The enormous cost of more nuclear weapons Is the expansion of our nuclear arsenal in America’s best interest, or is it just Trump’s latest boastful display? Salon, GUY T. SAPERSTEIN, KELSEY ABKIN 2017-10-05 This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
To put this into perspective, this number exceeds the combined total federal spending for education; training, employment, and social services; agriculture; natural resources and the environment; general science, space, and technology; community and regional development (including disaster relief); law enforcement; and energy production and regulation.
As long as other countries continue to harbor nuclear weapons, we will do the same. And vise versa. As Donald Trump said at the start of his campaign, “If countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.”
This sentiment followed him into his presidency. The Trump administration just last week considered proposing additional, smaller, more tactical nuclear weapons that would cause less damage than traditional thermonuclear bombs. However, these mini-nukes are not some new, profound proposal. We have had nuclear weapons capable of being dialed down to the power of “mini nukes” since the 80’s. The 15-kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima would now be classified as a “mini-nuke” yet its destruction was monumental. Adding more, smaller nukes is an unnecessary, potentially dangerous addition. Proponents of the proposal claim these “mini-nukes” would give military commanders more options; critics, however, contend that it will also make the use of atomic arms more likely. Christine Parthemore, International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says, “Our investments should be careful lowering our threshold of use.” Further, the proposed addition will only add trouble to the already fraught international conversation opposing nuclear weapons.
As former Secretary of State George Shultz so eloquently put it, “proliferation begets proliferation.” One state’s nuclear acquisitions only drive its adversaries to follow suit. The reality is adding to our nuclear arsenal will only force our international opponents to defensively order a mad dash for the bomb.
In today’s political arena, as Russia remains volatile and North Korea’s threat grows, is funding the expansion of our nuclear arsenal in the country’s best interest or just Trump’s latest boastful display of American power?
Having a nuclear arsenal is supposed to ensure the raw principle behind nuclear deterrence: You won’t destroy us because we can destroy you. As Andrew Weber, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense & former Director of the Nuclear Weapons Council, says, “The sole purpose of having a nuclear arsenal is to deter an attack on the United States of America.”
This cold war era mindset relies on the relationship between acting and reacting. With the recognition that retaliation is likely, if not guaranteed, nuclear weapons are supposed to restrain the possibility of action on behalf of nuclear leaders. They are supposed to make them cautious, regardless of which states we are talking about or how many weapons they might possess.
According to a 2017 report by the Arms Control Association, The United States currently maintains an arsenal of about 1,650 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), and Strategic Bombers and some 180 tactical nuclear weapons at bomber bases in five European countries.
The ICBM is arguably the most controversial piece of America’s nuclear triad, yet in August, the Air Force announced major new contracts for a revamp of the American nuclear force: $1.8 billion for initial development of a highly stealthy nuclear cruise missile, and nearly $700 million to begin replacing the 40-year-old Minuteman missiles in silos across the United States.
This plan was born from the Obama administration but enthusiastically hightailed by Trump. Obama’s reasoning was that as our weapons became increasingly safe, their numbers could be reduced.
However, Trump’s reasoning has proven to be different. His threat that North Korea will be met with “fury and fire” combined with his proposals of mini-nukes only propel the notion that he is not following past leaders in enforcing a no first strike policy.
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The danger of revamping this shaky leg of the nuclear triad is in part due to Trump’s demonstrated impulsiveness. As Andrew Weber explains, “There is a 2-3 minute threat of the land-based missiles and it is impossible for the target to determine whether the weapon has a nuclear or conventional tip.” An impulsive president with nuclear codes capable of starting a nuclear war in 2-3 minutes using a weapon that must fly over Russia and has the possibility of mistaken identity, is essentially a recipe for disaster………
Ultimately, there is no military option that would not entail a mind-bogging gamble with the lives of millions of Americans, Japanese and especially South Koreans……
Now is not the time to build up our nuclear arsenal and respond to threats with military action, especially as we face an already threatened North Korea. It is crucial now more than ever not to proliferate the use of nuclear weapons. The goal is to deter and when it comes to deterrence, more is not better, especially when it is so incredibly expensive. https://www.salon.com/2017/10/05/the-enormous-cost-of-more-nuclear-weapons_partner/
Donald Trump’s demonisation of Iran is dishonest and dangerous, Guardian, Michael Axworthy, 6 Oct 17, The Iran nuclear deal is doing what it was designed to do. It is a force for stability in the unstable Middle East, and to endanger it is irresponsible “…….as we get further into Trumpworld, the more disturbing and dangerous a place it seems to be. And in a strange way, it seems he is not really president at all, but still running for president, still trying to convince people he deserves to be there. He is preoccupied with his predecessor and his policies, and with competing against his record, whether it is the size of the crowd at his inauguration, Obamacare, or now, the Iran nuclear deal that was negotiated while Obama was in office.
With all the difficulties of the world at the moment – a dangerous confrontation with North Korea, the looming threat of trade wars and consequent economic slump, and a Middle East region strewn with failed states, unresolved conflicts and misery, to name just a few – the Iran nuclear deal is a rare example of a recent diplomatic initiative that has actually enhanced stability.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the full title of the agreement) is working. The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), responsible for overseeing its verification and inspection provisions, is satisfied that it is working and that Iran is meeting its JCPOA commitments. The other countries that are party to the agreement, the UK, Germany, France China and Russia, agree with the IAEA and are satisfied too. But Donald Trump is not satisfied.
The JCPOA doesn’t do things it was never framed to do, of course. It doesn’t address missile development – its negotiators judged that to attempt that would be too much, and would make an already difficult negotiation (which many pundits around the world said would never be successful), impossible to bring to a successful outcome………
Trump’s demonisation of Iran is dishonest. The instability of the region is not in any significant measure the consequence of Iranian actions. To blame Iran for terrorism in the region is misleading at best – most terrorism there, and most of the Islamist terrorism worldwide, is inspired by extreme versions of Sunni Islam, not by the Shia Islam of Iran and the Iranian regime.
The Republican right in the US, historically, has disliked arms control agreements, largely because they involve compromise by both sides and therefore fall short of what might appear the ideal from a narrow US perspective. But that is the nature of diplomacy too. Treaties have to be negotiated; only in exceptional circumstances can you dictate terms. Some commentators in the US have called the JCPOA a flawed agreement, but it is only flawed agreement from that skewed and immature perspective.
The JCPOA is doing what it was designed to do: limit Iran’s ability to make a bomb. It is a force for stability in the chronically unstable Middle East, and to endanger it is irresponsible. Not just the IAEA and most of the world, but most of Trump’s own military and civilian advisers, all agree on that. From their near silence on the matter, the deal’s previous enemies in Saudi Arabia now seem to agree too.
If Trump decertifies the deal – which seems to be his intention in the next few days – he weakens it, but gives responsibility for reimposing sanctions, which would wreck the agreement, to the US Congress.
To do that would be an abdication of his responsibility as president. It would be the action of a spoilt child who breaks the toys in the kindergarten because the adults won’t agree to do what he wants them to do. And if Trump abdicates responsibility in this way, the logical next step is that he should have the responsibility taken away from him.
More dirt caves in during work to stabilize Hanford nuclear waste tunnelBY ANNETTE CARY, acary@tricityherald.com, OCTOBER 04, 2017 Work to fill a Hanford nuclear waste tunnel that partially collapsed started, and then stopped, overnight Tuesday after some of the dirt used to initially stabilize the tunnel began to cave into it.
The minor cave-in early Wednesday morning was around a box where workers were injecting grout, a concrete-like material, into the tunnel.
No radiological readings above those anticipated were detected, and none of the workers were at risk, according to the Department of Energy.
A PUREX plant tunnel holding eight rail cars loaded with highly radioactively contaminated equipment was discovered partially collapsed on May 9. A sand and soil mixture was poured into the 20-by-20-foot hole the next day……..
Behind the Backlash to Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s Demand for Coal-Nuclear Market Intervention, Almost everyone outside the coal and nuclear industries wants FERC to turn down DOE’s grid market rule. Here’s why.
Greentech Media, by Jeff St. John , October 05, 2017 Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s demand for market-disrupting price supports for coal and nuclear power plants has broken multiple rules for how energy policy is made, from upending the facts to subverting regular order. And it’s being pushed through on a hyper-fast, 60-day review period that’s not only unjustified by the Department of Energy report it cites as justification, but “practically and legally impossible” to meet.
This is a collection of the critiques that have emerged since Friday’s shock DOE filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In a rarely used notice of public rule making (NOPR), DOE asked FERC to create market rules to provide compensation for power plants that, among other features, have a 90-day supply of fuel on hand — something that only coal and nuclear power plants can do.
The NOPR cited the grid reliability study ordered by Perry in April to argue that baseload power plants need compensation to shore up grid reliability. But as we covered when it was released in July, the report doesn’t actually support that conclusion, stealing some of the thunder from clean energy and environmental groups’ arguments that the report was a Trojan horse for pro-coal and nuclear power policies all along.
U.S. PREPARES NEW MISSILES FOR JAPAN AFTER NORTH KOREA THREATENS NUCLEAR WAR, newsweek BY TOM O’CONNORThe U.S. has moved closer to selling dozens of state-of-the-art missiles to Japan as part of President Donald Trump’s pledge to boost military support for Pacific allies opposed to nuclear-armed North Korea.
The State Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Wednesday it would back the Japanese government’s request for up to 56 AIM 120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs). The sale, which is estimated at $113 million and requires congressional approval, would also reportedly include various logistical, technical, engineering and weapons support services. It comes as Japan reconsiders its traditionally pacifist post-World War II stance on defense in the face of threats from North Korea, which has shot two missiles over Japanese territory in the past two months.
The proposed sale will provide Japan a critical air defense capability to assist in defending the Japanese homeland and U.S. personnel stationed there,” the agency said in a statement.
“Japan will have no difficulty absorbing these additional munitions into the Japan Air Self-Defense Force,” it added…….
State Senator Says FPL Isn’t Preparing Miami’s Nuclear Plant for Sea-Level Rise, Miami New Times, JERRY IANNELLI | OCTOBER 5, 2017 The Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station is built directly on the waterfront in Homestead — a location that has exposed the plant to serious natural disasters. The power plant survived Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but the storm’s 175 mph winds knocked out communication lines, disabled the emergency fire-safety system, and “severely cracked” an exhaust stack that could have destroyed the plant’s back-up power system if the stack had toppled, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
So while Florida Power & Light (FPL) proposes expanding Turkey Point and building two more reactors there, Miami state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez is asking for safer measures to prepare for sea-level rise and major hurricanes — or for FPL to drop the expansion plans altogether. This past August 23, Rodriguez sent the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates nuclear power plants, a letter demanding that FPL add greater sea-level-rise protections to its development plan.
Rodriguez made the letter public this week because the NRC had scheduled a hearing today to move forward with Turkey Point’s expansion plans; Hurricane Irma delayed the meeting, but it’s still expected to happen by the end of December. Rodriguez is asking the NRC to continue to delay ruling on the plan’s approval until FPL addresses the concerns of environmentalists and activists.
“They’re only taking into account one foot of sea-level rise in the future,” Rodriguez tells New Times. “Some projections — we’re hopeful those projections are wrong — but some projections are orders of magnitude higher than that.”…….
n his August letter to the NRC, Rodriguez laid out three specific concerns, which clean-energy activists opposed to FPL’s expansion plans have voiced repeatedly: First, Rodriguez said Turkey Point’s Combined Operating License application (COL) accounts for only a foot of sea-level rise by 2100 even though the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned last January that the seas could rise as much as 8.2 feet in that time period.
Second, Rodrigeuz said he was upset the plan covered only the new reactors — Units 6 and 7 — that FPL plans to build and does not propose any changes for the existing reactors. Those are the same reactors attached to cooling canals that leak low-level radioactive waste into Biscayne Bay and salt water into Miami’s drinking-water aquifer. Environmentalists have long complained that Turkey Point sits too close to protected parks and drinking-water sources.
Third, the lawmaker added he thought FPL’s applications did not properly account for what might happen to spent nuclear fuel rods that the plants produce. ….
“That also is obviously a huge concern all over the country,” Rodriguez says. “There really isn’t a plan for how these nuclear facilities store their waste.”
Anti-nuclear activists argue that if safely storing spent rods is this difficult, nuclear plants simply should not be built. Investigative comedian John Oliver earlier this yrar devoted a long segment on his HBO show Last Week Tonight to the nuclear-waste storage problem:
FPL recently won the right to store low-level radioactive waste from the expansion site underground in a rocky zone, but some environmental activists worry the waste might leak into Miami’s largest source of drinking water, the Biscayne Aquifer. Lawyers for the City of Miami asked the NRC to force FPL to rewrite its plan, but NRC regulators say FPL has done enough to mitigate those concerns.
Komo news, by NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) 5 Oct 17, – Workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation have started injecting grout into a partially collapsed tunnel that contains radioactive wastes left over from the production of nuclear weapons, the U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday.
The grout is intended to improve the stability of the 360-foot-long (110 meters) tube, which dates to 1956, and help prevent any radioactivity from escaping into the environment.
It will take an estimated 650 truckloads of grout to fill the tunnel adjacent to the closed Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant, which produced most of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal, the agency said. The complicated work should be completed by the end of the year……..
The roof of the tunnel, which was sealed in 1965, partially collapsed on May 9, forcing about 3,000 workers to shelter in place for several hours……
The site now contains the nation’s greatest volume of radioactive defense wastes. Cleanup of the site is expected to last until 2060 and cost $100 billion.
The grout will be injected into the tunnel at night. It is engineered to flow easily and will cover the contents, including eight contaminated railroad cars that carry waste.
The tunnel being filled with grout is one of two near the PUREX plant that contain contaminated rail cars and other radioactive waste.
The department concluded earlier this year that there is a high risk that the second, much larger, tunnel could also collapse.
The Energy Department has said that the two sealed tunnels “do not meet current structural codes and standards.”
The larger tunnel was built of metal and concrete in 1964. It is approximately 1,700 feet (510 meters) long and is covered with eight feet (2.5 meters) of soil to prevent radiation from escaping. Inside are 28 flat-bed rail cars containing nuclear waste, including giant storage vessels and other large equipment from plutonium production. That tunnel was sealed in 1996 and has not been entered since. http://komonews.com/news/local/650-truckloads-of-grout-to-fill-collapsed-radioactive-tunnel-at-hanford
Consensus on Site 300 contamination Tracy Press October 4, 2017 By Michael Ellis Langley
A citizen watchdog group and the Environmental Protection Agency agree that continued funding is the only way to make sure a polluted test site near Tracy is fully cleaned up.
Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a private organization that monitors work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, hosted a town hall Thursday evening with the EPA. The group is concerned about contamination of an 11-square-mile facility along Corral Hollow Road southwest of Tracy called Site 300. The site is managed by the Department of Energy and has been used for years for experiments to test America’s nuclear arsenal.
Donald Trump described the Las Vagas shooter as “demented”, but Trump was happy to sign a Bill that will permit mentally ill people to have guns. Also he’s supporting a move to permit silencers – (that would have enabled to Las Vaegas shooter to kill many more people)
The rule, which was finalized in December, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database.
Had the rule fully taken effect, the Obama administration predicted it would have added about 75,000 names to that database.
President Barack Obama recommended the now-nullified regulation in a 2013 memo following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 first graders and six others dead. The measure sought to block some people with severe mental health problems from buying guns.
The original rule was hotly contested by gun rights advocates who said it infringed on Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Gun control advocates, however, praised the rule for curbing the availability of firearms to those who may not use them with the right intentions.
Both the House and Senate last week passed the new bill, H.J. Res 40, revoking the Obama-era regulation.
Trump signed the bill into law without a photo op or fanfare. The president welcomed cameras into the oval office Tuesday for the signing of other executive orders and bills. News that the president signed the bill was tucked at the bottom of a White House email alerting press to other legislation signed by the president.
The National Rifle Association “applauded” Trump’s action. Chris Cox, NRA-ILA executive director, said the move “marks a new era for law-abiding gun owners, as we now have a president who respects and supports our arms.”
Everytown For Gun Safety President John Feinblatt said he expected more gun control rollbacks from the Trump administration. In a statement to NBC News, he called the action “just the first item on the gun lobby’s wish list” and accused the National Rifle Association of “pushing more guns, for more people, in more places.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a leading gun control advocate in Congress, called out Republicans over the move.
“Republicans always say we don’t need new gun laws, we just need to enforce the laws already on the books. But the bill signed into law today undermines enforcement of existing laws that Congress passed to make sure the background check system had complete information,” he said in an emailed statement.
After the mass shooting in Las Vegas, the NRA is pulling ads supporting Republican candidates in Virginia, but not for long. The NRA is cynically pulling campaign ads in the wake of the mass shooting in Las Vegas — but only temporarily.
The gun extremists appear to believe that the country only needs eight days to forget about the worst mass shooting in modern American history, allowing them to exploit the gun issue to assist an ally.
According to Medium Buying, a firm that tracks ad spending, the NRA’s Political Victory Fund has postponed running ads that it planned to run in Virginia. Instead, the NRA will begin running its advertising on Oct. 10.
The group has endorsed Republican Ed Gillespie for Governor, along with his running mate Jill Vogel. The NRA is also backing John D. Adams, the Republican candidate for Attorney General.
The NRA praised Gillespie in an endorsement release in August, hailing him as “a leader in the growing national movement to expand our Second Amendment freedoms.”
Ralph Northam, the Democrat in the governor’s race, is an Army veteran and a hunter who has described himself as “a staunch advocate for commonsense gun safety laws.”
The NRA has often gone silent after mass shootings, as it has this time, with the hopes that it can wait out grief after the tragedy. Then, when the conditions are more favorable for its violent messages, the NRA promotes advertising that calls on gun owners to confront protesters with a “clenched fist.”
As the NRA cowers and tries to wait out the situation, groups like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense In America are stepping up. Founder Shannon Watts released a statement on the shooting.
“I am sickened and heartbroken that, once again, American families will be torn apart by gun violence,” she said. “My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones, whose lives will never be the same.”
She added, “While details are still unfolding, one thing is for sure: It doesn’t have to be this way. Americans should be able to go to concerts, to night clubs, to elementary schools and movie theaters without worrying about the threat of gun violence. While we grieve for the 50 people shot and killed and the more than 400 who are hospitalized, we must also act in their honor. Gun violence is preventable.”
The NRA doesn’t want anything done about gun violence in America because their ideal world is one in which the country is awash in firearms, no matter the risk to children and families. They go silent while still intending to back candidates who will enact their agenda unquestioningly.
But millions of Americans want something to be done, to stop attacks like the ones in Las Vegas, Charleston, Newtown, and so many other American cities and towns. And they will not be silenced.
The American Impulse to Equate Guns With Freedom and Masculinity With Violence Is Killing Us
And Trump is exactly the wrong leader for this reality. The Nation, 3 Oct 17 By Joan WalshOn Sunday morning, the president of the United States humiliated his secretary of state, derided diplomacy as “wasting time,” mocked North Korea’s national leader as “Little Rocket Man,” and renewed his macho threat to “do what needs to be done” to thwart North Korea’s nuclear program—at the UN last month he said he might “need” to “destroy” the country. As always, analysts struggled to make sense of Trump’s tweets—geopolitically, psychologically—but the conclusion seemed inescapable that he is itching for a military conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary.
On Sunday night, a 64-year-old retiree by the name of Stephen Paddock took at least 10 rifles, some of them semi-automatic or automatic weapons, to the 32nd floor of the gilded Mandalay Bay resort casino, and gunned down hundreds of people, killing at least 50, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history…….There is no connection between Trump’s threat and Paddock’s massacre, except a profound lack of empathy, a toxic male willingness to indulge grievances (we don’t yet know Paddock’s, but we soon will) with violence, and an obsession with the display of absolute power……
There is something deeply wrong with the American male identification of guns as a symbol of freedom. We need to translate that correctly: By this definition, it is the capacity for brutal violence that is also a symbol, maybe even a prerequisite, of freedom. Of almost strictly male freedom, we must emphasize. This set of values wasn’t invented by the madman in the White House; he is just a symptom of a country and an electorate that value guns over children’s lives. ……..Once again, the National Rifle Association has blood on its hands. At one time a respectable organization of gun owners promoting proper gun use and gun safety, three decades ago the NRA began to turn itself into a trade association for big gun manufacturers, and a purveyor of canny right-wing paranoia designed to spur gun sales. ……..
the NRA spent $30 million to elect Trump, who spoke at its national convention and praised LaPierre as a patriot.
Trump repaid the NRA’s investment by signing a bill that lifted Obama-era limits on gun sales to the mentally ill…….
On Monday morning, Trump again repaid the NRA’s $30 million investment with a pathetically passive statement that described the Las Vegas massacre as though it were a natural disaster, never once mentioning the weapons of hell that caused it. He called it “an act of pure evil,” extolled the bravery of police and first responders, and made appeals for love, prayers, and unity. He displayed his trademark lack of empathy about the victims’ families: …..https://www.thenation.com/article/the-american-impulse-to-equate-guns-with-freedom-and-masculinity-with-violence-is-killing-us/
Although Mattis said he supported U.S. President Donald Trump’s review of the agreement curbing Iran’s nuclear program, the defense secretary’s view was nonetheless far more positive than that of Trump, who has called the deal agreed between Iran and six world powers in 2015 an “embarrassment”.
Trump is weighing whether the deal serves U.S. security interests as he faces a mid-October deadline for certifying that Iran is complying with the pact, a decision that could sink an agreement strongly supported by the other powers that negotiated it.
“If we can confirm that Iran is living by the agreement, if we can determine that this is in our best interest, then clearly we should stay with it,” Mattis told a Senate hearing. ”I believe …, absent indications to the contrary, it is something that the president should consider staying with,” Mattis added.
Earlier, when Mattis was asked whether he thought staying in the deal was in the U.S. national security interest, he replied: “Yes, senator, I do.”
The White House had no immediate comment on Mattis’ remarks, which once again highlighted the range of views on key policy issues within the Trump administration.
If Trump does not recertify by Oct. 15 that Iran is in compliance, Congress would have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions on Tehran suspended under the accord.
Proposed federal bill would give millions to cities storing nuclear waste, Chicago TribuneMary McIntyre, News-Sun, 3 Oct 17, A bill that could provide millions of dollars annually to cities throughout the country storing nuclear waste had its beginning in Zion.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth D-Ill., and U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Deerfield, spoke Sunday in Hosea Park to announce the proposed STRANDED (Sensible, Timely Relief for America’s Nuclear Districts’ Economic Development) Act, federal legislation which they said was developed with the help of Zion Mayor Al Hill.
“Zion is the impetus,” Schneider said.
The bicameral bill will be introduced by Schneider in the House and Duckworth in the Senate, and would pay communities storing nuclear waste $15 per kilogram annually. Currently, Zion has 1,020 metric tons of waste stored on its lakefront from the closed nuclear plant, which operated from 1973 to 1998. That would mean Zion would get more than $15 million a year under the proposal.
Hill referred to the potential economic value of the lakefront property were it not for the waste. “The 300-pound gorilla along the lakefront are the spent fuel rods which single-handedly prohibits future development of the site, and robs the Zion area of dollars, jobs and economic vitality,” Hill said.
In addition to the payments, the bill would commission a study by the Department of Energy to consider other options for land with stranded nuclear waste, a task force for such communities to help them find grants, tax credits for new homebuyers in those communities and business incentives for new companies to open in those communities.
U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Deerfield, speaks Sunday in Hosea Park to announce the proposed STRANDED Act, federal legislation that would provide money to communities storing nuclear waste.
Cities storing nuclear waste throughout the country would be paid under the bill, Schneider said.
NORTH KOREA BENEFITS FROM NUCLEAR WEAPONS. GET USED TO IT. War on the Rocks, Markl S Bell, 2 Oct 17It isoftensaidthatnuclear weapons offer little beyond the ability to deter. But if nuclear weapons deter, they also necessarily offer benefits to states that go well beyond simply deterring attack. North Korea today is in the process of reaping those benefits, and this will constrain American foreign policy in the region. As much as American policymakers might want to wish this away, it is better to adjust the sails than to hope the wind disappears. War with North Korea should now be off the table and the denuclearization of North Korea is similarly unrealistic. If the United States wants to tamp down the current crisis, it needs to get used to North Korean nuclear weapons and the constraints they impose on U.S. foreign policy.
It is true that nuclear weapons deter. But because they deter attack, they also act as a shield that reduces the risks and costs of pursuing a host of other foreign policy behaviors. My researchshows that nuclear weapons can facilitate a range of objectives that states of all stripes may find attractive. Possessing nuclear weapons can allow states to act more independently of allies, engage in aggression, expand their position and influence, reinforce and strengthen alliances, or stand more firmly in defense of the status quo. States with nuclear weapons are aware of these benefits, and use nuclear weapons to pursue them. This applies as much to democratic states committed to the status quo as it does to authoritarian or revisionist states.
Consider the case of Britain. A declining, status quo state when it acquired nuclear weapons in the 1950s, Britain was increasingly dependent on the United States for its security, facing growing challenges to its role as the preeminent power in the Middle East, while its commitments to allies were becoming increasingly uncredible. What did it do when it acquired nuclear weapons? As I show in a 2015 International Securityarticle, Britain used nuclear commitments instead of conventional military commitments (which it could no longer afford) to reassure allies that were increasingly skeptical of Britain’s ability to come to their aid. Similarly, Britain’s nuclear weapons reduced the risks of acting more independently of the United States and of using military force to resist challenges to its position in the Middle East……..
Today, North Korea is taking advantage of its nuclear weapons, just as past nuclear states have done. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. So, if North Korean nuclear weapons are useful even if they never get used, what might Kim Jong Un’s regime want to use them for?
North Korea faces serious military threats from South Korea and the United States. South Korea is vastly more economically powerful and has the support of the most powerful state the world has ever known. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States —unconstrained by the absence of a peer competitor — has shown a repeated inclination to pursue regime change around the world, labelled North Korea as part of the “Axis of Evil”, imposed punishing sanctions on North Korea, and kept tens of thousands of forces stationed in the region……
North Korea would like to be able to stop the United States from flying military aircraft close to its territory (particularly the B-1B Lancer flights from Guam) and weaken the U.S.-South Korean alliance. It would like to show that Washington’s threats of regime change or military intervention on the Korean peninsula are empty talk, and demonstrate that the United States is unable to shoot down its missiles. And North Korea may want to be able to more credibly threaten military action against South Korea. All of these make good strategic sense for North Korea as it seeks to reduce the threats it faces and strengthen its position on the Korean peninsula in the face of massive U.S. conventional military superiority.
How do North Korean nuclear weapons help it achieve these goals? By raising the dangers of escalation, North Korea seeks to drive wedges between the United States and South Korea and raise fears of “decoupling” as well as to make it riskier for the United States to fly planes close to its airspace or engage militarily on the Korean peninsula. North Korea launches missiles, daring the United States to try (and quite likely fail) to shoot them down; it refuses to back down when challenged; and it raises the possibility of more provocative nuclear tests.
These actions are predictable, because they advance North Korean national interests. But they are also dangerous, raising the risk of escalation. This is a feature, not a bug, of North Korean strategy. Raising escalation risks is exactly how North Korea hopes to convince the United States to back off and, therefore, to improve its position on the Korean peninsula. And in the process of such escalation, North Korea might be entirely rational to use nuclear weapons first if things got bad enough.
What should the United States do?
North Korea would like to be able to stop the United States from flying military aircraft close to its territory (particularly the B-1B Lancer flights from Guam) and weaken the U.S.-South Korean alliance. It would like to show that Washington’s threats of regime change or military intervention on the Korean peninsula are empty talk, and demonstrate that the United States is unable to shoot down its missiles. And North Korea may want to be able to more credibly threaten military action against South Korea. All of these make good strategic sense for North Korea as it seeks to reduce the threats it faces and strengthen its position on the Korean peninsula in the face of massive U.S. conventional military superiority.
How do North Korean nuclear weapons help it achieve these goals? By raising the dangers of escalation, North Korea seeks to drive wedges between the United States and South Korea and raise fears of “decoupling” as well as to make it riskier for the United States to fly planes close to its airspace or engage militarily on the Korean peninsula. North Korea launches missiles, daring the United States to try (and quite likely fail) to shoot them down; it refuses to back down when challenged; and it raises the possibility of more provocative nuclear tests.
These actions are predictable, because they advance North Korean national interests. But they are also dangerous, raising the risk of escalation. This is a feature, not a bug, of North Korean strategy. Raising escalation risks is exactly how North Korea hopes to convince the United States to back off and, therefore, to improve its position on the Korean peninsula. And in the process of such escalation, North Korea might be entirely rational to use nuclear weapons first if things got bad enough.
What should the United States do?
Any serious policy demands a dose of reality. Denuclearization and regime change are no longer achievable without risking tens (and potentially hundreds) of thousands of American lives. North Korea has nuclear weapons, benefits from having them, and has no interest in giving them up. Denying this reality is not only delusional, but encourages North Korea to take more belligerent actions, accelerate its nuclear program further, and exacerbate the spiral of escalation.
A better approach would be to seek limited concessions from North Korea in exchange for limited concessions by the United States. For example, as James Acton has proposed, North Korea might agree to eschew missile tests over the territory of South Korea and Japan, if the United States limited flights of B1-B bombers close to North Korean territory. Such a deal would acknowledge that North Korea’s capabilities impose constraints on U.S. foreign policy and grant North Korea benefits. At the same time, it reduces the risks of miscalculations or accidental escalation, diminishing North Korean fears of a surprise attack by the United States, and lending some stability to U.S.-North Korean relations. And if North Korea violated the deal, the U.S. could easily resume those flights……..
Ultimately, there are no free lunches in international politics. If the United States wants North Korea to constrain its nuclear program, it will need to offer North Korea something in exchange. And if the United States tries to pursue regime change or denuclearize North Korea by force, it must accept that North Korean nuclear capabilities allow it to force the United States to pay a high price for doing so. Mark S. Bell is an assistant professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Minnesota. https://warontherocks.com/2017/10/north-korea-benefits-from-nuclear-weapons-get-used-to-it/
The health ramifications of the tests are unknown. Lisa Martino-Taylor, an associate professor of sociology at St. Louis Community College who wrote “Behind the Fog: How the U.S. Cold War Radiological Weapons Program Exposed Innocent Americans,” acknowledged that tracing diseases like cancer to specific causes is difficult.
But three congressmen who represent areas where testing occurred — Democrats William Lacy Clay of Missouri, Brad Sherman of California and Jim Cooper of Tennessee — said they were outraged by the revelations.
Martino-Taylor used Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain previously unreleased documents, including army records. She also reviewed already public records and published articles. In an interview, she said she found that a small group of researchers, aided by leading academic institutions, worked to develop radiological weapons and later “combination weapons” using radioactive materials along with chemical or biological weapons.
Her book, published in August, was a follow-up to her 2012 dissertation that found the government conducted secret testing of zinc cadmium sulfide in a poor area of St. Louis in the 1950s and 1960s. The book focuses on the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s.
An army spokeswoman declined comment, but Martino-Taylor’s 2012 report on testing in St. Louis was troubling enough to spur an army investigation. The investigation found no evidence that the St. Louis testing posed a health threat.
Martino-Taylor said the offensive radiological weapons program was a top priority for the government. Unknowing people at places across the U.S. as well as parts of England and Canada were subjected to potentially deadly material through open-air spraying, ingestion and injection, Martino-Taylor said.
“They targeted the most vulnerable in society in most cases,” Martino-Taylor said. “They targeted children. They targeted pregnant women in Nashville. People who were ill in hospitals. They targeted wards of the state. And they targeted minority populations.”
The tests in Nashville in the late 1940s involved giving 820 poor and pregnant white women a mixture during their first pre-natal visit that included radioactive iron, Martino-Taylor said. The women were chosen without their knowledge. Blood tests were performed to determine how much radioactive iron had been absorbed by the mother, and the babies’ blood was tested at birth. Similar tests were performed in Chicago and San Francisco, Martino-Taylor said.
Cooper’s office plans to seek more information from the Army Legislative Liaison, said spokesman Chris Carroll.
“We are asking for details on the Pentagon’s role, along with any cooperation by research institutions and other organizations,” Carroll said. “These revelations are shocking, disturbing and painful.”
In California, investigators created a radiation field inside a building at North Hollywood High School during a weekend in the fall of 1961, Martino-Taylor said. Similar testing was performed at the University of California, Los Angeles and at a Los Angeles Police Department building.
Sherman said he wants a survey of people who graduated from the school around the time of the testing to see if there was a higher incidence of illness, including cancer. He also said he will seek more information from the Department of Energy.
“What an incredibly stupid, reckless thing to do,” said Sherman, whose district includes North Hollywood High School.
Among those who recall the testing is Mary Helen Brindell, 73. She was playing baseball in a St. Louis street in the mid-1950s when a squadron of green planes flew so low overhead that she could see the face of the lead pilot. Suddenly, the children were covered in a fine powdery substance that stuck to skin moistened by summer sweat.
Brindell has suffered from breast, thyroid, skin and uterine cancers. Her sister died of a rare form of esophageal cancer.
“I just want an explanation from the government,” Brindell said. “Why would you do that to people?”
Clay said he was angered that Americans were used as “guinea pigs” for research.
“I join with my colleagues to demand the whole truth about this testing and I will reach out to my Missouri Delegation friends on the House Armed Services Committee for their help as well,” Clay said in a statement.
St. Louis leaders were told at the time that the government was testing a smoke screen that could shield the city from aerial observation in case of Soviet attack. Evidence now shows radioactive material, not just zinc cadmium sulfide, was part of that spraying, Martino-Taylor said.
Doris Spates, 62, was born in 1955 on the 11th floor of the Pruitt-Igoe low-income high-rise where the army sprayed material from the roof. Her father died suddenly three months after her birth. Four of her 11 siblings died from cancer at relatively young ages. She survived cervical cancer and suffers from skin and breathing problems.
“It makes me angry,” Spates said. “It is wrong to do something like that to people who don’t have any knowledge of it.”
According to Martino-Taylor, other testing in Chicago; Berkeley, California; Rochester, New York; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, involved injecting people with plutonium-239.
She said her book shines a light on the team of mostly young scientists tasked with developing radiological weapons. They worked in a closed world with virtually no input from anyone “who could say, ‘This isn’t right,’ or put some sort of moral compass on it,” she said.
She hopes her book prompts more people to investigate.
“We haven’t gotten any answers so far,” Martino-Taylor said. “I think there’s a lot more to find out.”
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