Nuclear Weapons

On A Highway To Hell

September 2, 2024 Scott Ritter, Consortium News. Educate! China, Joe Biden, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

An interesting thing happened on the road to Armageddon. In January 2017, then-Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned about the dangers inherent in expanding funding for, and by extension increasing the importance of, nuclear weapons. “If future budgets reverse the choices we’ve made, and pour additional money into a nuclear buildup,” said Biden — referring to Obama administration policies that included secured the New START Treaty limiting the size of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals — “it hearkens back to the Cold War and will do nothing to increase the day-to-day security of the United States or our allies.”

America’s Nuclear ‘Downwinders’ Deserve Justice

August 26, 2024 Aspen Coriz-Romero and Anila Lopez Marks, Scheer Post. Educate! Colorado, Health Care, History, New Mexico, Nuclear, Nuclear Weapons, Radiation

It’s been nearly 80 years since the first atomic bomb was tested in New Mexico. Communities have been reeling ever since. For generations, Americans who live “downwind” of nuclear testing and development sites have suffered deadly health complications. And this summer, funding for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) expired, putting their hard-earned compensation at risk. Coming alongside sky-high spending on nuclear weapons development, this lapse is an outrage. Funding for these communities, which span much of the country, should be not only restored but expanded. Alongside New Mexicans, people in Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Utah, and beyond have suffered health complications from nuclear testing in Nevada. And fallout from decades of tests ravaged the Marshall Islands, which were occupied by the U.S. after World War II.

Pine Gap Readies For US Nuclear War

August 22, 2024 Peter Cronau, Consortium News. Educate! Australia, China, Nuclear Weapons, Wars and Militarism

The rapid expansion of the Pine Gap satellite surveillance base near Alice Springs, Australia from 35 to 45 satellite dishes, is designed to give the U.S. the edge in a potential nuclear war with China. Where desert oaks and spinifex tufts once baked in the Central Australian sun, three new white domes have mushroomed in a 14 hectare clearing along the western edge of the U.S.’ “most important surveillance base” in the world. Under huge plastic radomes, three of Pine Gap’s new satellite dishes have been built to receive information from a new generation of U.S. spy satellites that bring a heightened level of surveillance of China’s nuclear missile launch sites at a time of increasing confrontation between China and the U.S. and its allies.

US Atomic Bombing Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki Remembered

August 8, 2024 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. Educate! Hiroshima, Hiroshima Day, History, Japan, Nagasaki, Nuclear Disarmament, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), UN, Wars and Militarism

Over 50,000 people, including representatives from 109 countries, joined an event marking the 79th anniversary of the US’s bombing of Hiroshima. The main ceremony was held at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park on Tuesday, August 6. A total of 344,306 people were killed during the bombing as well as in the aftermath. Despite knowing the widespread destruction and irreversible losses caused by the attack, the US dropped another nuclear bomb on Nagasaki just three days later on August 9, killing 40,000 people immediately. The number of people killed in Nagasaki would double that figure in most estimates.

World-Ending Maneuvers?

August 8, 2024 Hekmat Aboukhater and William D. Hartung, Scheer Post. Educate! Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons, Pentagon, Wars and Militarism

The Pentagon is in the midst of a massive $2 trillion multiyear plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines. A large chunk of that funding will go to major nuclear weapons contractors like Bechtel, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. And they will do everything in their power to keep that money flowing. This January, a review of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program under the Nunn-McCurdy Act — a congressional provision designed to rein in cost overruns of Pentagon weapons programs — found that the missile, the crown jewel of the nuclear overhaul plan involving 450 missile-holding silos spread across five states, is already 81% over its original budget.

Confrontation Of NATO Vs. SCO; Two Radically Different Summits

July 28, 2024 Sara Flounders, Workers World. Educate! NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

Two major security alliances held summits in July. Each summit consisted of a bloc of major powers and nearby countries. Both alliances hold military exercises. Each summit meeting included guest and observer countries. The two summits could not have been more different in tone and in purpose. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) met in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3-4, to discuss mutual cooperation. A week later the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met in Washington, D.C., on July 9-11 to celebrate 75 years of militarism. At the meeting, NATO dared to demand Russia, China, Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) sever ties with each other.

Billboards Inform Residents Of Nuclear Weapons In Their Back Yard

July 25, 2024 Leonard Eiger, Popular Resistance. Resist! Billboards, Nuclear Weapons, Washington State, Weapons stockpiles

On July 22, and continuing for four weeks, five billboards will display the following paid advertisement: Did You Know, We’re only *** Miles from the Largest Concentration of Deployed Nukes in the World! Let’s Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Included in the five advertisements are maps showing the proximity of the cities and billboards in Everett, Lake Forest Park, Seattle, and Tacoma—to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, homeport for 8 of the Navy’s 14 Trident nuclear-powered submarines. The billboards serve as a public service announcement—informing the reader of the exact number of miles they are at that exact location, to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the world.

New Military Alliances Forming In The Pacific

July 22, 2024 Alice Slater, Popular Resistance. Educate! Nonproliferation Treaty, Nuclear Umbrella, Nuclear Weapons, South Korea

On the heels of a new alliance announced this summer by Russia and North Korea for a pact pledging mutual defense, with the support of China, it is now shockingly being suggested in South Korea that it review its security policy with the US and end its reliance on the US guarantee, to employ on South Koreas’ behalf, US nuclear weapons as part of its “nuclear umbrella”. The “umbrella” is offered to all NATO states as well as the Pacific states of Japan, Australia, and South Korea. Such questioning is evidence of the growing havoc faced in the world by the failure of the United States to make good on its legal obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for good faith efforts for nuclear disarmament.

Destabilizing The US-Russian Nuclear Balance

July 15, 2024 Natylie Baldwin, Consortium News. Educate! Nuclear Weapons, Russia, Ukraine, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

With the Biden administration having given Ukraine permission to use U.S.-made weapons to strike military targets inside Russian territory and Ukraine reportedly having hit a radar in southern Russia that is part of its nuclear early warning system at least once in recent weeks, a new level of escalation threat has aisen between the U.S. and Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by warning that Russia will essentially consider the U.S.-led West to be a direct belligerent if it provides satellite, intelligence and military help to facilitate any long-range missile attacks by Ukraine on Russian territory.

Scientists Urge Biden To Cancel $100 Billion Nuclear Weapons Boondoggle

July 10, 2024 Edward Carver, Common Dreams. Resist! Joe Biden, Nuclear Weapons, Scientist Activism, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

More than 700 scientists on Monday called for an end to the United States' land-based nuclear weapons program that's set to be replaced, following 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 that the new intercontinental-range ballistic missile system, known as Sentinel, was "expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary." The Department of Defense on Monday certified the continuation of the 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.

NATO’S Wars Versus Human Survival

July 7, 2024 David Swanson, World Beyond War. Resist! NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Peace, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

The NATO of the popular imagination is an assembly of representatives of democratic nations who commit to making the world more peaceful, including by militarily defending each other if one of them is attacked. There could hardly exist a more grave collection of lies. NATO is in fact an institution devoted primarily to the increased sale of weaponry to governments of every type — neither its members nor its often openly dictatorial partners acting at the bidding of any populace — and devoted secondarily to doing the will of one government, that based here in Washington, D.C., which is represented by over 900 military bases outside its borders.

Report Makes The Case For Eliminating Land-Based Nuclear Missiles

June 10, 2024 William D. Hartung, The Nation. Educate! ICBMs, Nuclear Ban Treaty, Nuclear Weapons, Pentagon

Nuclear weapons are back in style in official Washington. The Pentagon is in the midst of a $2 trillion, three-decade-long effort to build a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines, and the weapons lobby and its allies in Congress are pressing to spend even more. Thankfully, a new report from the government watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) offers a refreshing counterpoint to this rush towards a new nuclear arms race, explaining in persuasive detail why the centerpiece of the Pentagon’s new buildup, the Sentinel ICBM, is dangerous, unaffordable, and unnecessary. The late Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon made this point forcefully in an October 2021 piece in The Nation, noting that eliminating ICBMs was the easiest and fastest way to reduce “the overall danger of nuclear war.”

NATO Spreads Nuclear Weapons, Energy, And Risk

May 15, 2024 David Swanson, World Beyond War. Organize! NATO, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons, Wars and Militarism

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty declares that NATO members will assist another member if attacked by “taking action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.” But the UN Charter does not say anywhere that warmaking is authorized for whoever jumps in on the appropriate side. The North Atlantic Treaty’s authors may have been aware that they were on dubious legal ground because they went on twice to claim otherwise, first adding the words “Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”

US Senator Says Israel Should Drop Nuclear Bombs On Gaza

May 13, 2024 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Educate! Gaza, Hiroshima, Israel, Japan, Lindsey Graham, Nagasaki, Nuclear Weapons, Palestine, Wars and Militarism

US Senator Lindsey Graham argued in a live TV interview that Israel should drop nuclear bombs on Gaza. More than 2 million Palestinian civilians are trapped in the densely populated strip, including 1 million children. Israel has imposed what its Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referred to as a “complete siege” of Gaza, preventing civilians from leaving as Tel Aviv has brutally bombed the strip. To justify his proposal for Israel to nuke Gaza, Graham cited the US atomic bombing of Japan, which he insisted was necessary. However, the US government admitted that the nuclear attack on Japan was not needed to end World War

Susan Crane To Start Prison Sentence For Protesting Nuclear Weapons

May 11, 2024 David Hartsough, Popular Resistance. Resist! Blockade, Germany, Nuclear Weapons, Peace, Prison

Susan Crane, 80, has been part of an international Peace group in protesting US nuclear weapons at Büchel Airforce base in Germany. Susan has been part of several Plowshares actions, and is currently living and working at the Redwood City Catholic Worker in California. She starts 229 days in prison in Germany in early June for her nonviolent civil disobedience at the Büchel Airforce Base. David Hartsough is author of "Waging Peace" Global Adventures of A Lifelong Activist and is co-founder of World Beyond War, and is a member of San Francisco Friends Meeting.

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