Tag: nuclear weapons

Bipartisan Support for More Genocidal Nuclear Weapons

Whether the president’s name is Obama or Trump or Biden, whether it’s the red team in charge or the blue team, there was and remains strong bipartisan support for “modernization” and “investment” in new nuclear weapons for America. The new Sentinel ICBM, the new B-21 Raider bomber, and the new Columbia-class nuclear submarine may cost America as much as $2 trillion over the next thirty years while making genocidal nuclear war more rather than less likely.

This is insanity.

It’s time for a different path. It’s time for deep cuts in nuclear weapons. Not only to save trillions of dollars but to reduce the chances of a world-ending genocide.

Back in 2017, I wrote the following article on the threat of nuclear weapons to America. Of course, I should have said: the threat of nuclear weapons to the world, to all life on this planet of ours.

It’s time to stop building weapons of mass destruction before we start using them in earnest.

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Trinity and the Parts Left Out of Oppenheimer

Every year at this time I trace the final days leading to the first use of the atomic bomb against two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August 1945.   In this way the fateful, and in my view, tragic decisions made by President Truman, his advisers, and others, can be judged more clearly in “real time.”  As some know, this is a subject that I have explored in hundreds of articles, thousands of posts,  and in three books, since 1984:  Hiroshima in America (with Robert Jay Lifton), Atomic Cover-up and my recent award-winner on the first atomic movie, The Beginning or the End.   Now I’ve directed an award-winning documentary. Here’s today’s entry. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for free.

While most people trace the dawn of the nuclear era to August 6, 1945, and the dropping of the atomic bomb over the center of Hiroshima, it really began three weeks earlier, in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, with the top-secret Trinity test. Its 79rd anniversary will be marked – or mourned today.

Entire books have been written about the test, so I’ll just touch on one key issue here briefly.  It’s related to a hallmark of the age that would follow: a new government obsession with secrecy, which soon spread from the nuclear program to all military and foreign affairs in the cold war era.

In completing their work on building the bomb, Manhattan Project scientists knew it would produce deadly radiation but weren’t sure exactly how much. The military planners were mainly concerned about the bomber pilots catching a dose, but J. Robert Oppenheimer, “The Father of the Bomb,” worried, with good cause (as it turned out) that the radiation could drift a few miles and also fall to earth with the rain.

Indeed, scientists warned of danger to those living downwind from the Trinity site but, in a pattern-setting decision, the military boss, General Leslie Groves, ruled that residents not be evacuated and kept completely in the dark (at least until they spotted a blast brighter than any sun). Nothing was to interfere with the test. When two physicians on Oppenheimer’s staff (though not Oppie himself) proposed an evacuation, Groves replied, “What are you, Hearst propagandists?”

Admiral Williams Leahy, President Truman’s chief of staff – who opposed dropping the bomb on Japan – placed the bomb in the same category as “poison gas.” And, sure enough, soon after the shot went off before dawn on July 16, scientists monitored some alarming evidence. Radiation was quickly settling to earth in a band thirty miles wide by 100 miles long. A paralyzed mule was discovered twenty-five miles from ground zero.

Still, it could have been worse; the cloud had drifted over loosely-populated areas. “We were just damn lucky,” the head of radiological safety for the test later affirmed.

The local press knew nothing about any of this. When the shock wave had hit the trenches in the desert, Groves’ first words were: “We must keep the whole thing quiet.” This set the tone for the decades that followed, with tragic effects for “downwinders” and others tainted across the country, workers in the nuclear industry, “atomic soldiers,” those who questioned the building of the hydrogen bomb and an expanding arms race, among others.

Naturally, reporters were curious about the big blast, however, so Groves released a statement written by W.L. Laurence (who was on leave from the New York Times and playing the role of chief atomic propagandist) announcing that an ammunition dump had exploded.

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Scientists to Biden: Cancel New Nuclear IBM System

More than 700 scientists have called for an end to the United States’ land-based nuclear weapons program that’s set to be replaced after a Pentagon decision to approve the program despite soaring costs. 

In an open letter to President Joe Biden and Congress, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) argued againstthe new intercontinental-range ballistic missile system, known as Sentinel.

“As scientists and engineers, we are acutely aware of the grave risk of nuclear war,” the letter began. “We are particularly concerned about the needless dangers created by the deployment of expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary land-based, intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs).” The scientists said the land-based nuclear weapons are unnecessary because:

“The United States deploys an assured ability to retaliate against a nuclear attack without land-based missiles. Roughly 1,000 nuclear warheads are deployed on U.S. submarines hidden at sea, essentially invulnerable to attack. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles are as accurate as silo-based missiles, quick to respond, and provide more destructive capability than could ever be employed effectively.

Specifically, one nuclear detonation can destroy an entire city; hundreds or thousands of detonations would cause millions of immediate deaths, the destruction of critical infrastructure, and potentially catastrophic climate impacts. The U.S. Navy deploys twelve submarines and is working to replace the entire fleet. Silo-based missiles do not provide any important additional capability.”

The Department of Defense on Monday certified the continuation of the Sentinel project, releasing the results of a review that was legally required when the cost estimate ballooned to “at least” $131 billion earlier this year, which drew the scrutiny of some Democrats in Congress, according to The Hill. 

The Defense review found that Sentinel was “essential to national security,” but 716 scientists, including ten Nobel laureates and 23 members of the National Academies,  disagreed with the assessment. 

“There is no sound technical or strategic rationale for spending tens of billions of dollars building new nuclear weapons,” Tara Drozdenko, director of UCS’ global security program, said in a statement. 

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Problem Plagued Sentinel ICBM Program Will Press Ahead Despite Nearly Doubling In Cost

The U.S. Air Force is pushing ahead with its struggling Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program despite a new projected price tag of nearly $141 billion, close to twice the original estimate, and now years of expected delays. The Pentagon says it has assessed that there are no lower-cost, but similarly capable alternatives to Sentinel, which is expected to replace the existing Minuteman III ICBM as one of the three legs of America’s nuclear deterrent triad.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense announced the results of an official review of the Sentinel program today. By law, per what is commonly referred to as the Nunn-McCurdy Amendment, defense programs that see certain levels of extreme cost growth must be canceled unless various criteria are met. Sentinel’s rising price point triggered a breach of the Nunn-McCurdy statute in January. The Air Force also sacked the top officer in charge of the program last month, but said this was “not directly related to the Nunn-McCurdy review,” according to Defense One.

The Air Force currently has some 400 LGM-30G Minuteman IIIs deployed in silos spread across five states.

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Senior Israeli Lawmaker Suggests Nuclear Attack on Iran

A longtime Israeli lawmaker and former defense minister took to the airwaves and social media on Wednesday to suggest his country should do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

“It is not possible anymore to stop the Iranian nuclear program with conventional means,” Avigdor Liberman of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party said during a Channel 12 interview. “And we will have to use all the means that are available to us.”

“We will have to stop with the deliberate policy of ambiguity, and it needs to be clear what is at stake here,” Liberman continued, apparently referring to Israel’s refusal to say whether it has nuclear weapons. “What is at stake here is the future of this nation, the future of the state of Israel, and we will not take any risks.”

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Putin Says Russia Should Follow US and Produce Previously Banned Missile Systems

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia should follow the US in developing missile systems that were previously banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019.

The INF prohibited land-based missile systems with a range between 310 and 3,400 miles. After leaving the treaty, the US immediately began developing and testing batteries that could fire nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of about 1,000 miles and are primarily used by US Navy ships and submarines.

“We need to start production of these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where — if necessary to ensure our safety — to place them,” Putin said on Friday, according to The Associated Press.

The US recently deployed one of its new, previously banned missile systems for exercises in the Philippines. The missile system, known as the Typhon launcher, is concealed in a 40-foot shipping container and can fire Tomahawks and SM-6 missiles, which can hit targets up to 290 miles away, below the levels previously banned by the INF. The US has also previously deployed the Tyhpon system and the US Navy’s variant for exercises in Denmark.

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It’s the end of the world as we know it

America’s addiction to nuclear weapons does not lend itself to deterrence-based stability. It only leads to war.

“That’s great, it starts with an earthquake…”

There’s nothing like a classic 1980’s rock song to get one’s blood up and running, and REM’s 1987 classic, It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), fits the bill just right on this hot and muggy summer day.

The only problem is, the song might as well be prophesy, because from where I sit, taking in the news about the rapidly escalating nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia, it very much looks like the end of the world as we know it.

And I don’t feel fine.

The news isn’t good. Last month, on May 6, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it would, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, conduct exercises involving the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons. According to Russian officials, the exercises were a response to “provocative statements and threats from certain Western officials directed at the Russian Federation.”

The Russians were responding to statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron to The Economist on May 2, where he declared that “I’m not ruling anything out [when it comes to deploying French troops to Ukraine], because we are facing someone [Putin] who is not ruling anything out.” Macron added that “if Russia decided to go further [advancing in Ukraine], we will in any case all have to ask ourselves this question (whether to send of troops).”

While Macron described his remarks as a “strategic wake-up call for my counterparts,” it was clear not everyone was buying into what he was selling. “If a NATO member commits ground troops [to Ukraine],” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after Macron’s words became public, “it will be a direct NATO-Russia confrontation, and then it will be World War III.”

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Campaigners Decry ‘Dangerous Escalation’ as NATO Chief Floats Nuclear Deployment

Nuclear disarmament campaigners on Monday implored NATO and Russia to step back from the brink after the head of the Western military alliance said its members are considering deploying additional atomic weapons to counter Moscow and Beijing.

“This is the dangerous escalation inherent to the deterrence doctrine,” the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) wrote on social media, referring to the notion that the threat of catastrophic nuclear retaliation prevents nations from using atomic weaponry.

The U.S., which spent more on its atomic weapons arsenal than every other nuclear-armed nation combined last year, currently has nukes deployed in five NATO countries—Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Russia, meanwhile, recently deployed nuclear weapons to Belarus, which said earlier this month that it would join Moscow’s nuclear exercises.

ICAN said Monday that “it’s time for both to reverse course.”

“NATO countries hosting U.S. nuclear weapons should admit to their citizens they have weapons of mass destruction on their soil with no public say,” ICAN added. “But neither Belarus nor NATO allies should flaunt being prepared to indiscriminately kill millions of people.”

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Program to pay nuclear fallout victims expires due to U.S. House’s inaction

Faced with the choice of expanding or at minimum extending a program to offer compensation to victims of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing during the Cold War, members of Congress did neither.

Despite repeated pleas from victims and their advocates, House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to allow House members to vote on a bipartisan bill that would expand and extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). As a result, the program expired Friday, leaving victims of nuclear weapons detonations at the Nevada Test Site and their families to fend for themselves.

Several Downwinders — the name applied to tens of tens of thousands of people exposed to harmful radiation from nuclear testing at the Nevada site during the 1950s and early 1960s — expressed anger and a sense of betrayal that congressional leaders allowed the program to lapse.

St. George downwinder and longtime RECA advocate Claudia Peterson called the Congress’s failure to pass the legislation “a travesty.”

“This is something our government did to their own people,” said Peterson, who has lost her father, daughter, sister, neighbors and friends to various forms of cancer. “Our government is sending money all over the world and not even taking care of our own people that they damaged [due to nuclear testing] and are responsible for.”

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America’s Cold War Doomsday Satellite

When most people think about drama surrounding the launch of a nuclear weapon, they usually think about some sort of tense face-off between two officers who don’t agree on whether or not to launch, often spurred by some sort of garbled message or unforeseen circumstance that leaves those orders in doubt. But in reality, this is actually the least dramatic portion of the entire exercise. American nuclear missile crews, regardless of which leg of the nuclear triad they fall under, train ceaselessly to execute the orders to launch under any circumstances. If the codes match…missiles fly. What *does* keep nuclear planners up at night is how to make sure the shooters end up getting the orders to fire in the first place.  

Early in the Cold War, new and maturing technologies in warfare and communications led to some interesting ideas about how to get launch orders to alert crews no matter what. Simply put, communications underpinned the entire credibility of the nuclear deterrent. The Pentagon needed a way to make absolutely sure that no matter what happened to its command and control infrastructure during the opening of a nuclear exchange, the president’s orders would be delivered. In the end, they decided that the best way to launch a bunch of missiles and set bombers flying was to launch a missile capable of delivering those commands. That missile was the AN/DRC 8 Emergency Rocket Communications System or ERCS.

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