trump administration and the U.S. military have been claiming that a Space Force is necessary because of Russia and China moving into space militarily but, in fact, Russia and China and U.S. neighbor Canada have been leaders for decades in pushing for an expansion of the Outer Space Treaty. It bans weapons of mass destruction in space. The Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) treaty that the three nations have sought to expand would prohibit the placement of any weapons in space. The U.S.—under both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations—has opposed the PAROS treaty and effectively vetoed its enactment at the United Nations. The leading organization internationally in opposing the plan for a U.S. Space Force has been the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (www.space4peace.org). Commenting on the House vote, Bruce Gagnon, the network’s coordinator, said: “It is not surprise, but still disheartening, to see that 188 Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the NDAA bill in the House.” He noted that “the Democrats were led by Rep. Adam Smith from the Seattle area which means that the aerospace giant Boeing Corp., which stands to make a gold mine off Space Force, clearly pulls Mr. Smith’s chain.” (Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called the bill “the most progressive defense bill we have passed in decades.”) Gagnon continued: “Another Democrat, Rep. Jim Cooper from Tennessee chimed in saying, ‘Trump’s belated support for a Space Force does not make this a Republican idea.’ Cooper chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee and clearly is trying to stake out Democratic Party ‘bragging rights’ on passage of this proposal to move warfare into the heavens.” Gagnon said, “About three-dozen progressive and anti-war groups worked hard to stop this NDAA and called the Democrats support for it ‘near complete capitulation.’” “With this newly enshrined Space Force—the NDAA will easily pass in the Senate—Trump will now be poised to tweet that Washington will be able to ‘control and dominate’ space on behalf of corporate interests,” Gagnon stated. “With technology now nearly in place to allow ‘mining the sky’ for precious minerals on planetary bodies, the Space Force fits in nicely with the long-planned Pentagon ability to control which nations, corporations and wealthy individuals will be able to venture into space and which will not. The idea was spelled out in a 1989 Congressional study called ‘Military Space Forces: The Next 50 Years.’” “Thus, Space Force would have two primary missions—give the Pentagon full control of the Earth and control the pathway on and off the Earth—both on behalf of corporate interests,” he said. “These provocative, expensive and destabilizing plans to control space will not be taken lightly by the rest of the world’s space faring nations. Even the Pentagon has lately been predicting the inevitability of war in the heavens.” Gagnon recounted: “In 1989 at a protest I organized at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon [who took part in the protest] told the assembled that any war in space would be the one and only. By destroying satellites in space massive amounts of space debris would be created that would cause a cascading effect and even the billion-dollar International Space Station would likely be broken into tiny bits. So much space junk would be created, Mitchell told us, that we’d never be able to get a rocket off the planet again because of the mine field of debris orbiting the Earth at 15,000 mph.” “That would mean,” said Gagnon, “activity on Earth below would immediately shut down—cell phones, ATM machines, cable TV, traffic lights, weather prediction and more—all hooked up to satellites, would be lost. Modern society would go dark.” “The aerospace industry has long claimed that Star Wars would be the largest industrial project in the history of our planet,” said Gagnon. “So much money would be needed that the industry has identified the ‘entitlement programs’ for defunding to pay for ‘everything space.’ That means Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the remaining tattered social safety net would be cut to pay for Space Force.” “Everything has an Achilles heel,” said Gagnon. He said that “if you want to help defeat plans for Space Force, fight for social and environmental progress. Demand that the compromised Congress not fund this disastrous plan to move the arms race into space. It is going to cost all of us dearly.” A return in many respects to President Reagan’s “Star Wars” scheme of the 1980s, the Space Force notion “started as a joke,” National Public radio reported in August in a report by correspondent Claudia Grisales titled, “With Congressional Blessing, Space Force Is Closer to Launch.” She related: “Early last year President Trump riffed on an idea he called ‘Space Force’ before a crowd of Marines in San Diego. It drew laughs, but the moment was a breakthrough for a plan that had languished for nearly 20 years.” She continued: “’I said maybe we need a new force, we’ll call it the Space Force,’ Trump said at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in March 2018. ‘And I was not really serious. Then I said, ‘What a great idea, maybe we’ll have to do that.’” The Outer Space Treaty was spurred, as Craig Eisendrath, involved as a U.S. State Department officer in its creation, by the Soviet Union launching the first space satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, as he noted in the 2001 TV documentary that I wrote and narrate, “Star Wars Returns.” Eisendrath said “we sought to de-weaponize space before it got weaponized…to keep war out of space.” The Reagan “Star Wars” program also used a defense rationale—it was formally called the Strategic Defense Initiative. It was based on orbiting battle platforms with nuclear reactors or “super” plutonium systems on board providing the power for hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons. Despite its claim of being defensive, it was criticized for being offensive and a major element in what the U.S. military documents then and since have described as “full spectrum dominance” over the Earth below which the U.S. has been seeking by taking the “ultimate high ground” of space. Among those voting against the NDAA bill last week were Representatives Jerry Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee which has just approved articles of impeachment against Trump; Alexander Ocasio-Cortez; Tulsi Gabbard; and Ro Khanna, who earlier, with Senator Bernard Sanders, issued a joint statement decrying it as a “bill of astonishing moral cowardice.” Meanwhile, the U.S. military is gearing up for a selling campaign for a Space Force. On a website called “Space War Your World At War” , Barbara Barrett, Air Force secretary, is quoted as saying that the Air Force has come up with a “strategy to find support among not just U.S. lawmakers, but also among the public for Trump’s new branch of the country’s armed forces, the Space Force. She opined that this could clarify to the broader public what the U.S. is doing in this domain and why exactly it needs a separate force for operations in space, as well as funding. More articles by:KARL GROSSMAN
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and is the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet. Grossman is an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. |
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Iran and US both undermining nuclear deal says UN political affairs chief
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Iran and US both undermining nuclear deal says UN political affairs chief, UN News , 19 December 2019
Both Iran and the United States have been putting strain on the groundbreaking 2015 deal to monitor Iran’s nuclear programme, which remains a “cornerstone of international peace and security”, said the UN’s political affairs chief on Thursday. Rosemary DiCarlo was briefing the Security Council on nuclear non-proliferation, and resolution 2231 that specifically backed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), agreed in July 2015, by China, France, Germany, Russia, The United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, and Iran (see fact box below for full details). She said the “full and effective implementation” of the Plan was “key to ensuring the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme and to secure tangible economic benefit to the Iranian people.” Ms. DiCarlo said the US decision to pull out of the deal was a source of “regret” as well as “the recent steps taken by Iran to reduce its nuclear-related commitments”. “Certain actions taken by the United States, since its withdrawal from the Plan, are contrary to the goals of the Plan”, she said and the re-imposition of its national sanctions lifted under the Plan, and decision not to extend waivers for the trade in oil with Iran. But according to the IAEA, she added, Iran since July “has surpassed JCPOA-stipulated limits on its uranium enrichment level, as well as limits on its stockpiles of heavy water and low-enriched uranium.” Steps have also been taken on centrifuge research and development: “Iran has stated that all these steps are reversible and that it intends to remain in the Plan. It is important that Iran returns to full implementation of the Plan, and refrain from further steps to reduce its commitments”, said the UN Political and Peacebuilding Affairs chief. Rising regional tensions…….Summing up the importance of the JCPOA, Ms DiCarlo said that António Guterres considers the full implementation of resolution 2231, by all Member States “as an integral component of our collective conflict prevention efforts.” Given the year of tension in the Gulf, “this has assumed greater importance” she noted, adding that it was the Secretary-General’s wish for all countries “to avoid confrontational actions and explore avenues for dialogue and cooperation in the interest of international peace and security.” https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/12/1054071 |
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PG and E face bankruptcy- transparency needed on decrepit Diablo Canyons nuclear reactors
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December 18, 2019, by Common Dreams
The same pattern of lethal neglect and deferred maintenance that made PG&E the proven culprit in murderous wildfires is being repeated at Diablo Canyon. by Mimi Kennedy, Harvey Wasserman But in the interim, it must be brought to light that no squaring of PG&E’s accounts—with the people of California, the utility’s fire victims, the governor, the Public Utilities Commission, the banks, or the planet – will be complete unless there is a transparent public inspection of, and credible mechanical and fiscal accounting for, Diablo Canyon’s two aging reactors (see our petition at www.solartopia.org). The two central coast nukes are scheduled to shut by 2025, a fact that gives some policymakers a false sense of safety and a convenient cover to avoid thinking about the devastating possibility of an earthquake that would render a major population center uninhabitable and its agricultural economy barren. Why kick up a fuss if the problem’s going away in five years? Here’s why: The same pattern of lethal neglect and deferred maintenance that made PG&E the proven culprit in murderous wildfires is being repeated at Diablo Canyon. But the nuclear reactor units are more than thirty years old. Diablo Unit One was long ago found to be seriously embrittled, which means its piping is almost certainly cracked due to age. Its list of deferred maintenance procedures is a by-now notorious PG&E trademark. Its waste management procedures are suspect. The site is surrounded by more than a dozen interlinked earthquake faults. Can we really trust the operation of these immensely complex machines over the coming sixty months to a company we don’t trust to safely deliver electricity in a light breeze? We don’t need to: the power Diablo generates can be made up for by truly renewable energy sources. Now is the time—before PG&E’s bankruptcy is resolved—for the governor, the California Public Utilities Commission, and other public authorities to conduct a transparent inspection of PG&E’s nuclear facility at Diablo. A truthful appraisal of the reactors—what PG&E might claim as its biggest single asset—is impossible without a thorough inventory of the reactors’ structural liabilities Technically, such inspections are the bailiwick of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC is currently a captive agency, with three of its five commissioners appointed by Trump. They have advocated a drastic scale-back of on-site safety inspections, allowing the nation’s 96 aging reactors to become progressively more dangerous to our population. But PG&E’s bankruptcy creates a condition outside the NRC’s purview: the court must ensure that the aggrieved parties are given a full understanding of the financial value and risks of the assets at stake. All US reactors, Diablo among them, lack private insurance. A federal fund to which providers contribute to cover their liability for catastrophic accidents contains less than $13 billion, a drop in the bucket compared to what even one such accident would cost. And who will run these two hotly contested nukes after the bankruptcy settlement? Public ownership is being hailed as a possible, progressive solution. Does that mean We the People unwittingly assume liability for the incalculable health, ecological, and property damages if the San Andreas fault (or any other) reduces Diablo to radioactive rubble and sends an apocalyptic Chernobyl cloud through the central valley, down to Los Angeles, up to the Bay Area, and into Northern California, so recently reduced to ash by PG&E? The high-stakes debate over what to do with what was once the world’s largest electric utility has been suspiciously silent on Diablo’s two 800-pound gorillas. So hear this scream: The question of ownership – private or public – cannot be answered without accounting for the structural safety and potential liabilities of the two decrepit megaliths at San Luis Obispo. The governor, the CPUC, the courts, and the company must provide the public with a detailed, independent, and credible look at the innards of these two immense machines before any bankruptcy proceedings can conclude or any future for California’s electric supply can be mapped out. Call them all now!!! |
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Risks in incorporating artificial intelligence into nuclear weapons systems
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As the US, China, and Russia build new nuclear weapons systems, how will AI be built in? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Matt Field, December 20, 2019 Researchers in the United States and elsewhere are paying a lot of attention to the prospect that in the coming years new nuclear weapons—and the infrastructure built to operate them—will include greater levels of artificial intelligence and automation. Earlier this month, three prominent US defense experts published a comprehensive analysis of how automation is already involved in nuclear command and control systems and of what could go wrong if countries implement even riskier forms of it.
The working paper “A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact of Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence” by the team of Michael Horowitz, Paul Scharre, and Alexander Velez-Green comes on the heels of other scholarly takes on the impact artificial intelligence (AI) will have on strategies around using nuclear weapons. All this research reflects the fact that militaries around the world are incorporating more artificial intelligence into non-nuclear weaponry—and that several countries are overhauling their nuclear weapons programs. “We wanted to better understand both the potentially stabilizing and destabilizing effects of automation on nuclear stability,” Scharre, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told the Bulletin. “In particular, as we see nations modernize their nuclear arsenals, there is both a risk and an opportunity in how they use automation in their nuclear operations.” The report notes that nuclear weapons systems already include some automated functionality: For example, warning systems automatically alert nuclear weapons operators of an attack. After the Cold War, Russian missiles were programmed to automatically retarget themselves to hit US targets if they were launched without a flight plan. For its part, the United States at one point designed its entire missile arsenal so that it could be retargeted in seconds from its peacetime default of flying into the ocean. Even these forms of automation are risky as an accidental launch could “spark a nuclear war,” the report says. But some countries, the report warns, might resort to riskier types of automation. Those risks could come from a variety of different sources. Countries could develop unmanned vehicles carrying nuclear weapons; with no one on board and responsible for deploying a nuclear weapon, the systems could be hacked or otherwise “slip out of control,” the authors say. In fact, the report notes, Russia is already reportedly developing an autonomous nuclear torpedo. Horowitz, a University of Pennsylvania political science professor, told the Bulletin that the weapon, called Poseidon or Status-6, could be the start of a trend, though it’s not yet clear how or if AI will be included. “While so much about it is uncertain, Russia’s willingness to explore the notion of a long-duration, underwater, uninhabited nuclear delivery vehicle in Status-6 shows that fear of conventional or nuclear inferiority could create some incentives to pursue greater autonomy,” Horowitz said. Countries might also build more artificial intelligence into the so-called early warning systems that indicate whether a nuclear attack is underway, or insert more powerful AI into the strategic decision support systems they use to keep tabs on other militaries and nuclear forces. Even simple forms of automation in such systems have, in the past, exacerbated nuclear tensions. The report cites a famous 1983 incident where a Soviet officer, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, had to disregard automated audible and visual warnings that US nuclear missiles were inbound. Fortunately, Petrov chose not to trust what his systems were telling him and defied the powerful cognitive phenomenon known as automation bias. Another problematic form of early automation was the Soviet strategic decision support system known as VYRAN. It was a computer program in place to warn Soviet leaders when the United States had achieved a level of military superiority that required Moscow to launch a nuclear attack. But Soviet intelligence agents were inputting information that often confirmed their pre-existing beliefs about US intentions. “This feedback loop amplified and intensified those perceived threats, rather than providing Soviet leaders with a clearer understanding of US intentions,” the report notes. There is evidence that countries including Russia and China are placing more emphasis on developing these sorts of so-called computational models for analyzing threats. Despite all these drawbacks, however, the report’s authors believe there could be reasons to implement more AI and automation into nuclear weapons systems. They note how artificial intelligence systems could process more data and allow officials in charge of nuclear weapons greater situational awareness. Automation could also be useful in communicating commands in “highly contested electromagnetic environments,” as the report dryly puts it—perhaps, say, during a war. But, the report says, “many of these ways that autonomous systems could increase the resiliency and accuracy of [nuclear command and control systems] are speculative.” ……… Horowitz believes that incorporating artificial intelligence in nuclear weapons systems themselves poses mostly low probability risks. In fact, what concerns him most is how AI in non-nuclear military systems could affect nuclear weapons’ policies. “The risk I worry most about is how conventional military applications of AI, by increasing the speed of war, could place pressure on the early warning and launch doctrines of nuclear weapons states that fear decapitation in conventional war,” Horowitz told the Bulletin. Or, as the report puts it, AI-induced time pressure could lead to a chain of decision-making that, in the worst cases, could result in a country launching a pre-emptive nuclear attack. “Fear of losing quickly could create incentives for more rapid escalation to the nuclear level.”……… https://thebulletin.org/2019/12/as-the-us-china-and-russia-build-new-nuclear-weapons-systems-how-will-ai-be-built-in/ |
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