Tag: nuclear weapons

Energy Department Deploys Helicopters Over D.C. — Scanning for ‘Radiological or Nuclear Irregularities’ Ahead of Trump’s Historic Inauguration

As the nation’s capital braces for President-elect Donald Trump’s historic inauguration, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is ramping up unprecedented security measures.

Helicopters equipped with cutting-edge radiation detection technology are buzzing low over Washington, D.C., scanning for potential “radiological or nuclear irregularities.”

In an exclusive look at the security preparations, CBS’ Nicole Sganga joined Department of Energy senior scientist Jacqueline Brandon aboard one of the agency’s highly specialized helicopters.

Flying in a meticulous grid over the National Mall, the aircraft’s mission is clear: detect and neutralize threats like dirty bombs or other nuclear hazards.

“You’re trying to create a blueprint of what the radiation in Washington, DC, looks like ahead of the inauguration,” Sganga asked during the flight.

“Correct,” confirmed Brandon. With only two helicopters of this kind in the Department of Energy’s arsenal, every second of airtime counts. “If we find a radiological irregularity, we’ll investigate it even further,” she added.

Equipped with highly sensitive technology capable of detecting minute variations in radiation levels, these helicopters serve as an airborne watchdog.

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Angling Toward Armageddon: The Return of Senator Strangelove

Almost 80 years later, it’s sadly all too easy to forget that two nuclear weapons were once used with devastating effect on this planet. Here’s just a small description by one survivor of the atomic destruction of the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, that can be found in the book Unforgettable Fire: Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors: “Most of the A-Bomb survivors were burned all over their bodies. They were not only naked, but also their skin came off. They were wandering around looking for their parents, husbands, wives, and children in the city of Hiroshima which had been reduced to ashes.”

Only recently, one of the dwindling group of survivors of that American bombing, Shigeko Sasamori, died. She had been a child of 13 when her city was blown to smithereens and, though unlike so many of her compatriots, she lived to tell the tale, one-third of her body was severely burned. Unbelievably enough, she would be one of the 25 “Hiroshima maidens,” all disfigured by the first atomic bombing on this planet, chosen to receive medical help a decade later in New York City. Her death, as the New York Times reported in an obituary, came only “two months after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a grass-roots Japanese organization of atomic bomb survivors, for its efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”

Unfortunately, as TomDispatch regular William Hartung reminds us today, global nuclear arsenals, including the American one, continue to grow and now hold weapons that make the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem more like BBs. To take just the three leading nuclear powers, the U.S., Russia, and China, each could, unaided, turn this planet (and undoubtedly several more like it) into giant graveyards.

While it’s true that, since Nagasaki was destroyed on August 9, 1945, no nuclear weapon has ever again been used in war, there are now believed to be more than 12,000 nuclear warheads on this planet. Nine countries possess them and, in a significant nuclear conflict, the Earth could be thrown into a state of “nuclear winter” in which billions of us could die of starvation, and yet, as Hartung makes all too vividly clear today, the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal is still in the process of being expanded (the term, hideously enough, is “modernized”) to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion to $2 trillion in the coming decades. Let him explain.

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Current year US military is hilarious

So, the US lit off a Minuteman-3 recently. This system, with origins in the 1950s, is the land-based part of the US nuclear deterrence triad. The test didn’t go well; it blew up right after launch, probably from rotten capacitors. The google machine tells me this isn’t an isolated incident; the last time we tried lighting one off, the same thing happened. We do have a sea based ballistic missile deterrent in the Trident-2. The US hasn’t had any problems with them yet. The British have, and they draw from a shared pool with the US. The other arm of the triad is the B-2 and B-52; the B-2 can’t fly when it’s raining, and the latter dates from 1952. There are plenty of nuclear tipped cruise missiles; fortunately most of those were designed in the 70s and 80s when America still mostly had its shit together.

Unfortunately none of the American cruise missiles are particularly long range or stealthy (there was a stealthy one, retired),  all are subsonic, and they have shorter ranges than the Russian gizmos, which also come in supersonic and hypersonic varieties. Rooskies also have newer generations of ballistic missiles, and are really good at shooting down cruise missiles, so there’s that. Supposedly they also have nuclear tidal wave torpedoes capable of wiping out US coastal areas in radioactive sea water, SLAM hypersonic nuclear  ramjet cruise missiles and who knows what else. Pretty obvious who wins a nuclear war scenario: it won’t be the US. I mean, nobody wins a nuclear war, but the days of US supremacy or even basic competence with maintaining nuclear forces are long over.

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Yakuza leader pleads guilty in U.S. court to conspiring to sell nuclear material

A member of the Japanese yakuza criminal underworld pleaded guilty to handling nuclear material sourced from Myanmar and seeking to sell it to fund an illicit arms deal, US authorities said Wednesday.

Yakuza leader Takeshi Ebisawa and co-defendant Somphop Singhasiri had previously been charged in April 2022 with drug trafficking and firearms offenses, and both were remanded.

He was then additionally charged in February 2024 with conspiring to sell weapons-grade nuclear material and lethal narcotics from Myanmar, and to purchase military weaponry on behalf of an armed insurgent group, prosecutors said.

The military weaponry to be part of the arms deal included surface-to-air missiles, the indictment alleged.

“As he admitted in federal court today, Takeshi Ebisawa brazenly trafficked nuclear material, including weapons-grade plutonium, out of Burma,” said Acting US attorney Edward Kim, using another name for Myanmar.

“At the same time, he worked to send massive quantities of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States in exchange for heavy-duty weaponry such as surface-to-air missiles to be used on battlefields in Burma.”

Prosecutors alleged that Ebisawa, 60, “brazenly” moved material containing uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, alongside drugs, from Myanmar.

From 2020, Ebisawa boasted to an undercover officer he had access to large quantities of nuclear materials that he sought to sell, providing photographs of materials alongside Geiger counters registering radiation.

During a sting operation including undercover agents, Thai authorities assisted US investigators in seizing two powdery yellow substances that the defendant described as “yellowcake.”

“The (US) laboratory determined that the isotope composition of the plutonium found in the Nuclear Samples is weapons-grade, meaning that the plutonium, if produced in sufficient quantities, would be suitable for use in a nuclear weapon,” the Justice Department said in its statement at the time.

One of Ebisawa’s co-conspirators claimed they “had available more than 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) of Thorium-232 and more than 100 kilograms of uranium in the compound U3O8 — referring to a compound of uranium commonly found in the uranium concentrate powder known as ‘yellowcake’.”

The indictment claimed Ebisawa had suggested using the proceeds of the sale of nuclear material to fund weapons purchases on behalf of an unnamed ethnic insurgent group in Myanmar.

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Going Nuclear Is a Bad Option for South Korea

Robert Kelly and Min-hyung Kim support South Korean nuclearization:

With South Korea better able to handle the North Korean problem on its own, the United States could devote more attention to its top priority in East Asia—competition with China. But first, Washington needs to stop getting in its ally’s way and start letting Seoul make its own decisions. A South Korean decision to nuclearize could, on balance, be good not just for South Korea but also for the United States.

South Korea should not develop nuclear weapons, and the U.S. must remain firm on this point. Washington should not encourage South Korea to do this, and it should not look the other way if it happens. The last thing that East Asia needs is yet another nuclear weapons state. More proliferation will only make the region more unstable and dangerous than it is now.

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Why Has The Threat Of Iranian Nukes Suddenly Become Such A Huge Narrative?

Western officials suddenly have a tremendous amount to say about the threat that Iranian nukes could potentially pose to us.  Is it that the threat has increased, or are they trying to justify something that they have planned in early 2025?  I don’t know, but all of this talk about Iranian nukes is certainly not good.  Without a doubt, the Iranian nuclear program has been moving forward for a long time, but now we may be reaching a point of confrontation which could have enormous implications for the entire Middle East.

Earlier today, I came across a Telegraph article that was ominously entitled “Weakened Iran could hit back with a nuclear bomb, Trump told by White House”…

Iran could move to build a nuclear bomb after being weakened by wars in the Middle East, the White House has warned Donald Trump.

Joe Biden’s national security advisor said he had briefed the incoming president on the “risk” of Tehran obtaining the weapons.

It comes as Mr Trump is reportedly considering airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities when he becomes commander in chief again.

Apparently Jake Sullivan and other national security minions in the Biden administration are trying really hard to convince Donald Trump that Iran’s nuclear program is an imminent threat that must be dealt with very soon.

But if Iran’s nuclear program is such a threat, why didn’t the Biden administration do something about it during the past four years?

Why wait until now?

Someone should ask Jake Sullivan that question.

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The Hidden Truth Behind a 1960s Nuclear Test: A Non-Human Craft Fell Down To Earth

On October 26, 1962, the United States conducted the Bluegill Triple Prime nuclear test as part of Operation Fishbowl, a subset of Operation Dominic.

The Bluegill Triple Prime test detonated a nuclear warhead 48 kilometers above Earth to study how high-altitude explosions affect ballistic missile systems.

Decades later, newly declassified evidence suggests something far more extraordinary—a possible collision with an unidentified object, which I believe was a craft advanced non-human origin.

Footage, scientific reports, and naval recovery logs hint at a dramatic event where nuclear weapons technology intersected with the unknown.

This test was a key Cold War experiment.

The XW-50-X1 warhead was built to emit high-energy X-rays, designed to disable missile re-entry vehicles by causing intense heat and internal damage, a process called thermo-mechanical spall.

While the test aimed to push missile defense technology, the evidence shows it may have done much more.

A mysterious object following the Avco Mark 4 re-entry vehicle appears to have been destroyed, raising questions about what really happened that day—and what was in the sky with us.

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CIA Whistleblower Suggests Drones Searching for Missing ‘Suitcase’ Nuke

Former CIA agent and whistleblower Kevin Shipp suggested Wednesday that the mysterious drones flying over New Jersey and Virginia could be part of a government program in order to search for radiation spikes in different states.

“My concern is that these are radiation-detecting drones under a covert CIA plausible deniability program that are searching for radiation spikes,” Shipp said on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

“These drones are focusing, and if they’re sniffing for radiation, my big concern, and I knew this when I was in the Counter Terrorism Center, there are at least four suitcase-size nuclear weapons that disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union and went on to the black market,” he added. “My concern is that these are radiation-detecting drones under a covert CIA plausible-deniability program, that are searching for radiation spikes. And they’re worried that this could be one of these suitcase devices.”

Shipp explained that the CIA has a sophisticated drone program that uses CBRNE, or Chemical, Biological, Radio, Nuclear Explosive, detectors to pick up signs of high radiation in the event of a pending attack.

“We have to ask about the cities and states where these drones are over,” he said. “What is there? What could be the target? Why are they over a lot of these DOD [Department of Defense] military bases?”

The Federal Aviation Administration last week issued two flight restrictions on the area surrounding President-elect Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, following questionable drone activity. The drone sightings were first reported on Nov. 18.

Federal officials have claimed they do not know much about the drones, but have assured the public that there has been no threat to the American people as a result of the activity. The Pentagon also said officials have not found any evidence that a foreign entity is behind it.

Shipp criticized the Pentagon for its response to the drones, asserting that defense officials are lying to the American public about them.

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Putin And Defense Minister Belousov – Russia Is Preparing For War

For the first time, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov have publicly stated Russia is likely to go to war with NATO in the next decade.

Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov delivered their end-of-year report to a giant defense ministry conference on Monday, hailing the state of affairs at the front and in the rear. They talked about the latest successes in the Ukraine invasion, the increase in military spending and Russia’s preparations for conflict with NATO.

2024 was “a landmark year for achieving the goals” of the war in Ukraine, Putin stated, saying the Russian army had captured 189 settlements since January. According to Belousov, Ukrainian forces retain control of under 1% of the territory of the self-styled Luhansk People’s Republic, and 25-30% of the Donetsk People’s Republic, and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Regions — all parts of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed, reported Russian independent news outlet The Bell.

According to Putin, the breakthrough on the front came thanks to people voluntarily signing up to fight. Some 430,000 soldiers have been recruited so far this year, compared with 300,000 in 2023. Amid massive bonuses and salaries, more than 1,000 people are signing up to join the army every day.

Putin announced that the hypersonic Oreshnik intermediate-range missile system would go into serial production in the near future, despite having said at a meeting with Russia’s allies on Nov. 28 that it was already in full swing. And in the third quarter of 2025, Russia should have its own new specialized drone unit, mirroring a decision made by Ukraine back at the start of the year. 

Both Putin and Belousov also spoke of the prospect of direct conflict with the West. Putin complained that Russia was “being pushed to our red lines” while Belousov said that preparations for a conflict with NATO “in the next decade” were part of the defense ministry’s tasks and blamed NATO statements at its recent July summit for the increased threat. At the summit the military alliance’s final declaration described Russia as “the most significant and direct threat” to its members, which requires the strengthening and modernizing of its nuclear potential.

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Trump Team Weighing Options For Preemptive Airstrikes On Iran’s Nuclear Program

Just days after the rapid collapse of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, and now with Israeli warplanes having complete domination over Syria’s skies for the first time in modern history, the priorities of US and Israeli officials in the region have drastically changed.

Both US and Israeli leaders are now mulling the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear program, amid several reports in recent weeks saying the Islamic Republic is expanding its program and enriching more nuclear-grade material. Tehran is now much more on the defensive, and could be more desperate to achieve nuclear weapons.

A significant Friday report in The Wall Street Journal says that “President-elect Donald Trump is weighing options for stopping Iran from being able to build a nuclear weapon, including the possibility of preventive airstrikes, a move that would break with the longstanding policy of containing Tehran with diplomacy and sanctions.”

“Trump has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent calls that he is concerned about an Iranian nuclear breakout on his watch, two people familiar with their conversations said, signaling he is looking for proposals to prevent that outcome,” the report continues.

“The president-elect wants plans that stop short of igniting a new war, particularly one that could pull in the U.S. military, as strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities have the potential put the U.S. and Iran on a collision course.”

Currently the United States still has some 1,000 troops occupying northeast Syria, and they have come under internecine attacks by Iran-backed militias over the recent years. In any broader US-Iran war, these troops would be sitting ducks for attack via Tehran’s proxies in the region.

Trump in his first administration tried but failed to bring the troops home, but deeper entanglement in striking Iran could surely draw these troops into a broader conflict. The Pentagon would in that case likely expand its deployed forces in the region as well.

“Iran has enough highly enriched uranium alone to build four nuclear bombs, making it the only nonnuclear-weapon country to be producing 60% near-weapons-grade fissile material,” WSJ has noted further. “It would take just a few days to convert that stockpile into weapons-grade nuclear fuel.”

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