Tag: nuclear weapons

US Nuclear Weapon Testing Won’t Involve Any Explosions, Energy Secretary Says

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday that no nuclear explosions will take place during the nuclear weapons testing ordered by President Donald Trump.

Wright told Fox News the tests are non-nuclear explosions and are intended to assess all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure “they deliver the appropriate geometry” and can set up a nuclear explosion.

“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests,” Wright said in a Fox News interview that aired on Nov. 2. “These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call non-critical explosions.”

His remarks follow President Donald Trump’s social media post on Oct. 29 that he had instructed the Department of War to start testing nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” with tests conducted by adversaries.

Wright said during the interview that the Trump administration is working on modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and that the tests will be carried out on the new systems.

“The testing that we’ll be doing is on new systems, and again, these will be non-nuclear explosions. These are just developing these sophisticated systems so that our replacement nuclear weapons are even better than the ones they were before,” Wright said.

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Arab League chief exposes secret US deal shielding Israel’s nukes

Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit has revealed what he described as a “secret agreement” between the United States and “Israel,” under which Washington pledged to remain silent about “Israel’s” nuclear arsenal in exchange for its permanent secrecy.

In a televised interview with Egypt’s Sada El-Balad channel, Aboul Gheit explained that “the agreement stipulates that Israel pledges never to speak, no matter how many centuries pass, about its nuclear arsenal, while America, in turn, promises to remain silent.”

The Arab League chief accused Washington of deceiving Arab nations, recalling meetings in Cairo and Washington where US officials urged Egypt to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in return for US pressure on “Israel” to follow suit. “Egypt refused,” he said, noting that such pressure “never materialized.”

US protects Israeli nuclear weapons

Aboul Gheit attributed the global silence surrounding “Israel’s” undeclared nuclear weapons to US protection, describing “Israel” as being “shielded by the dominant military-political pole that has ruled the world since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1990.”

The former Egyptian foreign minister further explained that Cairo has deliberately refrained from ratifying conventions on chemical or biological weapons, emphasizing that it “saw no need for a nuclear deterrent” because “its drawbacks far outweigh any potential benefit.”

He added that Egyptian diplomacy has consistently advocated for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, asserting that international inspections of “Israel’s” nuclear facilities could become “inevitable”.

Aboul Gheit concluded by warning that such developments could trigger a regional existential crisis, compelling Washington to reconsider its long-standing protection of “Israel,” noting that “Israel couldn’t even use its nuclear weapons during the 1973 war.”

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Russia Successfully Tests Unmanned Underwater Vehicle 2M39 Poseidon – Capable of Triggering Radioactive Tsunamis

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed a successful test of the ‘2M39 Poseidon’ days after a trial of the new Burevestnik cruise missile, which was followed by nuclear launch drills.

Putin described the Poseidon as a nuclear-powered super-torpedo designed to create radioactive tsunamis and wipe out coastal cities.

President Putin says Russia successfully tested its nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed unmanned underwater vehicle, the 2M39 Poseidon.

According to the Telegraph, The Poseidon has its roots in Soviet plans for a weapon that would be able to render coastal cities on the shores of the United States uninhabitable.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says its new ‘Poseidon’ nuclear torpedo capable of triggering radioactive tsunamis “can be considered a true doomsday weapon.”

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Russia Says It Will Respond If the US Starts Testing Nuclear Weapons

Russia on Thursday warned that it would respond if the US began testing nuclear weapons, comments that came after President Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he had ordered the US War Department to start tests.

It’s unclear from President Trump’s post if he meant the testing of nuclear-capable missiles, something the US regularly does, or actually detonating nuclear bombs, which the US hasn’t done since 1992. The president said that he ordered the Pentagon to “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis” as other countries.

Russia has recently tested a nuclear-capable missile and a nuclear-capable underwater drone, but there have been no known recent detonations of nuclear weapons by any nation. Since the 1990s, all nuclear-armed states, except North Korea, which last detonated a nuclear bomb in 2017, have maintained a moratorium on detonating nuclear weapons.

“The United States is a sovereign nation and has the right to make sovereign decisions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to Trump’s post. “However, I would like to recall President Putin’s repeatedly stated position: if anyone breaks the moratorium, Russia will respond in kind.”

The US and Russia are signatories to the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but it hasn’t been ratified by all parties, including the US. Russia ratified the CTBT in 2000 but revoked it in 2023, saying it was “mirroring” the US position. Both powers have ratified the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which is in force and prohibits all nuclear test detonations except for those conducted underground.

Peskov also said Russia hasn’t received any notification from the US about a future nuclear weapons test and that Moscow wasn’t aware of any other country that has recently detonated a nuclear bomb. “In his statement, President Trump mentioned that other countries are purportedly involved in testing nuclear weapons. Until now, we were unaware that anyone was engaged in the testing,” he said.

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Trump Directs Pentagon to Start Testing Nuclear Weapons Again

President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered the Pentagon to begin conducting nuclear weapons tests again after a three-decade moratorium on the practice.

“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “That process will begin immediately.”

Trump posted the statement just before he was set to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, where the two discussed trade issues.

Nuclear tests in the atmosphere, space, or underwater have been banned since the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, which permitted continued underground nuclear testing for several decades.

The United States last conducted a nuclear weapons test underground in September 1992.

That year, President George H.W. Bush announced that the United States would undertake a unilateral moratorium on all nuclear weapons testing, including those conducted underground.

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Chinese Nationals Arrested In Georgia For Attempting To Buy Black Market Uranium 

In an entirely bizarre and alarming story emerging out of the Republic of Georgia, the country’s State Security Service announced Saturday that three Chinese nationals had been arrested in Tbilisi for allegedly attempting to illegally purchase two kilograms of uranium.

They are accused of attempting to illegally obtain “nuclear material,” Interpress news agency reported as cited in Reuters. It’s unclear whether the suspects have any official links with the Chinese government or its military or intelligence services, however. The suspects intended to buy the uranium for $400,000 and smuggle it to China through Russia, Georgian security and intelligence officials detailed further.

Statements from Georgian security services describe a case where the traffickers were caught red-handed. “According to the authorities, a Chinese citizen already in Georgia, who was in breach of Georgian visa regulations, brought experts to Georgia to search for uranium throughout the country,” CBS writes.

“Other members of the criminal group coordinated the operation from China, the statement said.” Further:

The perpetrators were identified and detained while “negotiating the details of the illegal transaction,” the security service said.

The suspects are facing charges which could bring up to ten years in prison. The scenario of foreigners on risky missions to procure nuclear material in Georgia is not far-fetched, given reports of similar illicit trafficking instances over past years.

For example, one US think tank which monitors the Caucasus region reviews of the abundance of Soviet-era nuclear material there:

The Georgian government has attempted to enhance the safety and security of the nuclear materials under its control, but, prior to the August 2008 war, the anarchic conditions, weak law enforcement, and porous borders in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia have permitted widespread smuggling with neighboring Russian regions, as well as into Georgia. This condition has facilitated trafficking in nuclear materials as well as more conventional forms of contraband such as; narcotics, counterfeit currency, and young women. Georgia’s pivotal location at the crossroads between Europe, Russia, Asia, and the Middle East has raised concerns that transnational trafficking networks could move nuclear materials from Russia through Georgia to international terrorist groups.

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Another Nuclear Warning From Medvedev, This Time Over Tomahawks

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has issued a nuclear warning in the face of reports that Washington may authorize transferring US long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.

President Trump’s latest remarks weighing in on the issue saw him veil his intentions in usually cryptic wording. Aboard Air Force One while traveling to the Middle East earlier Monday he had said Tomahawks are a “very offensive weapon,” noting, “honestly, Russia does not need that.”

Headlines throughout the say said he ‘might’ approve of sending them. These are missiles capable of hitting Moscow. This is also as last month Trump surprised observers by claiming that Ukraine could still ‘win’ the war and actually regain territory.

Medvedev’s chilling response on Monday spelled out that this “could end badly for everyone … most of all, for Trump himself,” according to a translation of his Telegram post.

“It’s been said a hundred times, in a manner understandable even to the star-spangled man, that it’s impossible to distinguish a nuclear Tomahawk missile from a conventional one in flight,” Medvedev, who serves as the Russian Security Council Deputy Chair, further noted.

Medvedev here is alluding to Russian strategic doctrine. In a scenario where Moscow leaders believed or suspected a nuclear payload had been launched at Russia, its military would have the right to respond in kind, with nukes.

The past couple months have seen Trump and Medvedev direct threatening messages at each other, particularly related to Trump proclaiming that he had deployed a pair of nuclear submarines somewhere near Russia.

Thankfully it has all so far been confined to social media barbs, and not any clear instance of either side’s strategic forces being placed on emergency alert.

But Medvedev’s latest message is meant as a clear ‘red line’ warning to Washington – that things could rapidly and uncontrollably escalate in Ukraine if the US sends Tomahawk missiles to use against Russia.

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Trump’s “Super Duper” Delusion

“We have the super-fast missiles — tremendous number of the super-fast. We call them ‘super-fast,’ where they’re four, five, six, and even seven times faster than an ordinary missile. We need that because, again, Russia has some.” Donald Trump, February 2020

“We have a — I call it the ‘super-duper missile.’ And I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now….and you take the fastest missile we have right now — you’ve heard Russia has five times, and China is working on five or six times. We have one 17 times.” Donald Trump, May 2020

“We are building…rockets, and missiles; even a hypersonic missile that goes 17 times faster than the fastest missile currently available in the world and can hit a target 1,000 miles away within 14 inches from center point.” Donald Trump, July 2020

For years now, Donald Trump has been hyping the existence of a “super-fast” missile—something he calls the “super-duper missile” capable of flying “17 times faster” than the nearest competition.

Some believe that Trump is referring to the AGM-183A missile that is being developed under the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) program. The US Air Force awarded a contract worth more than $480m to Lockheed Martin for designing the ARRW in August 2018. An initial test of the missile was done in 2019. Lockheed Martin received a $988.8 million contract modification for the ARRW critical design review, test and production readiness support, in December 2019. A second ARRW missile was tested in 2020. The US Air Force requested $382m in funding for the ARRW program development 2021 and another $581 million for 2022. The goal was to produce a total of 33 ARRW missiles for testing by December 2022.

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Putin Says Russia ‘Very Actively’ Developing New Nuclear Weapons

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Oct. 10 that Russia is “very actively” developing and testing new nuclear weapons and that Moscow may soon make a formal announcement about the progress of its latest strategic systems.

Speaking to reporters after a summit in Tajikistan, Putin said the development of new weapons was proceeding successfully and that Russia’s nuclear deterrent capabilities are now more advanced than those of any other nuclear power.

“I believe that we will have an opportunity to report about the new weapons that we announced a while ago,” Putin said, according to Russian state media Tass.

“These weapons are being developed and undergoing tests. The tests are proceeding successfully.

“The novelty of our nuclear deterrence capabilities is higher than in any other nuclear-weapon state—and we are actively developing it all. We are developing what I mentioned earlier, in previous years—we are working to finalize it.”

The remarks follow Moscow’s recent offer to voluntarily maintain the warhead limits set by the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) if the United States does the same. The treaty, signed in 2010 and extended by five years in 2021, is the last remaining major arms-control accord between Washington and Moscow. It limits each side to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 deployed long-range missiles and bombers.

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The Missiles of October

The last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia — New START — is set to expire on Feb. 5, 2026.

This treaty, which caps the nuclear arsenals of both nations at 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons each, was signed back in 2010, during the administrations of U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. At that time, the two nations were engaged in what proved to be an abortive “reset” of relations.

But the underlying problems which prompted the need for a reset —  NATO expansion, continued U.S. pursuit of hegemony disguised as a “rules based international order” and a general U.S. disregard for arms control as a necessary mechanism of global stability — were never fully addressed, and new problems emerged (such as the reemergence of Vladimir Putin as the president of Russian, Russian intervention in Syria and the conflict in Ukraine) which made a reset impossible.

Instead, relations between the two nuclear-armed world powers worsened, and today the U.S. finds itself in a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine that threatens to go nuclear at any moment should either side make a mistake or miscalculation. Both nations find themselves on the cusp of a new nuclear arms race, and the only thing that holds them back is a treaty set to expire and no new treaty on the horizon.

On Sept. 22, Russian President Vladmir Putin, speaking to his Security Council, declared that “to avoid provoking a further strategic arms race and to ensure an acceptable level of predictability and restraint, we believe it is justified to try to maintain the status quo established by the New START Treaty during the current, rather turbulent period.” Putin said Russia is prepared to stick by the treaty’s limits for one more year after it expires.

As of the end of September, the Trump administration had yet to formally respond to Putin’s offer regarding New START. The closest thing to a response was a comment made by President Donald Trump to the press when asked about Putin’s offer. “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House.

The lack of an official response from the Trump administration regarding a moratorium on retaining the New START caps on deployed nuclear weapons is disconcerting, since the purpose of the moratorium isn’t to simply prevent an arms race in the short term, but also buy time for negotiations that would result in a new treaty framework that takes into account the complexities surrounding the issue of nuclear weapons and arms control today.

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